Pictures can tell stories worth a thousand words. This is especially true for historical ones. Just by carefully studying the setting, objects, and people in them, we can learn what everyday life was for people in the past and how it’s different from today. Images, just like written diaries or letters, are primary historical sources that can be examined, providing insights into the past that words can’t even begin to describe.
Today’s collection of photos from the days gone by is brought to us by the Historical Capsule subreddit. Let’s all celebrate the beauty of the past by scrolling down and marveling at the thought-provoking and mesmerizing images in this list, and be sure to upvote the ones that you believe everyone should see!
#1 Dewey The Cat, Who Died In 1910, And Meant Enough To His Owner To Be Honored With A Gravestone That Stands Today Over 113 Years Later
Image credits: zadraaa
#2 Female Students From Afghanistan In Kabul, 1975
Image credits: zadraaa
#3 Last Picture Of Hachiko, The Faithful Dog Who Waited For Over 9 Years Outside Shibuya Station For His Master To Return Even After He Had Died. (Colorized, 1935)
Image credits: zadraaa
It’s no secret that artificial intelligence (AI) is slowly creeping into various aspects of our lives. Unfortunately, the same can be said about historical photos that people are starting to fake using this tool.
While obviously forged images like Napoleon giving a TED Talk or Mata Hari taking a selfie with an iPhone don’t pose any threat and are created for humor and artistic expression, others, which can pass as authentic historical photographs, are crafted to deceive people.
#4 In 1969, When Black Americans Were Still Prevented From Swimming Alongside Whites, Mr. Rogers Decided To Invite Officer Clemmons To Join Him And Cool His Feet In A Pool, Breaking A Long-Standing Colour Barrier That Had Existed In The United States
Image credits: zadraaa
#5 1920: Women Line Up To Vote For The First Time In New York After The Passage Of The 19th Amendment
Image credits: GoMx808-0
#6 Fashion In Pre-Revolutionary Iran: Pahlavi Era 1950s-1970s
Image credits: zadraaa
Just last May, the Facebook account Past Perspectives shared a photo of Henry Ford with his first car in 1896. “Henry Ford sits in his first automobile the Ford Quadricycle. Ford made three Quadricycles in total. Ca. 1896,” the caption writes.
However, the suspiciously clear black-and-white picture doesn’t show Ford or even accurately depict the first car he manufactured. The image also had certain defects, like his right hand seemingly going through the steering wheel, which gave away the image's forgedness.
Even though the image was fake, the page doesn’t provide any information that it’s AI-generated, letting people believe that what they see is an authentic piece of history.
#7 Barack Obama Dressed As A Pirate With His Mother Stanley Ann. 1960s
Image credits: Ill-Peanut8318
#8 Tuskegee Airmen In Italy, 1944
Image credits: senorphone1
#9 Punks In Poland, 1990
Image credits: zadraaa
In another instance, the Animals Are Amazing Facebook page shared a photo that looks like it could have been taken in the 19th century, depicting several men standing next to a giant horse. But if one took a closer look, a few things start to raise eyebrows. Like the enormous fingers of a man standing behind the horse or the blurry people’s faces. It was later found out that the image was created as a joke, but at that time it was already shared more than 10,000 times and picked up by other pages as it was real.
#10 In 1940, The Lascaux Cave Paintings, Estimated To Be 17,000 Years Old, Were Discovered In Southwestern France
Image credits: GoMx808-0
#11 A 'Conversation Pit' From The 1960s
Image credits: zadraaa
#12 Charging An Electric Car In The Garage, 1911
Image credits: zadraaa
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some people go as far as creating new historical events that never happened and illustrating them with AI-generated images to pass them as reality. Like the “Infamous Blue Plague Incident” of the 1970s in the Soviet Union, the “July 2012 solar superstorm and blackout” in the U.S., or “the 1993 Eruption of Mount Rainier.”
#13 A Samurai With Long Bow, From Satsuma Domain. Japan, 1860
Image credits: zadraaa
#14 Animals Being Used As Part Of Medical Therapy, 1956
Image credits: zadraaa
#15 The Bread In This 1952 Episode Of I Love Lucy Was Real And Custom-Made By A Los Angeles Bakery. After Filming, It Was Shared With The Cast, Crew, And Audience
Image credits: zadraaa
The faking of historical pictures and events was popularized with the creation of a program called Midjourney. It allows anyone to create AI-generated photos from text descriptions. Co-creators Brodbeck and de Barbuat fed content to the machine for several weeks so it could recreate snapshots from the 20th century. The AI-image generator has extremely improved since its first version and now is the most realistic AI model so far.
#16 Mom With Her Psychedelic Baby Pram, London, 1967
Image credits: zadraaa
#17 Magazine Advertisement From 1996 - Nearly 30 Years Ago
Image credits: zadraaa
#18 The Port Of Carthage, In Modern-Day Tunisia, As It Would Have Appeared In The 3rd Century Bce And How It Looks Today
Image credits: zadraaa
Experts are highly worried about how this can affect our history and our perception of it. “The potential impact of such posts cannot be overstated. The more these fake images circulate, the harder it becomes to separate fact from fiction. Each new post or share distorts the truth a little bit more, until we're left with a version of the past that bears little resemblance to reality,” says digital colorist and bestselling author Marina Amaral. Not to mention the malicious people who can intentionally manipulate history to fit their own political agenda.
#19 Duke Kahanamoku, The Man Who Made Surfing Popular Around The World, Hawaii, 1920
Image credits: zadraaa
#20 A Well-Dressed Young Lady In The 1930s. Almost Looks Like It Could Have Been Taken Yesterday
Image credits: zadraaa
#21 Two Women Showing Uncovered Legs In Public Place For The First Time, Toronto, 1937
Image credits: zadraaa
Even though authorities are trying to solve the issue, the change is happening relatively slowly. In the meantime, what we can do to protect ourselves from historical misinformation is to learn how to identify fake AI-generated images.
#22 Before Smartphones And Online Streaming, 40 Years Ago - Sony Watchman (1984)
Image credits: zadraaa
#23 An Azerbaijani Wedding, 1965
Image credits: zadraaa
#24 This Is Ash From The Erupting Mt. St. Helens Raining Down On Robert Landsburg. He Took This Photo, Rewound The Film, Tucked The Camera In A Backpack And Laid Over It While Being Buried In The Ash. His Body Was Found 17 Days Later
Image credits: Ill-Peanut8318
Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, a historian who specializes in debunking fake historical images, recommends looking at hands. “Most AI programs still have problems with hands, and you often see that people have too many fingers or they just look weird.”
#25 An American Soldier Who Lost His Legs In World War 1
Image credits: zadraaa
#26 My Grandparents On Their Wedding Day, 1940's
Image credits: Expression-Little
#27 Mother With Children 1800 Years Ago. Alexandria, Roman Egypt
Image credits: zadraaa
“Then I put them through a reverse image search to try and find when and where they were uploaded first, this often tells us more about the source. I also regularly use AI detection software, it's pretty good although AI creation software is improved all the time so it doesn't always work with newer versions,” Teeuwisse adds.
#28 My Father Returning Home From World War II In Europe: March 1945, Queens, NY
Image credits: Blue-bery
#29 A Woman Walks Her Dog At The Bois De Boulogne In Paris, 1910
Image credits: zadraaa
#30 This Photo Was Taken In The Late 1800s And Shows An Ancient Maya Zoomorphic Stone
Image credits: zadraaa
#31 'If You Talk Too Much, This Man May Die!'; Fort Hood, January 1943
Image credits: zadraaa
#32 My Grandfather In His Youth As A Soldier In Yugoslavia 1971
Image credits: Secret_Templar
#33 Ross Sisters Do A Small Tower. Around The 1940s
Image credits: Electrical-Aspect-13
#34 Two Women In Front Of An Anti-Women’s Suffrage Poster In Zürich, Switzerland, 1947
Image credits: swishswooshSwiss
#35 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 11. April, 1945. He Would Die Of A Cerebral Hemorrhage At The Age Of 63 The Following Day
Image credits: zadraaa
#36 Downtown Anchorage, Ak After 1964 Quake
Image credits: AiiRisBanned
#37 A Mother And Her Child In Spitalfields, One Of The Worst Slums In London, 1903
Image credits: zadraaa
#38 Inhabitants Of St. Kilda, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, 1926. The Islands Had Been Inhabited Since Antiquity, But Would Be Evacuated In 1930
Image credits: zadraaa
#39 American Servicemen Salute A Soviet Traffic Controller At The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 1945
Image credits: zadraaa
#40 U.S. Army Corporal Larry Matinsk Puts Cigarettes Into The Extended Hands Of Newly Liberated Prisoners Behind A Stockade In The Allach Concentration Camp. April 30, 1945
Image credits: zadraaa
#41 Desmond Thomas Doss & His Wife Dorothy After Receiving The Medal Of Honor From President Harry Truman On October 12, 1945
Image credits: zadraaa
#42 This Behemoth Of A Flip Cut, 1960s
Image credits: zadraaa
#43 “Graf Zeppelin” Flying Over The Pyramids Of Giza, Egypt, 1931
Image credits: zadraaa
#44 Hand-Powered Carousels, 1990s, Cuba
Image credits: zadraaa
#45 Athelte Ivy Russell (Surrey, England 1907) Does A Bent Press With 47 Kilos At 57 Kilos Herself., Around 1930s
Image credits: Electrical-Aspect-13
#46 Woman On A Cart Pulled By Two Buffalo, 1910
Image credits: zadraaa
#47 A Young Boy And Girl On The Way To School For The Start Of A New Term In The 1920s
Image credits: zadraaa
#48 A Louisiana Creole Family. Probably From The Early 1900s
Image credits: zadraaa
#49 My Great Grandfather On The Eastern Front (1943-4)
Image credits: PreparationLonely616
#50 Metal Suit, Said To Enable A Diver To Descend To A Depth Of 1,200 Feet, 1938
Image credits: zadraaa
#51 Photographer Taking A Photo Above Fifth Avenue, Looking North. New York City, 1905
Image credits: zadraaa
#52 When Every Soft Drink Bottle On The Shelf Was Still Glass, 1980s
Image credits: zadraaa
#53 Kmart Employees In North Carolina Watching The Moon Landing. Photo Taken In July 16, 1969
Image credits: zadraaa
#54 Adolf Eichmann Walks Around The Yard Of His Cell, Israel, 1961
Image credits: zadraaa
#55 World's Highest Standard Of Living. US, During The Great Depression, 1937
Image credits: Ebonystealth
#56 Photo Taken In Prison In Ulaanbaatar Ope, Mongolia, 1913
Image credits: zadraaa
#57 Oldreive's Iron Horse's New Tricycle, California. 1882
Image credits: zadraaa
#58 Public Men’s Toilet. France, 1920s
Image credits: zadraaa
#59 My Great Grandmother And Her Sister - 1920s
Image credits: Hey-buuuddy
#60 A Drawing Of Elvis Presley By A Young Jimi Hendrix After Seeing Him In Concert, 1950s
Image credits: WorldofJedi727
#61 Flattening Hills To Build Seattle, 1910s
Image credits: zadraaa
#62 Heath Ledger’s Polaroid Selfie With Larisa Oleynik, Joseph Gordon-Levitt And Julia Stiles On The Set Of 10 Things I Hate About You, 1999
Image credits: zadraaa
#63 How Lumberjacks Used To Cut Trees In 1946!
Image credits: zadraaa
#64 People Struggle To Board A Plane In Nha Trang During The Withdrawal Of Us Troops From South Vietnam. April 1, 1975
Image credits: zadraaa
#65 Miners Digging For Coal In Wales, 1931. 18% Of Coal Miners In 1900 Were Younger Than 16
Image credits: zadraaa
#66 Aids, The Homosexual Disease Threatening American Families. 1983
Image credits: zadraaa
#67 Feelin’ Groovy: Fascinating Vintage Color Picture Of High School Fashion Across America In 1969
Image credits: MIss_oblivia
#68 San Francisco After Its 1906 Earthquake
Image credits: zadraaa
#69 Apache Warrior, Arizona, USA, 1916
Image credits: zadraaa
#70 The Bee Gees, Formerly The Brothers Gibb, Gaze Through The Window Of A Rolls Royce Showroom In 1967
Image credits: zadraaa
#71 Wilhelm Hippert Showing Off The High-Altitude Oxygen Apparatus Used By German Pilots During World War I, 1917
Image credits: zadraaa
#72 A Family At Their Newly-Built Log Cabin In Knott County, Kentucky, 1914
Image credits: zadraaa
#73 Tourist Crowd Inside The Crown Of The Statue Of Liberty, 1980s
Image credits: zadraaa
#74 Charlie Chaplin And Italian Boxer Primo Carnera, 1930
Image credits: zadraaa
#75 Insulin Production In The 1950: 4,535 Kg Of Pig Pancreas Was Required To Produce 0.45 Kg Of The Medication
Image credits: zadraaa
#76 Launching Of The Steamer Frank J. Hecker. St. Clair, Michigan, September 2, 1905
Image credits: zadraaa
#77 Disneyland Parking Lot Opening Day July 17, 1955
Image credits: zadraaa
#78 Construction Of The Airship USS Akron (ZRS–4), USA, 1930
Image credits: zadraaa
#79 Sept 15th 1942. The Most Successful Torpedo Attack In History
Image credits: okmister1
#80 September 14th 1956 Ibm Introduced Its 305 Ramac Computer. The 1st Commercial Computer To Use Magnetic Disks
Image credits: okmister1
#81 “Banana Inspection” - Longshoremen Load And Unload Ships. Working On The Docks Meant Stiff Competition For Employment, An Intense Few Hours Of Dirty, Heavy Labor, Followed By Hours Of Waiting. Ca. 1910 [location Unknown]
Image credits: Whey-Men
#82 Rag Collectors. NYC, 1896
Image credits: zadraaa
#83 Bill Monroe, Considered The Father Of Bluegrass Music, Was Born On This Date (Sep 13). Pictured With His Blue Grass Boys, Circa 1945
Image credits: Blue-bery
#84 Computer Showing The Expired Gym Account Of 9/11 Hijacker Ziad Jarrah (September, 2001)
Image credits: zadraaa
#85 U.S. Marines Take A Last Look At A Pin-Up Girl Before Landing On The Japanese Held Island Of Betio In The Tarawa Atoll On November 20th Of 1943
Image credits: zadraaa
#86 Afghan Military Officers Celebrate One Year Of Daoud Khan's Coup D'etat, 17 July 1974
Image credits: FakeElectionMaker
#87 “The Resting Place Is The Whale's Jaw,” 1960
Image credits: zadraaa
