History in Pictures

New York celebrates the completion of the first transatlantic telegraph cable with a parade up Broadway, from Trinity Church to 42nd Street, September 1, 1858.

Two girls of the Ho-Chunk tribe with measles, 1900.

Left: Paul Cezanne, Boy in a Red Waistcoat, 1888-1890.

Right: Will Rogers in a publicity photo, c. 1900.

Benjamin Franklin, November 11, 1755:

“Those who would give up essential Liberty,
to purchase a little temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

In a referendum marred by widespread voter intimidation and electoral fraud, German voters approve Adolph Hitler as head of state in addition to his role as Chancellor.

The referendum legitimizes Hitler’s claim to absolute power and grants him the title Führer und Reichskanzler.

The French resistance in Paris begins an uprising against the German garrison.

The Germans will surrender on August 25, 1944.

Church ladies prepare tomatoes for canning, Kentucky, 1939.

Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight (1944).

If I were not mad, I could have helped you.
Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you.
But because I am mad, I hate you.
Because I am mad, I have betrayed you.
And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart! 

When humidity swelled the paper at a Brooklyn printing plant, causing the ink to misalign on the page, factory engineer Willis Carrier designed a system to blow factory air over pipes filled with cold water.

Moisture from the chilled air fell out in drops, lowering the humidity in the printing plant as well as the temperature.

Carrier’s 1902 invention was the start of modern electrical air conditioning.

William Merritt Chase, Carmencita, 1890.

August 19, 1940: Yesterday, more than six hundred German bombers, accompanied by fighter aircraft, attacked RAF bases and military installations in the London suburbs and along the Channel coast.

Dogfights with the RAF crowded the skies of southern England continuously throughout the day.

In Philadelphia, the American ambassador to France warned that Germany intended to attack the US once it conquered Britain, urging Americans not to listen to ‘wishful thinkers who are playing the dictators’ game by lulling the country into a false sense of security.’

This dress for a child of the Crow tribe, made in 1880-1890, is made of flannel and decorated with imitation elk’s teeth which have been carved from bone.

The Crow people were hunters who lived in Montana and Wyoming.

David Sherwood, age nineteen, was wounded in a skirmish near Winchester, Virginia, in January 1864, while on a scouting mission with his Connecticut cavalry unit.

He was captured there and sent to Andersonville prison, where he died in July.

David left a large, extended family in Weston, Connecticut, behind.

And his dog.