Man walks on the Moon

In one of the most famous photographs of the 20th Century, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia.

As the world remembers the thrilling Apollo 11 mission 35 years later, NASA’s newVision calls for a return to the moon, followed by journeys of discovery to Mars and beyond.

Little Rock Desegregation

In the effort to desegregate the American people on the basis of skin color, the U.S. Supreme Court finally declared that segregated schools are unconstitutional, and that all schools must be segregated from then on. The decision was agreed upon by the school boards and councils across the United States, but the white residents and students were not welcome to the new rule.

On September 4, 1957, nine black students were about to enter Little Rock Central School in Little Rock Arkansas when their entrance was blocked by the white segregationists supported by the Arkansas National Guard. The deployment of the guards was ordered by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus as a support to his white constituents. The blockade however caused a national issue, which led the President Dwight Eisenhower to intervene and summoned the governor to meet him. Faubus was then reminded not to interfere with the court’s decision.

The first nine black students in Little Rock Central School spent their first few weeks guarded by the police since they were still being blocked by the segregationists to enter the school. They also suffered physical and emotional abuse from their schoolmates. The Little Rock School Board meanwhile was pressured by its citizens to reverse the desegregation, which resulted to its closing in the following school year. It did reopen later on, in fall of 1959.

The thing is… she is not the subject of the photograph. Will Counts, the photographer shot Hazel Massery, the white girl shouting in front of the man. 40 years later she apologized to Elisabeth.

5 year old mother

Into the hospital at Pisco (Peru) came a tired, ragged Indian woman from the foothills of the Andes. She led by the hand a shy little girl, scarcely three feet tall, with chestnut braids and an enormously bulging abdomen. Pointing to the frightened child, the Indian woman begged Surgeon Geraldo Lozada to exorcise the evil spirits which had taken possession of her. Certain that little Lina Medina had an abdominal tumor, Dr. Lozada examined her, and received the surprise of his life when he discovered she was eight months pregnant, making her the world's youngest mother ever.

Dr. Lozada took her to Lima, the capital of Peru, prior to the surgery to have other specialists confirm that Lina was in fact pregnant. A month and a half later, on May 14, 1939, she gave birth to a boy by a caesarean section necessitated by her small pelvis. The surgery was performed by Dr. Lozada and Dr. Busalleu, with Dr. Colretta providing anaesthesia. Her case was reported in detail by Dr. Edmundo Escomel to La Presse Medicale, along with the additional details that her menarche had occurred at 8 months of age, and that she had had prominent breast development by the age of 4. By age 5 her figure displayed pelvic widening and advanced bone maturation.

Her son weighed 2.7 kg (6 lb) at birth and was named Gerardo after her doctor. Gerardo was raised believing that Lina was his sister, but found out at the age of ten that she was his mother. He grew up healthy but died in 1979 at the age of 40 of a disease of the bone marrow. 

There was never evidence that Lina Medina's pregnancy occurred in any but the usual way, but she never revealed the father of the child, nor the circumstances of her impregnation. Dr. Escomel suggested she might not actually know herself by writing that Lina "couldn't give precise responses." Lina's father was arrested on suspicion of rape and incest, but was later released due to lack of evidence. Medina later married Raúl Jurado, who fathered her second son in 1972. They live in a poor district of Lima known as Chicago Chico ("Little Chicago"). She refused an interview with Reuters in 2002. 

There are two published photographs documenting the case. The first one was taken around the beginning of April, 1939, when Medina was seven and a half months into pregnancy. Taken from Medina's left side, it shows her standing naked in front of an inconclusive backdrop (either the side wall of a house with the sun shining on her, or a light-diffusing blanket in a room with an overhead light pointed toward the front of her body). This is the only published photograph of Lina taken during her pregnancy. This photograph is of significant value because it proves Medina's pregnancy as well as the extent of her physiological development. However, this photograph is not widely known outside medical circles. The other photograph is of far greater clarity and was taken a year later in Lima when Gerardo was eleven months old. 

Junko Furuta: The Girl Who Went through 44 days of Torture

This is a true story that happened in Japan in 1988.A 17 year old girl named Furuta Junko, was kidnapped and then tortured by 4 boys with very unimaginable way and finally death after 44 days.

These horrifying things done to Junko Furuta had been collected through the Japanese court trial of the case, and blogs from 1989. They show the pain that Junko Furuta had to endure before she was finally dead. All this had happened to her while she was still alive. They are disturbing, but the truth.

All of this had happened.

-

DAY 1: November 22, 1988: Kidnapped

Kept captive in house, and posed as one of boy’s girlfriend

Raped (over 400 times in total)

Forced to call her parents and tell them she had run away

Starved and malnutritioned

Fed cockroaches to eat and urine to drink

Forced to masturbate

Forced to strip in front of others

Burned with cigarette lighters

Foreign objects inserted into her vagina/anus

DAY 11: December 1, 1988: Severely beat up countless times

Face held against concrete ground and jumped on

Hands tied to ceiling and body used as a punching bag

Nose filled with so much blood that she can only breath through her mouth

Dumbbells dropped onto her stomach

Vomited when tried to drink water (her stomach couldn’t accept it)

Tried to escape and punished by cigarette burning on arms

Flammable liquid poured on her feet and legs, then lit on fire

Bottle inserted into her anus, causing injury

DAY 20: December10, 1988: Unable to walk properly due to severe leg burns

Beat with bamboo sticks

Fireworks inserted into anus and lit

Hands smashed by weights and fingernails kracked

Beaten with golf club

Cigarettes inserted into vagina

Beaten with iron rods repeatedly

Winter; forced outside to sleep in balcony

Skewers of grilled chicken inserted into her vagina and anus, causing bleeding

DAY 30: Hot wax dripped onto face

Eyelids burned by cigarette lighter

Stabbed with sewing needles in chest area

Left nipple cut and destroyed with pliers

Hot light bulb inserted into her vagina

Heavy bleeding from vagina due to scissors insertion

Unable to urinate properly

Injuries were so severe that it took over an hour for her to crawl downstairs and use the bathroom

Eardrums severely damaged

Extreme reduced brain size

DAY 40: Begged her torturers to “kill her and get it over with”

January 1, 1989: Junko greets the New Years Day alone

Body mutilated

Unable to move from the ground

DAY 44: January 4, 1989: The four boys beat her mutilated body with an iron barbell, using a loss at the game of Mah-jongg as a pretext. She is profusely bleeding from her mouth and nose. They put a candle’s flame to her face and eyes.

Then, lighter fluid was poured onto her legs, arms, face and stomach, and then lit on fire. This final torture lasted for a time of two hours.

Junko Furuta died later that day, in pain and alone. Nothing could compare 44 days of suffering she had to go through.

When her mother heard the news and details of what had happened to her daughter, she fainted. She had to undergo a psychiatric outpatient treatment . Imagine her endless pain.

Her killers are now free men. Justice was never served, not even after 20 years.

They deserve a punishment much greater than they had put upon Furuta, for putting an innocent girl through the most unbearable suffering.

The crime:

On November 25, 1988, four boys, including Jō Kamisaku, then 17 (Kamisaku was a new family name he took after being released from prison), abducted and held Furuta, a second-year high school (11th grade) student from Misato, Saitama Prefecture, for 44 days. They kept her captive in the house owned by the parents of Kamisaku, located in the Ayase district of Adachi, Tokyo.

To forestall a manhunt, one of them forced Furuta into calling her own parents and telling them that she had run away from home, but was with "a friend" and was not in danger. He also browbeat her into posing as the girlfriend of one of the boys when his (Kamisaku's) parents were around, but when he was sure they would not call the police, he dropped the pretext. Furuta tried to escape several times, begging the parents to help her, but they did nothing, apparently out of fear that Yokoyama would hurt them. Yokoyama was at the time a low-level yakuza leader and had bragged that he could use his connections to kill anyone who interfered.

According to their statements at their trial, the four of them raped her, beat her, introduced foreign objects including an iron rod into her vagina, made her drink her own urine and was fed cockroaches, inserted fireworks into her anus, and set them off, forced Furuta to masturbate, cut her nipple with pliers, dropped dumbbells onto her stomach, and burned her with cigarettes and lighters. (One of the burnings was punishment for attempting to call the police.)At one point her injuries were so severe that according to one of the boys it took more than an hour for her to crawl downstairs to use the bathroom. They also related that “possibly a hundred different people” knew that Furuta had been imprisoned there, but it is not clear if this means they visited the house at different times while she was imprisoned there, or themselves either raped or abused her.When the boys refused to let her leave, she begged them on several occasions to “kill (her) and get it over with“.

On January 4, 1989, using one of the boys’ loss at mah-jongg as a pretext, the four beat her with an iron barbell, poured lighter fluid on her legs, arms, face and stomach, and set her on fire. She died later that day of shock.The four boys claimed that they were not aware of how badly injured she was, and that they believed she had been malingering.After her death, the killers taped her arms and legs together, threw her into a 55-gallon drum, filled it with cement, and disposed the drum in a tract of reclaimed land in Koto, Tokyo

Arrest and punishment

The boys were arrested and tried as adults; but, because of Japanese handling of crimes committed by juveniles, their identities were sealed by the court. However, a weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun reported their real names, claiming “Human rights aren’t needed for brutes.” Furuta’s real name and details about her personal life were reported exhaustively in the media. Kamisaku was judged as a sub leader, at least according to the official trial.

The four boys pled guilty to a reduced charge of “committing bodily injury that resulted in death“, rather than murder. Boy A’s parents sold their house for approximately 50 million yen and paid this as compensation to Furuta’s family.

For his participation in the crime, Kamisaku served eight years in a juvenile prison before he was released, in August 1999. In July 2004, he was arrested for assaulting an acquaintance, whom he believed to be luring a girlfriend away from him, and allegedly bragged about his earlier infamy. Kamisaku was sentenced to seven years in prison for the beating.

Junko’s parents were dismayed by the sentences received by their daughter’s killers, and enjoined a civil suit against the parents of the boy in whose home the crimes were committed. When some of the convictions were overturned on the basis of problematic physical evidence (the semen and pubic hair recovered from the body did not match those of the boys who were arrested), the lawyer handling the civil suit decided there was no case to be made and refused to represent them further. (There is speculation that the evidence may have been contaminated—for example, by unidentified persons who raped Furuta.)

One of the most disturbing parts of this true story is that her killers are now free. After putting Junko Furuta through all that suffering, they are free men!!! And only have 8 years in prison.

Rest In Eternal Peace,

Junko Furuta

1989-Eternity

Kuchisake Onna

Kuchisake Onna, also known as The Slit-Mouth Woman, is a scary Japanese urban legend about a disfigured Japanese woman who brandishes a large scissors and preys on children. She has an enormous slit mouth, which extends from ear to ear in a horrible, permanent smile.

The Slit Mouth Woman walks the streets of Japan, wearing a surgical mask and hunting for children. If you cross her path, she will stop you and ask you a question. If you give her the wrong answer, there will be horrible consequences.

Picture the scene. You are walking home from school and your path takes you down a deserted city street. Suddenly, you hear a faint noise coming from the shadows. You glance over and see a beautiful woman standing there. She has long black hair and is wearing a beige trenchcoat. A surgical mask covers the lower half of her face. In Japan, wearing a surgical mask is not uncommon during flu season, to prevent spreading germs.

She steps out of the shadows and blocks your path.

“Am I beautiful?” she asks.

Before you can answer, she tears off her mask, revealing a hideously deformed face. Her huge mouth is sliced from ear to ear and gapes open revealing rows of sharp teeth and a big red disgusting tongue twisting and twirling inside.

“Am I beautiful NOW?” she screams.

Terrified, you struggle to answer her. If you say “No”, she pulls out a huge pair of scissors and kills you immediately, chopping off your head. If you say “Yes”, she takes her scissors and slices your mouth from ear to ear, making you look just like her. If you try to run away, she will hunt you down and kill you, by slicing you in two.

The only way to escape from Kuchisake Onna is to give a non-committal answer. If you say “You look average” or you look normal, she will be confused, giving you just enough time to run away.

There are many rumors about how Kuchisake Onna got her horribly disfigured mouth. Some say that her slit mouth is the result of plastic surgery that went horribly wrong. Others say that she was injured in a terrible car crash. Some even believe she is an escaped mental patient who was so demented that she cut her own mouth apart.

According to one legend, years ago, in Japan, there lived a very beautiful woman who was extremely vain and self-absorbed. Her husband was a very jealous and brutal man and he became convinced that she was cheating on him. In a fit of rage, he took a sword and slit her mouth from ear to ear, screaming “Who will think you’re beautiful now?” She became a vengeful spirit, and began wandering the streets of Japan, wearing a surgical mask to hide her terrible scars.

The Slit Mouth Woman’s reign of terror began in the spring and summer of 1979, when rumors began to spread throughout Japan about sightings of the Kuchisake-onna hunting down children. The story spread like wildfire and actually created scares in many towns. Police increased their patrols and schools sent teachers to walk students home in groups.

In 2004, South Korea was plagued by reports of a red-masked woman who was chasing children.

In 2007, a coroner found some old records from the late 1970s about a woman who was chasing little children, but was hit by a car, and died shortly after. Her mouth was ripped from ear to ear.

The USA has its own version of Kuchisake Onna. There were rumors about a clown who appeared in public bathrooms and accosted children, asking “Do you want death or happy smile?” if they chose “happy smile”, he took out a knife and slit their mouths from ear to ear.

Gandhi at his Spinning Wheel

"Gandhi at his Spinning Wheel," the defining portrait of one of the 20th century’s most influential figures, almost didn’t happen, thanks to the Mahatma’s strict demands. Granted a rare opportunity to photograph India’s leader; Life staffer Margaret Bourke-White was all set to shoot when Gandhi’s secretaries stopped her cold: If she was going to photograph Gandhi at the spinning wheel (a symbol for India’s struggle for independence), she first had to learn to use one herself.

But that wasn’t all. The ascetic Mahatma wasn’t to be spoken to (it being his day of silence.) And because he detested bright light, Bourke-White was only allowed to use three flashbulbs. Having cleared all these hurdles, however, there was still one more – the humid Indian weather, which wreaked havoc on her camera equipment. When time finally came to shoot, Bourke-White’s first flashbulb failed. And while the second one worked, she forgot to pull the slide, rendering it blank.

She thought it was all over, but luckily, the third attempt was successful. In the end, she came away with an image that became Gandhi’s most enduring representation. it was also among the last portraits of his life; he was assassinated less than two years later.

The Corpse of Che Guevara

Sociopathic thug? Socialist luminary? Or as existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre called him, "the most complete human being of our age"? Whatever you believe, there’s no denying that Ernesto "Che" Guevara has become the patron saint of revolutionaries. Undeniably, he is a man of mythical status – a reputation that persists less because of how he lived than because of how he died.

Unenthused by his efforts to incite revolution among the poor and oppressed in Bolivia, the nation’s army (trained and equipped by the U.S. military and the CIA) captured and executed Guevara in 1967. But before dumping his body in a secret grave, they gathered around for a strategic photo op. They wanted to prove to the world that Che was dead, in hopes that his political movement would die with him. in fact, anticipating charges that the photo had been faked, Che’s thoughtful captors amputated his hands and preserved them in formaldehyde.

But by killing the man, Bolivian officials unwittingly birthed his legend. The photo, which circulated around the world, bore a striking resemblance to Renaissance paintings of Christ taken down from the cross. Even as Che’s killers preened and gloated above him (the officer on the right seems to be inadvertently pointing to a wound on Guevara’s body near where Christ’s final wound was inflicted), Che’s eerily peaceful face was described as showing forgiveness. The photo’s allegorical significance certainly wasn’t lost on the revolutionary protesters of the era. They quickly adopted "Che lives!" as a slogan and rallying cry. Thanks to this photograph, "the passion of the Che" ensured that he would live on forever as a martyr for the socialist cause.

Hindenburg

Forget the Titanic, the Lusitania, and the comparatively unphotogenic accident at Chernobyl. Thanks to the power of images, the explosion of the Hindenburg on May 6, 1937, claims the dubious honor of being the quintessential disaster of the 20th century.

In the grand scheme of things, however, the Hindenburg wasn’t all that disastrous. Of the 97 people aboard, a surprising 62 survived. (in fact, it wasn’t even the worst Zeppelin crash of the 20th century. Just four years earlier, the U.S.S. Akron had crashed into the Atlantic killing more than twice as many people.) But when calculating the epic status of a catastrophe, terrifying photographs and quotable quotes ("Oh, the humanity!") far outweigh body counts.

Assembled as part of a massive PR campaign by the Hindenburg’s parent company in Germany, no fewer than 22 photographers, reporters, and newsreel cameramen were on the scene in Lakehurst, N.J. when the airship went down. Worldwide publicity of the well-documented disaster shattered the public’s faith in Zeppelins, which were, at the time, considered the safest mode of air travel available.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Zeppelins had operated regular flights, totting civilians back and forth between Germany and the Americas. But all of that stopped in 1937. The incident effectively killed the use of dirigibles as a commercially viable mode of passenger transport, ending the golden age of the airship not with a whimper, but with a horrific bang that was photographed and then syndicated around the globe.

Federal Dead on the Field of Battle of First Day, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

As one of the world’s first war photographers, Mathew Brady didn’t start
out having as action-packed a career as you might think. A successful daguerreotypist and a distinguished gentleman, Brady was known for his portraits of notable people such as Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. In other words, he was hardly a photojournalist in the trenches.

In fact, Brady had everything to lose by making a career move – his money, his business, and quite possibly his life. Nevertheless, he decided to risk it all and follow the Union Army into battle with his camera, saying, "A spirit in my feet said, ‘Go!’" And go he did – at least until he got a good look at the pointy end of a Confederate bayonet.

After narrowly escaping capture at the first Battle of Bull Run, Brady’s chatty feet quieted down a bit, and he began sending assistants in his place. In the span of only a few years, Brady and his team shot more than 7,000 photographs – an astounding number when you consider that developing a single plate required a horse-drawn-wagon-full of cumbersome equipment and noxious chemicals. Not exactly what you’d call "point-and-shoot."

Tethered as he was to his equine-powered darkroom and with film speeds being much slower then, Brady produced war photos that are understandably light on the action and heavy on the aftermath. Still, they mark the first time Americans were so immediately confronted with the grim realities of the battlefield.

Migrant Mother

As era-defining photographs go, "Migrant Mother" pretty much takes the cake. For many, Florence Owens Thompson is the face of the Great Depression, thanks to legendary shutterbug Dorothea Lange. Lange captured the image while visiting a dusty California pea-pickers’ camp in February 1936, and in doing so, captured the resilience of a proud nation facing desperate times.

Unbelievably, Thompson’s story is as compelling as her portrait. Just 32 years old when Lange approached her ("as if drawn by a magnet," Lange said). Thompson was a mother of seven who’d lost her husband to tuberculosis. Stranded at a migratory labor farm in Nipomo, Calif. her family sustained themselves on birds killed by her kids and vegetables taken from a nearby field – as meager a living as any earned by the other 2,500 workers there. The photo’s impact was staggering. Reproduced in newspapers everywhere, Thompson’s haunted face triggered an immediate public outcry, quickly prompting politicos from the federal Resettlement Administration to send food and supplies. Sadly, however, Thompson and her family had already moved on, receiving nary a wedge of government cheese for their high-profile misery. In fact, no one knew the identity of the photographed woman until Thompson revealed herself years later in a 1976 newspaper article.

meat in fridge

“A lady from the Philippines has killed many people and kept their meat in her refrigerator, and has enjoyed eating it.

She said she had made so many parties for her friends and relatives and gave them this human meat to eat without their knowledge. Her guests said that they found very good taste in this lady’s cooking but didn’t know what meat it was. Some of them didn’t know they’d be her next victim. She also killed and consumed her husband.”

Josephine Baker

Baker costumed for the Danse banane from the Folies Bergères production Un Vent de Folie in Paris in 1927, her most famous banana costume.

Josephine Baker famous singer & dancer. Baker was born June 3, 1906, she died on April 12, 1975. She lived at a time of severe oppression of the blacks. At age 13 she ran away and went on a tour to Paris. In France Baker was embraced despite her color and her dancing style made her the talk of Europe.

During World War II she helped the French Resistance. She adopted 12 kids of many different races. When she returned to the U.S. The Stork Club refused to serve her because she was black.

In 1963 Baker spoke to the crowd with Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial at March on Washington.

Josephine Baker in Havana, Cuba  1950

Hurricane Irene

 ”Officials survey the damage to Route 12 on Hatteras Island, N.C., on Aug. 28 2011. Hurricane Irene swept through the area Saturday cutting the roadway in five locations. Irene caused more than 4.5 million homes and businesses along the East Coast to reportedly lose power over the weekend, and at least 11 deaths were blamed on the storm.” Roughly 2,500 people are stuck on Hatteras Island as a result of this.

Mother’s Sacrifice

This is a true story of Mother’s Sacrifice during the Japan Earthquake.
After the Earthquake had subsided, when the rescuers reached the ruins of a young woman’s house, they saw her dead body through the cracks. But her pose was somehow strange that she knelt on her knees like a person was worshiping; her body was leaning forward, and her two hands were supporting by an object. The collapsed house had crashed her back and her head.

With so many difficulties, the leader of the rescuer team put his hand through a narrow gap on the wall to reach the woman’s body. He was hoping that this woman could be still alive. However, the cold and stiff body told him that she had passed away for sure.
He and the rest of the team left this house and were going to search the next collapsed building. For some reasons, the team leader was driven by a compelling force to go back to the ruin house of the dead woman. Again, he knelt down and used his had through the narrow cracks to search the little space under the dead body. Suddenly, he screamed with excitement,” A child! There is a child! “
The whole team worked together; carefully they removed the piles of ruined objects around the dead woman. There was a 3 months old little boy wrapped in a flowery blanket under his mother’s dead body. Obviously, the woman had made an ultimate sacrifice for saving her son. When her house was falling, she used her body to make a cover to protect her son. The little boy was still sleeping peacefully when the team leader picked him up.
The medical doctor came quickly to exam the little boy. After he opened the blanket, he saw a cell phone inside the blanket. There was a text message on the screen. It said,” If you can survive, you must remember that I love you.” This cell phone was passing around from one hand to another. Every body that read the message wept. ” If you can survive, you must remember that I love you.” Such is the mother’s love for her child!!

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is probably one of the most popular figures of all times. He is considered a genius because he created the Theory of Relativity, and so, challenged Newton’s laws, that were the basis of everything known in physics until the beginning of the 20th century. But, as a person, he was considered a beatnik, and this picture, taken on March 14, 1951 proves that.


On Einstein's 72nd birthday in 1951, United Press International (UPI) photographer Arthur Sasse was trying to persuade him to smile for the camera, but having smiled for photographers many times that day, Einstein stuck out his tongue instead . This photo became one of the most popular photos ever taken of Einstein and it is well recognized in popular culture, often used in merchandise depicting Einstein in a light-hearted sense.

I've seen this picture loads of times somehow i always thought it was fake , you know through the power of photoshop and all that . But the picture checks out its Real .

Face off during the Oka Crisis

This is probably Canada’s most famous picture. The Oka Crisis was a land dispute between the Mohawk nation and the town of Oka, Quebec which began on March 11 1990, and lasted until September 26 1990. It resulted in three deaths, and would be the first of a number of violent conflicts between Indigenous people and the Canadian Government in the late 20th century.

The pillar of fire

On the night of January 24, 1950, one of the most amazing photographs (right figure) of all time was taken in the Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas. As William Branham (an influential Bible minister sometimes credited with founding the Latter Rain Movement within American Pentecostal churches) stood at the podium, a halo of fire appeared above his head. This picture was the only one that turned out on the entire film! George J. Lacy, Investigator of Questioned Documents, and often hired by the FBI in that capacity, subjected the negative to every scientific test available. At a news conference, he stated, “To my knowledge, this is the first time in all the world’s history that a supernatural being has been photographed and scientifically vindicated.” The original of this photograph is kept in the archives of the Religious Department of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.

Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper

Lunch atop a Skyscraper (New York Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam) is a famous photograph taken by Charles C. Ebbets during construction of the GE Building at Rockefeller Center in 1932.

The photograph depicts 11 men eating lunch, seated on a girder with their feet dangling hundreds of feet above the New York City streets. Ebbets took the photo on September 29, 1932, and it appeared in the New York Herald Tribune in its Sunday photo supplement on October 2. Taken on the 69th floor of the GE Building during the last several months of construction, the photo Resting on a Girder shows the same workers napping on the beam.

Loch Ness Monster

One of the most iconic images of Nessie is known as the ‘Surgeon’s Photograph’, which many formerly considered to be good evidence of the monster. Its importance lies in the fact that it was the only photographic evidence of a “head and neck” – all the others are humps or disturbances.The image was revealed as a hoax in 1994.

Supposedly taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London gynaecologist, it was published in the Daily Mail on 21 April 1934. Wilson’s refusal to have his name assoiciated with the photograph lead to the moniker “Surgeon’s Photograph.”The photo is often cropped to make the monster seem huge, while the original uncropped shot shows the other end of the loch and the monster in the centre. The ripples on the photo fit the size and circular pattern of small ripples as opposed to large waves when photographed up close. Analyses of the original uncropped image have fostered further doubt.

In 1979 it was claimed to be a picture of an elephant. Other sceptics in the 1980s argued the photo was that of an otter or a diving bird, but after Christian Spurling’s confession most agree it was what Spurling claimed – a toy submarine with a sculpted head attached. The details of how it was done have been given in a book. Essentially, it was a toy submarine with a head and neck made of plastic wood, built by Christian Spurling, the son-in-law of Marmaduke Wetherell, a big game hunter who had been publicly ridiculed in the Daily Mail, the newspaper that employed him. Spurling claimed that to get revenge, Marmaduke Wetherell committed the hoax, with the help of Chris Spurling (a sculpture specialist), his son Ian Marmaduke, who bought the material for the fake Nessie, and Maurice Chambers (an insurance agent), who would call to ask surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson to offer the pictures to the Daily Mail. The hoax story is disputed by Henry Bauer, who claims this debunking is evidence of bias, and asks why the perpetrators did not reveal their plot earlier to embarrass the newspaper. He also claimed that plastic wood did not exist in 1934, although it was a popular DIY and modelling material in the early 1930s.

Fire on Marlborough Street

On July 22, 1975, photograph Stanley J. Forman working for the Boston Herald American newspaper when a police scanner picked up an emergency: “Fire on Marlborough Street!”
Climbed on a the fire truck, Forman shot the picture of a young woman, Diana Bryant, and a very young girl, Tiare Jones when they fell helplessly. Diana Bryant was pronounced dead at the scene. The young girl lived. Despite a heroic effort, the fireman who tried to grab them had been just seconds away from saving the lives of both.

Photo coverage from the tragic event garnered Stanley Forman a Pulitzer Prize. But more important, his work paved the way for Boston and other states to mandate tougher fire safety codes.

Flying Hillbilly Truck Driver

Hillbilly Tornado Man rivals the Mona Lisa for his subtle depiction of both intrigue and perplexity. What was Mona Lisa smiling about so enigmatically? Why is Hillbilly Tornado Mans truck lodged 50 feet up a tree? Why does he look so satisfied about it? Was he caught in a twister? Did he literally ride the whirlwind? Did he just fucking drive it up there like an Appalachian Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Did he throw it?! Nobody knew, all they knew was the man had a chest like a barrel of meat, he could not afford an entire shirt and his goddamn truck was in a goddamn tree.

The Truth:
That's Mark Madson, and the truck behind him is actually a tree-house he built for his son, Luke, in the town of Beloit, Wisconsin. So, on the downside, the truck-in-tree was not the fantastic drunken feat of a modern day redneck Paul Bunyan, but actually just a pretty slick - if dangerously negligent - act of charity from a father to his son. None of that changes the fact that, when faced with creating a play space for his little boy, Mark Madson said fuck you to blueprints, cracked open a Coors Light, rammed a truck into a tree and called it a day. And it also doesnt change the fact that, when the photographer came to do a photo shoot about it, Mark oiled up his chest-planks, threw on his formal vest and posed like he was the Captain Morgan of moonshine.

The Secret Life of Children

Lurlena, Sturgeon, Missouri. From “The Secret Life of Children”

“In this picture, Lurlena cries in the back of the family car after losing the contest for Carnival Princess at her school. She spent the day getting ready, with a new white dress and new shoes. The winner was decided based on whose parents bought the most tickets, and Lurlena’s family could only afford eight dollars worth. This moment breaks my heart, and I’m sure Lurlena understood just how unfair life could be. It was amazing to be this deep into her life that she didn’t care about being photographed.”

“Many of my days are spent driving around, hoping to find feature pictures for the paper. During graduate school, I met a kid, Dacota, on one of those drives, and there was something magical about him. Gradually I became more involved with his life, and started spending time with his extended family of cousins who lived in Sturgeon. Mo., a small town about an hour outside of Columbia. Working on this project was in some ways the opposite of newspaper work. I had no definite sense of the “story” I was covering, just a feeling of wonder and a certain freedom to make whatever pictures I wanted to. The story of the secret lives of these children slowly unfolded. I was immediately accepted into the family, and could come and go whenever I had the time. This is the story I dream of returning to, over and over again, as the kids get older. In all of this chaos there are these quiet, reflective moments that resonate with me.”

Grieving Chimps

The November issue of National Geographic magazine features a moving photograph of chimpanzees watching as one of their own is wheeled to her burial. Since it was published, the picture and story have gone viral, turning up on websites and TV shows and in newspapers around the world. For readers who’d like to know more, here’s what I learned when I interviewed the photographer, Monica Szczupider.

On September 23, 2008, Dorothy, a female chimpanzee in her late 40s, died of congestive heart failure. A maternal and beloved figure, Dorothy had spent eight years at Cameroon’s Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, which houses and rehabilitates chimps victimized by habitat loss and the illegal African bushmeat trade.

After a hunter killed her mother, Dorothy was sold as a “mascot” to an amusement park in Cameroon. For the next 25 years she was tethered to the ground by a chain around her neck, taunted, teased, and taught to drink beer and smoke cigarettes for sport. In May 2000 Dorothy—obese from poor diet and lack of exercise—was rescued and relocated along with ten other primates. As her health improved, her deep kindness surfaced. She mothered an orphaned chimp named Bouboule and became a close friend to many others, including Jacky, the group’s alpha male, and Nama, another amusement-park refugee.
Szczupider, who had been a volunteer at the center, told me: “Her presence, and loss, was palpable, and resonated throughout the group. The management at Sanaga-Yong opted to let Dorothy's chimpanzee family witness her burial, so that perhaps they would understand, in their own capacity, that Dorothy would not return. Some chimps displayed aggression while others barked in frustration. But perhaps the most stunning reaction was a recurring, almost tangible silence. If one knows chimpanzees, then one knows that [they] are not [usually] silent creatures."

Sanaga-Yong was founded in 1999 by veterinarian Sheri Speede (pictured at right, cradling Dorothy’s head; at left is center employee Assou Felix). Operated by IDA-Africa, an NGO, it’s home to 62 chimps who reside in spacious, forested enclosures.

Szczupider submitted the photograph to Your Shot, a magazine feature that encourages readers to send in pictures they've taken. The best are published on the website and in the magazine.

—Jeremy Berlin

The tsunami

Some people believe in God, others not, but we must think and think again how small we are before the forces of nature. This photo was taken on the coast of Sumatra Island in Indonesia during an overwhelming tsunami, with waves measuring up to 20m in height. The picture was found a month and a half later in a digital camera.

Whoever took this picture, no doubt, ceased to exist a few seconds after pressing the trigger of the small machine.

The child resisting the tank

A Palestinian child opposing an Israeli Army Occupation tank in Palestine – picture taken in the 1990s in the Occupied West Bank by an unknown photographer

This photograph shows the fierce resistance of an entire population, devoid of any support, facing a brutal occupation of their country. It is said that Palestine is probably the only country in the 21st century still being directly colonized. As such it has become the largest open air prison in the world ever since its occupation by Israeli settlers in 1948.

The Lynching of Young Blacks

Lawrence Beitler took this iconic photograph on August 7, 1930. It showed the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, two young black men from the John Robinson show circus accused by a teenager of raping his white girlfriend (This accusation was subsequently found to be a lie).  A mob of 10,000 whites took sledgehammers to the county jailhouse doors to get these men; the girl’s uncle saved the life of a third by proclaiming the man’s innocence. Lynching photos were made into postcards to show off civic pride and white supremacy, but the tortured bodies and grotesquely happy crowds ended up angering and revolting as many as they scared. The photo sold thousands of copies, which Beitler stayed up for 10 days and nights printing them.

Ironically, this photo which had become iconic image of lynchings was taken at Marion, Indiana, whereas most of the nearly 5,000 lynchings documented between Reconstruction and the late 1960s were perpetrated in the South. (Hangings, beatings and mutilations were called the sentence of “Judge Lynch.”) The photo was so iconic that it has been the inspiration for many poems, books and songs down the years, “Strange Fruit” by the Jewish poet Abel Meeropol (later sung by Billie Holiday) being the best example. Every time you hear Bob Dylan’s somewhat hard-to-listen-to Desolation Row, the first line you heard is “They’re selling postcards of the hanging”, inspired by the above photo.

The primary source for these events is A Time of Terror, which is an eyewitness account by James Cameron, the third black youth who was saved.

Under the claws of the bulldozer

Rachel Aliene Corrie was an American member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She was born on April 10, 1979, and murdered on March 16, 2003. She was crushed to death in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli Army bulldozer, while she was kneeling in front of a local Palestinian's home, thus acting as a human shield, attempting to prevent Israeli Occupation Forces from demolishing the home.

The pictures depict her before and after her cold-blooded murder. The spokesman for the Israeli Occupation Army stated that the death was due to the restricted angle of view of the Caterpillar D9 bulldozer driver, while ISM eyewitnesses said ‘there was nothing to obscure the driver's view’.

A student at the Evergreen State College, Rachel had taken a year off and travelled to the Gaza Strip to understand the truth of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is often covered up. This young 24 year old martyr proves that the naturally rebellious spirit of the ordinary American people against the forces of evil is alive and well.

Mermaid or Whale story

French model Tara Lynn

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was "This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?"

The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way:

"Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness.
They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia.
They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires.

Mermaids do not exist.

But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish?
They would have no sex life and could not bear children.
Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad.
And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side?

Without a doubt, I'd rather be a whale.

At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends.

We women, we gain weight because we accumulate so much wisdom and knowledge that there isn't enough space in our heads, and it spreads all over our bodies.
We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated.
Every time I see my curves in the mirror, I tell myself: "How amazing am I ?! "

Reichstag flag

Raising a flag over the Reichstag is a historic World War II photograph taken during the Battle of Berlin on 2 May 1945, by Yevgeny Khaldei. It depicts several Soviet troops raising the flag of the Soviet Union atop the German Reichstag building. The photograph was instantly popular, being reprinted in thousands of publications. It came to be regarded around the world as one of the most significant and recognizable images of the war.
The identities of the men in the picture were often disputed, also that of the photographer (Khaldei), who was only identified after the fall of the Soviet Union. The photograph is full of symbolism and represents an historic moment.
Erected in 1894, the Reichstag's architecture was magnificent for its time. The building contributed much to German history and was considered by the Red Army the symbol of their enemy. In reality, the Reichstag had not been used for any official purposes since the 1933 fire and had never been fully repaired. After very bloody and fierce combat within its walls, the Soviets finally captured the Reichstag on 2 May 1945, drawing closer to the end a war that had cost the lives of many millions of Germans and Soviets.
Celebrated as the image is, it was the reconstruction of a moment that had happened earlier but had been missed by the camera.

The struggle of landless farmers

This photograph by Luiz Vasconcelos earned an award in the Singles of the World Press Photo in the General News category in 2009. It depicts a woman with her child trying to resist eviction by riot police on the outskirts of Manaus in the Brazilian Amazon and illustrates the struggle of landless Indian farmers against white Creole landowners. It is scary to view this image and to think of family and children.

Segregated Water Fountain

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

- Excerpt from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 'I Have A Dream' speech

I for one am glad Mr.King's dream came true . Though some forms of racism do occur in todays world yet nothing can be compared to the racial segregation faced by the People of Colour (blacks, Hispanics, Asians ) during the 1950's and 60's . This is a Picture of segregated water fountains in North Carolina taken by Elliott Erwitt . Erwin is a advertizing and journalistic photographer who is described to take pictures with a touch of humor and an eye for the humane . This picture does not only tell the story of injustice faced by the one Black man in the shot but the injustice faced by a whole group of African Americans and other minorities during that time . Its pictures like this that makes us reflect on the past and make sure that it never happens again in the future

The wounded soldier

During an uprising in Puerto Cabello in Carabobo State, Venezuela, in 1962 – an episode known as the Porteñazo – the ruling dictatorship violently suppressed the insurgents. The picture depicts Padre Luis Maria Padilla holding a wounded soldier in his arms. While the padre was trying to lift him up the soldier could hardly say ‘my father help me’ before being shot again. This photo toured the world and was the sole recipient of the Pulitzer Prize World Press Photo.

The tragic death of this unlucky man proves that government soldiers (and insurgents alike) always pay the heavy price, not the ruling class.

Letter story

Dear Wife, I’m writing you this letter to tell you that I’m leaving you forever. I’ve been a good man to you for 7 years & I have nothing to show for it. These last 2 weeks have been hell. ... Your boss called to tell me that you quit your job today & that was the last straw. Last week, you came home & didn’t even notice I had a new haircut, had cooked your favorite meal & even wore a brand new pair of silk boxers. You ate in 2 minutes, & went straight to sleep after watching all of your soaps. You don’t tell me you love me anymore; you don’t want sex or anything that connects us as husband & wife. Either you’re cheating on me or you don’t love me anymore; whatever the case, I’m gone. Your EX-Husband P.S. don’t try to find me. Your SISTER & I are moving away to West Virginia together! Have a great life! ——

... //Dear Ex-Husband Nothing has made my day more than receiving your letter. It’s true you & I have been married for 7 years, although a good man is a far cry from what you’ve been. I watch my soaps so much because they drown out your constant whining & griping Too bad that doesn’t work. I DID notice when you got a hair cut last week, but the 1st thing that came to mind was ‘You look just like a girl!’ Since my mother raised me not to say anything if you can’t say something nice, I didn’t comment. And when you cooked my favorite meal, you must have gotten me confused with MY SISTER, because I stopped eating pork 7 years ago. About those new silk boxers: I turned away from you because the $49.99 price tag was still on them, & I prayed it was a coincidence that my sister had just borrowed $50 from me that morning. After all of this, I still loved you & felt we could work it out. So when I hit the lotto for 10 million dollars, I quit my job & bought us 2 tickets to Jamaica But when I got home you were gone.. Everything happens for a reason, I guess. I hope you have the fulfilling life you always wanted. My lawyer said that the letter you wrote ensures you won’t get a dime from me. So take care. Signed, Your Ex-Wife, Rich As Hell & Free! P.S. I don’t know if I ever told you this, but my sister Carla was born Carl. I hope that’s not a problem. Post this as your status to see how many laughs you get!!! HILARIOUS!

Death rode

The brilliant Sudanese photographer Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer Prize with a photograph taken in a small village in Sudan in the region of Ayod. The picture has toured the world. It shows a hopeless little girl, totally emaciated, lying on the floor, exhausted by hunger and dying, while in the background, the black silhouette of a vulture watching and waiting for her death. Four months later, overwhelmed by guilt and driven by a strong dependence on drugs, Kevin Carter committed suicide.

The destitution shown in the photograph is the direct result of the continuous meddling of Western foreign powers in Sudan in order to grab its riches. As a result of this and the inefficiency and corruption of the local government, Sudanese die of starvation in a country considered to be the richest in Africa in terms of agriculture.

The first x-ray

On 8 Nov, 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (accidentally) discovered an image cast from his cathode ray generator, projected far beyond the possible range of the cathode rays (now known as an electron beam). Further investigation showed that the rays were generated at the point of contact of the cathode ray beam on the interior of the vacuum tube, that they were not deflected by magnetic fields, and they penetrated many kinds of matter.
A week after his discovery, Rontgen took an X-ray photograph of his wife's hand which clearly revealed her wedding ring and her bones. The photograph electrified the general public and aroused great scientific interest in the new form of radiation. Röntgen named the new form of radiation X-radiation (X standing for "Unknown"). Hence the term X-rays (also referred as Röntgen rays, though this term is unusual outside of Germany).

Protest in silence

Thich Quang Duc was born in 1897. He was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk (also called a bonze) who burned himself to death on a busy street in Saigon on June 11, 1963. His act of sacrifice, which was repeated by other monks, was memorable. It was witnessed by David Halberstam. As his body burned, the monk remained motionless. He did not cry. He did not even make a sound.

Thich Quang Duc was protesting against the way the US-backed administration of South Vietnam was manipulating Buddhism to further its goals. After his death, his body was cremated according to Buddhist tradition. During the cremation, his heart remained intact. Thich was considered a saint and his heart was kept as a relic at the Reserve Bank of Vietnam.

This was the origin of the term ‘self-immolation’, which, contrary to what people think, is not about committing suicide but about sacrificing oneself –a form of political protest.

Pencil and Eraser story

Pencil: I'm sorry
Eraser: For what? You didn't do anything wrong.
Pencil: I'm sorry cos you get hurt bcos of me. Whenever I made a mistake, you're always there to erase it. But as you make my mistakes vanish, you lose a part of yourself. You get smaller and smaller each time.
Eraser: That's true. But I don't really mind. You see, I was made to do this. I was made to help you whenever you do something wrong. Even though one day, I know I'll be gone and you'll replace me with a new one, I'm actually happy with my job. So please, stop worrying. I hate seeing you sad. :)


I found this conversation between the pencil and the eraser very inspirational. Parents are like the eraser whereas their children are the pencil. They're always there for their children, cleaning up their mistakes. Sometimes along the way... they get hurt, and become smaller (older, and eventually pass on).

Though their children will eventually find someone new (spouse), but parents are still happy with what they do for their children, and will always hate seeing their precious ones worrying, or sad.

"All my life, I've been the pencil.. And it pains me to see the eraser that is my parents getting smaller and smaller each day.

For I know that one day, all that I'm left with would be eraser shavings and memories of what I used to have..."


This is to all the parents out there.
By: John Christopher Quiambao

Palestinian martyr

Today we break a little the site’s pattern showing you not a photo but an image captured from a film showing the Palestinian father, Jamil ad-Durra, trying to protect his son from israeli gunfire moments before the boy was shot dead, the father wounded and a Palestinian ambulance driver who came to rescue them, also killed.

Reporters watched helplessly as the boy and his father became trapped against a wall with nothing but a small concrete block for cover as bullets rained around them on a road near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. Mohammed crouched weeping behind his father, who tried in vain to shield him with his arms and body. At one point, the father raised his head and wagged his finger, as if to scold. Some time later, both were shot and Mohammed slumped into his father’s lap.
Mohammed died, while his father survived badly wounded. An ambulance driver, who braved the fierce shooting to try to rescue them, also killed.

The unknown rebel

The ‘Unknown Rebel’ was the nickname given to an anonymous man who became internationally famous for being photographed standing before a line of tanks during the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 in China. The photo was taken by Jeff Widener. The man seems to be stopping the advance of the tanks and the image has been around the world.
In China, the picture was used by the government as a symbol of compassion the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army felt towards the Chinese people and their desire to protect them. Despite orders to advance, the tank driver refused to do so.