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Historical Photos

KNOWOL / Historical Photos

Historical Photos

Restored public domain photographs from the National Archives and other public collections, each with the true story behind it. Click any photo to see it up close and read where it came from.

  • A worker in a white cap stands on a wooden platform and reaches across the top of a glass-domed machine gun turret on a test stand, under rows of factory lightsA Gun Turret on Its Test Stand at the Martin Plant, Baltimore, 1943Baltimore, Maryland, 1943
  • A young Black sailor in a steel helmet carries a heavy round drum magazine on his shoulder, a 20mm shell showing on top, looking off into the distanceMiles Davis King Carries His Gun's Magazine, USS Tulagi, 1944Mediterranean Sea, 1944
  • Navy officers in shorts play basketball in the well of an aircraft carrier's elevator, two men leaping for the ball while sailors watch from the deck edge aboveGerald Ford Plays Basketball on the Carrier USS Monterey, 1944Pacific Ocean, 1944
  • A huge rough boulder rides on a steel crawler wagon under a cloudy sky, with a Seabee in a cap standing beside the wagon's tracksSeabees Haul a 30-Ton Boulder for Guam's Seawall, 1945Apra Harbor, Guam, 1945
  • The rings and spokes of a round radar screen laid over four Navy men in headsets, two of them holding telephone handsetsA Navy Radar Screen and the Men Who Read It, World War II1944
  • A young Black Navy sailor in a work shirt sits between chain-hung bunks below decks, reading a worn Bible by lamplightA Sailor Reads His Bible the Night Before a Raid on Manila BayPacific Ocean, 1945
  • Capt. Donald R. DeFoe in a flying helmet, goggles and life vest, with his oxygen mask at his mouth, climbs out of the open canopy of his black B-26 bomber at nightA B-26 Pilot Climbs Down After a Night Mission Over KoreaKorea, 1951
  • Captain Melvin E. Jarvis in a cloth flying helmet, throat microphone and heavy padded vest at the controls of his B-29 on Okinawa, May 1951B-29 Pilot Suited Up for a Mission Over North KoreaOkinawa, 1951
  • Eleven American airmen in fur-collared flight jackets pose in two rows in front of the glass nose of a B-29 bomber, with a dog lying at their feetThe Pilchard Crew and Their B-29 in India, 1944India, 1944
  • American soldiers in campaign hats sit with children outside a house in a French village while one soldier gets a haircutAmerican Soldiers and Children in France, World War IFrance, c. 1917
  • U.S. Army nurses in steel helmets and raincoats, many with red cross armbands, line a ship's rail at Greenock, Scotland, 1944Black Army Nurses Line Their Ship's Rail at GreenockGreenock, Scotland, 1944
  • Alexander Graham Bell, white-bearded and dressed in white, sits in a wicker wheeled chair with a uniformed attendant on the bicycle seat behind himAlexander Graham Bell in Florida, the Year He DiedFlorida, 1922
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