Back In The Good Old Days

Chinese officials punish a lawbreaker in Shanghai, China in the late 1800s. Whipping a persons rear with a paddle a certain number of times was a common punishment. They would also put prisoners heads through large and heavy wooden devices, tie them to a cross with their knees on sharp metals, and many other brutal torture tactics. Sadly, sometimes the crimes could be very minor, such as stealing a loaf of bread or insulting the wrong person.

People in some early bumper cars in Chicago, US in the late 1920s. Invented just the decade before, they became huge attractions for the original theme parks and tourist boardwalks across the world by the 1930s.

Jewish women and children arrive at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from Hungary in 1944. The men had either already been separated for work camps or killed. Hungary before this was a member of the Axis powers, but Germany feared they would switch sides and invaded and took them over in early 1944. Up until then, Hungary only sent a small portion of their Jewish population to Nazi control. They sent around 50,000 total in 4 years. After the takeover, the Nazi's sent every Jew they could in Hungary to Auschwitz. Within 1 year of occupying Hungary, the Nazi's shipped out some 500,000 Hungarian Jews to be gassed. They ramped up the process even as the war was lost to kill as many as possible. Jews, such as these pictured, would be put on a train straight from a ghetto in Hungary, then spend hours heading to Auschwitz. Once there, they would get right off the train, lead into a changing room, stripped, moved into a gas chamber disguised as a shower, and killed. This process ran day and night right up to the week the camp was liberated in 1945. This picture was taken by an SS officer for an album, and sadly, every single person in the picture would be dead within an hour of it being taken.

A street gang in the Bronx, NYC, US in the mid 1970s.

An all girl Iranian pop band taking a promo picture before touring in Pakistan in 1974.

French officers prepping Vietnamese soldiers in French Indochina to move out for battle in 1943.

Construction workers take a break and play harmonicas while building the Rockefeller Center skyscraper in NYC in 1932.

Mexican wrestler Irma Gonzalez posing before one of her first matches in 1955. She became one of the most famous Mexican female Luchadores of all-time.

Some brave Cubans prepare to board a makeshift boat to sail to Florida in as part of the mass exodus of 1994. Many died, never making the 90 miles to the US.

The first Governor of Southern Nigeria Sir Walter Egerton with 2 of his servants in Lagos in 1910.

Native American children at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (PA, US) in the late 1800s. From 1879 to 1918, some 10,000 Native American children were forced from their families and tribes to attend this school and assimilate into modern American culture. Only 158 ever graduated from the school.

The vastly different reactions of Czechoslovakian citizens in Sudeten greeting German soldiers as they march past them in 1938.

A Japanese teenage biker gang and their friends hang out in Tokyo in 1964.

Irish women's boxing champion Elsie Connor showing off for a magazine in preparation for a fight in 1931.

Irish women's boxing champion Elsie Connor showing off for a magazine in preparation for a fight in 1931.

An Australian soldier having a shave during the Battle of Somme in 1916 while wearing a captured German helmet.

People wearing what was at the time normal swimwear while at the beach in New Jersey, US, in the 1920s.

Orson Welles reading War of the Worlds as if its really happening during a live broadcast in 1938. The public had no idea it was fake. Panic and mass confusion gripped the US in most places for at least a day as people, despite not seeing any of the events they heard on the radio, thought Mars had invaded.

Ebbets field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers (NYC, US), in 1920. Notice how the fans walked on the foul grounds to get to their seats.

A model sits on a concept car, the Porsche Tapiro, in 1970.

A diver goofs off by holding an umbrella sometime in the mid 1940s.

A British armored vehicle being made in 1919.

Fans of the Beatles go nuts during a concert in the late 1960s.

Colorized photo of a brutal boxing match in 1913.

Famous lion tamer Captain Jack Bonavita with his lions shooting a promotional picture for his show in the US in the 1870s. The backdrop is fake, the lions are very much real.