There are lots of iconic images that make their way into school textbooks – and then there are the images that are too bizarre or difficult to explain to be on the pages of a children’s book. Luckily, we were able to track those images down and compile them for you here.
Below are 30 interesting and off-the-beaten-path historical photos that you probably never saw in history class. Some of them are inspiring – others are just downright strange. See them below and learn a little bit more about the world’s rich history. #21 is totally shocking.
A photographer in West Berlin kicks a policeman across the border in East Berlin.
Marilyn Monroe wearing the dress that scandalized the world when she sang “Happy Birthday Mr. President” to John F. Kennedy.
The reverend Vernon Mitchell talks to women at a London strip club to discuss what should be censored from the show.
Carving one of the eyes on Mount Rushmore 1930’s.
A five megabyte hard drive being shipped by IBM in 1956.
Hanging onto news on the World Series outside the local newspaper office in 1919.
Statue of Liberty pictured from Jersey City in 1973.
Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards at Jagger’s 29th birthday party.
A shop boy selling pizza at a street market in Naples, Italy in 1953.
Children playing with worthless money during the hyperinflation in Germany in the twenties.
Freedom Train, which toured the United States in the forties..
Barack Obama during his time at Harvard Law School.
The astro-chimp holding a newspaper after surviving his trip to space in 1961.
A woman being arrested for serving alcohol illegally during Prohibition.
A chihuahua riding a greyhound in the 1880’s.
A foot guard passes out, likely from heat, as Queen Elizabeth II rides past him.
A Messerschmidt KR175 pictured in Germany in 1954.
Robert Pershing Wadlow, the tallest person in recorded history. He was 8 ft. 11. He’s pictured here, next to his brother, who was 5 ft 11.
Bonnie and Clyde, pictured here in March 1933.
President Gerald Ford plays a traditional Japanese game with a geisha in Kyoto, Japan.
The largest black sea bass ever caught by Edward Llewellen. It weighed 425 pounds.
Completing the transcontinental phone line in Wendover, Utah.
The paving of the Indianapolis Moto Speedway. Chevy founder Louis Chevrolet is seen driving the #42 Buick.
‘How To Save A Life,’ a lifeguard class at Howard University in the early forties.
Bernard Otto Holtermann standing next to the largest gold chunk ever found, called the Holtermann Nugget.
American Horse, an Oglala Lakota chief, statesman, educator and historian.
Detroit giving a Fireboat’s Five-gun Salute to celebrate the city’s 250th birthday.
Stevie Wonder visiting a school for blind children in London.
A foot guard passing out as Queen Elizabeth II rides past during a parade, June 1970.
Salvador Dali taking his anteaters for a walk in Paris, 1969
Princeton students after a freshman/sophomore snowball fight, 1893
Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philipp dancing a country dance, Ottawa, Canada, 1951
Children playing among the wreckage of the D-Day Invasion, Normandy, France, 1947
Nuclear weapon test Mike on Enewetak Atoll, November 1, 1952
Cat Nohcha, the pet of Russian Special Police Force of Kaliningrad, resting, 1994, Gudermes, Chechnya
The partially excavated sphinx, 1878
A Swiss village, Grindelwald, 1900
Cakes for the soldiers fighting against the terrorists during the Romanian Revolution, 1989
Broadway, New York, 1949
A switch operator poses by the Trans-Siberian Railroad, Russian Empire, 1910 in rare, original color.
Guevara ® at the wheel of a US-made car with his second wife Aleida March (L) on their wedding day, Havana, 1959
The sign of the Russian restaurant, 1203 in New York inviting everyone to eat free borsht due to Stalin’s death, March 6, 1953
Mohammed Alim Khan, the last direct descendant of Genghis Khan to rule his own kingdom, 1911
Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse, and Disney’s cat, 1931
Adolf Hitler meeting the King of Thailand, 1934
A French woman pouring a hot cup of tea for a British soldier fighting in Normandy, 1944
Mark Twain in the lab of Nikola Tesla, Spring of 1894
A group of women at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., circa 1924
A New Zealand soldier resting and smoking a pipe in the deserts of North Africa, Egypt, 1942
Stonehenge, 1897
Reburial of the victims of the Bosnian war, July 8, 2005
A lama in a taxi, New York, 1957
Rue de Rivoli, Paris, 1942
The first female candidates to be NASA astronauts, 1978