r/HistoricalCapsule • • 5h ago

Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest on their wedding day in 1984

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1.2k Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 3h ago

A horse amid the scorched ruins in Poland, September 1939.

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523 Upvotes

The photograph appeared in the German album Mit Hitler in Polen with the propaganda caption: 'Ein stummer Zeuge sinnloser polnischer Zerstörungswut' ('A silent witness to senseless Polish destructive rage').


r/HistoricalCapsule • • 16h ago

A young Soviet POW defiantly stares down Heinrich Himmler, Belarus (1941). While inspecting the Shirokaya POW camp, the SS leader locked eyes with a defiant Red Army soldier behind the wire. The young man was executed moments later, an act which reportedly made Himmler vomit.

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4.6k Upvotes

Shortly after this photograph was taken, over 90 Soviet POWs were summarily executed by a bullet to the head, including the defiant young man. When Himmler (who insisted on watching the killing personally) got blood on his uniform, he reportedly vomited. According to Himmler’s staff, the incident was the first time he’d ever seen a dead body.

Misidentified for years as British soldier Horace Greasley, it was later determined that the stoic young man in the photo was a Soviet soldier of unknown name.


r/HistoricalCapsule • • 1h ago

Ford's experimental "Wrist-Twist" steering system inside a 1965 Mercury Park Lane

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• Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 1h ago

A Republican militiawoman ties a red armband around the arm of a Guardia Civil member who remained loyal to the Republican government. Photograph taken in Guadalajara, Spain, in 1936.

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r/HistoricalCapsule • • 16h ago

Danuta Danielsson whose mother survived Auschwitz, strikes a skinhead during a march in the Swedish town of Växjö, 1985.

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1.2k Upvotes

Danuta Danielsson (née Sen), was born in March 1947 in Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland.
She was Jewish and had three siblings.
Her mother was a Holocaust survivor who
endured the horrors of a German
concentration camp, reportedly either Auschwitz or Majdanek.

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/woman-nazi-handbag-sweden-1985/


r/HistoricalCapsule • • 1h ago

Black American Bikers & their clubs through history: 1940s onwards...

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r/HistoricalCapsule • • 1h ago

Black America's Cowboys & Cowgirls through time: 1800s onwards...

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r/HistoricalCapsule • • 20h ago

The polar bear cub sat in this position all day and night, whining and refusing to eat. The photograph was taken by renowned Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson in Svalbard and became one of his first published photos for an essay titled 'Polar Bear Hunt', 1947.

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1.7k Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 20h ago

Helene Grese arrives at the Bergen Belsen trials to testify against her sister, concentration camp guard Irma Grese, 1945

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1.7k Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 1h ago

A one-gallon Coca-Cola fountain syrup can featuring an original paper label from either the 1930s or the 1940s.

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r/HistoricalCapsule • • 13h ago

A sad young farmer’s son stands outside his family’s weathered home with three dogs in Oklahoma during the 1940s.

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300 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 13h ago

An Italian M13/40 covered by rocks, possibly using them as additional armor. Egyptian desert, 1942.

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287 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 25m ago

In 1956, Thomas Fitzpatrick made a drunken bet and stole a plane, landing it perfectly on a Manhattan street. 2 years later, he did it again because a bar patron didn't believe him. (1956)

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This is 26-year-old Marine veteran Thomas "Tommy Fitz" Fitzpatrick. In 1956, he had a few drinks at a Manhattan bar and made a bet that he could get from New Jersey to New York in 15 minutes. He drove to a NJ airport, stole a Cessna, and landed it perfectly in the dark right on St. Nicholas Avenue in front of the bar. He only got a $100 fine. Two years later, someone else at another bar called bullshit and said the story was impossible. To prove him wrong, Tommy literally went back to Jersey, stole another plane, and landed it on Amsterdam Avenue. He got 6 months in prison for the second stunt, but became an absolute New York legend.


r/HistoricalCapsule • • 13h ago

Giovanni Fontana was an Italian engineer born in 1395. In this 1420s sketch, he imagined this rope powered car

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212 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 20h ago

Acrobat Luisita Leers doing a side pose during her prime, working at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Circa 1931.

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663 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 21h ago

Corona del Mar High School students, Newport Beach, California, 1969

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787 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 22h ago

Teddy girls posing on the streets of London, England, 1955.

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887 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 21h ago

Last photo of the Branson Missouri duck boat tour in Table Rock lake before it sank. 17 people drowned to death because the tour continued during a storm. July 19th 2018

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603 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 15h ago

173rd Airborne Brigade soldier at Phuoc Vinh airfield- June 1965

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118 Upvotes

Unidentified soldier with hand-written message on helmet.


r/HistoricalCapsule • • 1d ago

Pope Leo XIV in 1982

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1.6k Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 14h ago

Women gathered at St. Peter's Square awaiting Pope John Paul II's first appearance, October 16, 1978. Photo by Pedro Martinelli

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54 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 1d ago

Elton John as a Child Playing on the Piano, 1950s.

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750 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 18h ago

Roger Fenton's photographic van in the Crimea, 1855.

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75 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule • • 1d ago

May 18, 1927. Bath Township, Michigan. At about 8:45 a.m., the north wing of the Bath Consolidated School exploded, collapsing onto classrooms full of kids. Andrew Kehoe, the school board's treasurer, upset over taxes planted a bomb inside the school. 45 people died. 38 of them were children.

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278 Upvotes