Historical images - Images that made history

[Monika H.]

Fun fact: Kim Il Sung's statue also received an update some time after Kim Jong Il's death. This is what it originally looked like:
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And here's what it looks like now:
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One more thing: this massive bronze statue was originally covered in gold leaf, but it was removed after the Norks showed it to a visiting Chinese diplomat and he said "I really hope this isn't what you're spending our aid money on."

The Norks have repeatedly shown themselves to be particularly ungrateful to whoever helps them. The trade road of China becomes a dirt path on the North side. Russian-speaking Norks got regularly threatened because for Kim Jong-Il Russian is the language of dirty people (who cares if the Russian Federation still kept helping them).
East Germany also gave them lots of money and rebuilt the towns of Hamhung and Hungnam - in two years the Norks took all merits, blamed the East Germans for any hiccup and also put on Nork stickers on the German-made machines to make it look like they were North Korean-made.

Also - exchange East German students were treated like prisoners at times in North Korea, while North Koreans exchange students repeatedly tried to steal German industrial data and snitched on the families hosting them to the Stasi.

 

[Clockwork_PurBle]

This photo by Bob Coglianese is named "The Savage." It was taken on July 21, 1980 during a horse race at Belmont Park, with the outside horse Great Prospector biting or "savaging" the inside gray horse Golden Derby. Golden Derby won. It is considered one of the most famous photos relating to horse racing.

 

[Syaoran Li]

Almighty Gaylords, Palmer Street Set, Late 1970's

Almighty Gaylords, Sunnyside & Magnolia (Uptown) Set, Mid 1980's

 

[Billy "the Bot" Bobson]

Almighty Gaylords, Palmer Street Set, Late 1970's
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Almighty Gaylords, Sunnyside & Magnolia (Uptown) Set, Mid 1980's

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Most impressive that the term "Almight Gaylord" once struck mild anxiousness in the hearts and minds of the people of Chicago.

 

[Syaoran Li]

Most impressive that the term "Almight Gaylord" once struck mild anxiousness in the hearts and minds of the people of Chicago.

And they're still active in some of the suburbs and have spread out into the Midwest and parts of the South too. They've mostly abandoned Chicago proper (outside of maybe Sayre Park and Kilbourn Park) but the Gaylords have major rackets in Indiana and Kentucky, and have ties to the Bloods in those states,

It helps that the name was picked in 1952 when "gay" wasn't commonly associated with homosexuality and that Gaylord is a English transliteration of an Italian surname and also of the Galliards, a Celtic warrior tribe that was active in the Dark Ages. The Chateau Galliard in Normandy was named in their honor by Richard the Lionheart.

Gaylords were mostly Irish, Italian, or Greek with some Poles as well as some Latinos whose families had lived in Chicago for a long time and had already assimilated. Kilbourn Park GL's even had some East Asians who were local to the neighborhood, but they were majority White with the next biggest groups being more Americanized Latinos and Native Americans

IIRC, there are a few Native American sets of the Gaylords on some of the reservations too.

Their arch-rivals were another White gang called the Simon City Royals who are mostly gone in Chicago proper but are extremely active in the Deep South thanks to their close alliance with the Gangster Disciples.

SCR has a heavy presence in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama with some sets spreading to Florida and Tennessee

 

[Billy "the Bot" Bobson]

And they're still active in some of the suburbs and have spread out into the Midwest and parts of the South too. They've mostly abandoned Chicago proper (outside of maybe Sayre Park and Kilbourn Park) but the Gaylords have major rackets in Indiana and Kentucky, and have ties to the Bloods in those states,

It helps that the name was picked in 1952 when "gay" wasn't commonly associated with homosexuality and that Gaylord is a English transliteration of an Italian surname and also of the Galliards, a Celtic warrior tribe that was active in the Dark Ages. The Chateau Galliard in Normandy was named in their honor by Richard the Lionheart.

Gaylords were mostly Irish, Italian, or Greek with some Poles as well as some Latinos whose families had lived in Chicago for a long time and had already assimilated. Kilbourn Park GL's even had some East Asians who were local to the neighborhood, but they were majority White with the next biggest groups being more Americanized Latinos and Native Americans

IIRC, there are a few Native American sets of the Gaylords on some of the reservations too.

Their arch-rivals were another White gang called the Simon City Royals who are mostly gone in Chicago proper but are extremely active in the Deep South thanks to their close alliance with the Gangster Disciples.

SCR has a heavy presence in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama with some sets spreading to Florida and Tennessee

It still tickles me that one of the most notorious non-biker, truly Americanized majority white gangs is a gang called the fucking Gaylords. I'm genuinely interested in how much of a gang they were and continue to be. Where I'm from, it's mostly just Bloods and Crips, with a few mostly local minority gangs and biker gangs ; white guys never had a gang unless they just straight up joined the Bloods or Hells Angels.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

lol gay

 

[Monika H.]

Vietcong woman on patrol with a captured M16, colorized

 

[TowinKarz]

Found this in the basement the other day.

Picture of my Grandfather Wilbur, (2nd from left) and some of his buddies on leave in London, 1943 or 44. He served in the USAAF as a member of the 384th Fighter Squadron.
They flew bomber escort and ground attack missions and would've been using the P-38 Lightning at the time, transitioning to P-51 Mustangs near the end of the deployment.
Sadly, he passed away when I was a toddler, so I never got a chance to know the Man, but he at least got a chance to know me.

The stories he could've told, I'm sure



FWIW: My other Grandfather was a locomotive repairman for the Reading Railroad when WWII came around and was considered so vital to the war effort in that role (keeping the trains running) that he was exempted from service.

 

[Devyn]

This is Robert Cornelius, photographed by himself in the yard of his family's lamp manufacturing business in Philadelphia, 1839. He uncovered the lens, rushed to a spot and posed for about 10 minutes, then rushed back to cover the lens again. On the back it reads "The first light picture ever taken."

Lewis Thornton Powell (AKA Lewis Payne), Lincoln assassination conspirator in his 1865 mugshots:

Colourized:

Union army officer Grenville M. Dodge:

 

[Coleslaw]

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The Texas Rangers charging the field with bats to rescue the outfielders during the Ten Cent Beer Night riot in Cleveland.

How about Disco Demolition Night?

 

[TowinKarz]

How about Disco Demolition Night?

Okay

July 12, 1979 - The Chicago White Sox were hosting the Detroit Tigers for a double-header at the old Comiskey Park. The Sox were having a lackluster season that year, so a promotional gimmick was used to bring more fans: Disco Demolition Night. A crate of disco records would be taken out to the infield between the two games and be blown up.

To further encourage attendance, fans could get tickets for as low as ninety-eight cents if they brought in a record of their own to add to the pile slated for destruction. (a nod to local radio station WLUP who helped come up with the idea, which had a broadcast frequency of 97.9)

Almost 50,000 turned out for the event, and few of them were interested in baseball as much as the pending demolition - once the records were set off, the crowd went crazy and invaded the field, lighting fires, looting the dugouts, destroying a batting cage and even running off with the bases. They ultimately refused to disperse until riot police were called in. About 30 were arrested and, luckily, no one was seriously inured.

The damage to the field couldn't be repaired in time to play the second game, which was postponed and officially forfeited by the Sox the next day after Detroit manager Sparky Anderson refused to allow his players back on the field, citing safety concerns.

 

[Distant Stare]

Erwin Rommel

 

[Chad Holdenford]

In the early evening of Sunday, September 3rd, 1989, the last match of Group C of the South American qualifying round for the 1990 World Cup took place between Brazil and Chile in a tightly-packed Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.

Both had won their home and away matches against the ever-so-weak Venezuela, the other member of their group. They also tied their first match, held in Santiago, and it was a very violent affair that ended with all the parties involved being escorted away by the police.

Thanks to their scored goals advantage, all the Brazil NT needed was a comfortable tie, while Chile had to go all-in for the victory. A daunting, nigh-impossible task, given Brazil (at the time) never ever lost a single World Cup Qualifier match.

After lots of failed shots and even more violence from the Chilean NT's players, Brazil managed to score in the beginning of the second half. Only a miracle could help Chile at that moment...

And it just so happened to appear at around the 30th minute mark, when the goalkeeper Ricardo "Cóndor" Rojas collapsed, with a lit flare beside him. His teammates went to his aid and saw him bleeding profusely from his forehead. Everything indicated he was hit by the flare. Seeing foul play from the fans in the stands, the Chilean players refused to go on with the match and carried Rojas to their locker room for proper medical treatment; seeing no way to change their minds, the referee declared the match forfeited.

Soon after, the Chilean football association bigwigs intended to bring the case to FIFA and Conmebol, citing the happening as a way to take out points for Brazil and thus qualify Chile for the World Cup in Italy the following year.

Except...



The flare went behind the keeper about four feet away from him. An exam made after the end of the match also revealed cuts and no blunt trauma or burns, the expected aftermath of being hit by a speeding, hot object in the head.
Rojas had no other choice but to confess he literally bladed himself, wrestling-style, with a shaving razor he hid in the velcro wrapping of one of his gloves, just waiting for a good opportunity to cut himself and claim unnecessary roughness from either one of the Brazilian players.

In the end, they oficially lost their match, Chile was banned from the qualifiers for the 1994 World Cup, and Rojas was banned from the sport for life - A decision that ultimately didn't stand up, as he successfully appealed against it so that he could work as a coach after his "compulsory" retirement.

Fun fact: The girl who lit the flare gained a bit of celebrity notoriety as "The Maracanã Rocket Launcher", complete with her doing a cover photo shoot for Playboy Magazine. She passed away in 2013 following a bout with a brain tumor.

 

[TowinKarz]

Taki Inoue was a thoroughly unimpressive Japanese Formula One driver in the 1990's, one of many hapless guys who bounced from team to team as the immense costs to field competitive cars slowly but surely squeezed out the smaller "privateer" operations in favor of factory teams with massive budgets like BMW and Ferrari. In this environment, lots of average and sub-par talent ended up driving for a season or two for woeful teams in off-pace cars just for the top-tier experience. Some hoping they could do well enough in a race or two to catch the eye of a bigger-budget team, others just quasi-bribing cash strapped owners with personal sponsorship money to have a go in the seat.

Over two short years in F1, Inoue drove for two teams, started 18 races, and never managed a podium finish, let alone one high enough to score a point. His best performance was an 8th, and 13 of those saw him knocked out before finishing by some manner of mishap.

He'd all be forgotten today had it not been for one bizarre incident that happened during the 1995 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Inoue's engine had blown on lap 14, forcing him to pull to the side of the track and abandon the steaming car.

For some reason he decided to lend the marshals a hand in dousing his own mess and grabbed a fire extinguisher. However, while rushing back towards his car, he stepped into the path of a responding emergency vehicle and went for a tumble across it's hood.

Inoue broke his leg, but not seriously enough for him to miss the next race, though he'd be out of the sport for good by the end of that year.

All in all, Inoue's been fairly frank and self-deferential about what a disaster his time on the Grand Prix circuit was, parlaying his status as "F1's worst driver" into a social media presence and making no bones about the fact that his accident with a safety car is what everyone will remember him for.

On the hit that sent him flying he says "I landed on my feet, so I give it a 9.9 out of 10"

 

[Coleslaw]

Can you believe the couple wasn't arrested for this?

Berlin Wall, Christmas: 1961.

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English civilians celebrate Christmas with dinner in a bomb shelter at the height of the Blitz. London, England, U.K. 25 December 1940.

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Father and son with Christmas tree, 1949.

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U.S POWs received gifts from families at the Christmas in Hoa Lo Prison, Vietnam (1970s).

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Unemployed workers in front of a shack with Christmas tree, East 12th Street, NYC, 1938.

Hundreds of people line up for the free Christmas dinner at the New York Municipal Lodging House during the Great Depression, December 25, 1931.

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[Carlos Thin]

Homecoming for the Irish soccer team after the 1990 World Cup, in which they reached the quarter-finals, the furthest they had reached in the tournament. About 500,000 people attended, about an eighth of the population of the entire country. Ireland have never repeated their success, and have only made two World Cup appearances since.

 

[Compulsory Games]

A Hungarian propaganda piece depicting Vlad the Impaler as Pontius Pilate:

And as a proconsul crucifying St Andrew:

 

[Chad Holdenford]

Brazilian soldiers during World War II. In this one they are at leisure and taking a pic with a sign saying "2nd Aniversary. Hitler, here we are already".

The iconic patch of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force is that of the Smoking Snake, an allusion to then-president Getúlio Vargas' infamous quote that he'd only join the efforts of war "when snakes started smoking". In order to guarantee funding for state industries from the US, Vargas had to swallow his pride and send about 20000 soldiers to combat in northern Italy, against the forces of Hitler and Mussolini whom he actually admired and wanted to emulate in Brazil.

These brave motherfuckers had a hand in sending Mussolini and his cronies to their doom. Almost all of them were impoverished youngsters looking for a means to survive, and had to face harsh cold (which their clothes were ill-fit to endure) and a tremendously poor diet that often consisted only of rice, beans, rapadura and whatever the American troops shared with them.

Private Francisco de Paula mounting an artillery cannon with the famous FEB slogan, "The Snake Is Smoking". Perhaps the more iconic picture of a troop member.

The triumphant return of portions of the survivors.

Around 400 troopers died in combat. They were originally cremated and buried in the city of Pistoia. Their ashes were later transferred to a special mausoleum built in Rio de Janeiro, the Memorial of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force.

"Here Lies a Hero of the FEB. God Knows Their Name".

 

[Mr. ShadowCreek]

A group of men enjoy a snowball fight at the Florida State Capital after a rare snowstorm in Tallahassee in 1899. The snowstorm affected most of the U.S. east of the Rockies.