30 Amazing Black And White Historical Photos Found On This IG Page

Historical photos are our window into what happened in the past. Before doctoring, AI and Photoshop became the norm, photographs were the best way to get an idea of important historical events. The Instagram account ‘History in Black & White’ is a dedicated space that is home to images that have survived the ages. These black-and-white photos give us a glimpse into additional details about people, places and things that happened back in the day in their most authentic form.

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#1 A young boy playing the banjo to his dog in 1920.

#2 A little girl holding her pet toad at a pet show at Venice Beach, California, USA in 1936.

#3 Oda Nobuyoshi, Japanese Civil Rights activist and dentist during the Meiji Era. Photograph taken in 1880 when he was 20-years-old.

#4 Royal Navy stoker with 21 years service nicknamed “Popeye”, photographed on board the HMS Rodney in September 1940. A stoker was responsible for anything from the propulsion systems to hydraulics, electrical and firefighting systems. The HMS Rodney played a major role in the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in mid-1941.

#5 A 16-year-old Bill Clinton, future 42nd President of the United States, shaking hands with 35th US President John F. Kennedy at a American Legion Boys Nation event on July 24th, 1963.

#6 A young Prince Charles standing between his grandmother, The Queen Mother (left), and aunt, Princess Margaret (right), at his mother Queen Elizabeth’s coronation on 2 June 1953

#7 Private James Hendrix of the 101st Airborne, playing guitar at Fort Campbell Kentucky in 1962. Jimi Hendrix went on to become one of the most influential guitarists of all time.

#8 Roland, a 4,000 pound elephant seal, getting a snow bath from his handler at Berlin Zoo, Germany in c. 1930.

#9 A helmeted bulldog guarding a family outside a block of flats during the Blitz on the 15th October 1940

#10 Mercury Trains photographed in 1936. Mercury was the name used by the New York Central Railroad for a family of daytime streamliner passenger trains operating between midwestern cities. The Mercury’s started operating in 1936 and lasted until 1959.

#11 A large crowd in Times Square, New York City celebrating the surrender of Germany, May 7th, 1945.

#12 Sadie Pfeifer, a young girl working at the Lancaster Cotton Mills in Lancaster, South Carolina, in 30 November 1908. At the time of the photograph, Sadie had worked at the mill for half a year.

#13 Sergeant William Henry “Black Death” Johnson of the 369th Infantry Regiment (Harlem Hellfighters) wearing his Croix de Guerre medal in circa 1918. In North France, Johnson single-handedly fought off a German raiding party receiving 21 wounds in order to save fellow soldier Private Needham Roberts.

#14 A photograph of Edinburgh, Scotland from the sky taken by Alfred G. Buckham in the 1920s.

#15 The iconic American wartime photograph “The Thousand Yard Stare” showing an exhausted 19-year-old US Marine Private Theodore J. Miller in February 1944 after two days of constant fighting at the Battle of Eniwetok. Miller would be killed in a firefight during the invasion of Ebon Atoll a month later on the 24 March 1944.

#16 Photograph of the oldest house in Hamburg, Germany taken in 1898. It was built in 1524 and, despite protests from locals, was demolished on the 8 December 1910.

#17 A group of Japanese Samurai photographed in front of the Sphinx in Giza, Egypt during a visit to the country, 1864.

#18 The last photo ever of Nikola Tesla. Taken on the 1 January 1943, 6 days before his death at the age of 86.

#19 A cat escaping from the Animal Rescue League in Boston, Massachusetts in 1940

#20 Statue of David by Michelangelo, encased in bricks to prevent damage from bombs, during World War 2. Photograph taken in the 1940s.

#21 Cow shoes used by moonshiners during the Prohibition Era to hide their footprints, June 18th, 1924.

#22 The train wreck at Montparnasse Station in Paris, France on or near the 22nd October 1895.

#23 Robert Wadlow, the tallest man to ever live, with his family in c. 1930s. Wadlow stood at 8 ft 11.1 in (272 cm) tall.

#24 An open-air school in the Netherlands photographed in 1957.

#25 Harriet Tubman photographed in 1911 at the age of 89.

#26 Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet for his wife Lucille in front of the Great Sphinx of Giza in Greater Cairo, Egypt, in 1961.

#27 A federal agent inspects a ‘lumber’ truck after smelling alcohol during the prohibition period, Los Angeles, in 1926.

#28 The head of a Joseph Stalin statue on the streets of Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

#29 Amiens Cathedral photographed during World War I showing the walls lined with sandbags in order to protect the building from artillery. Taken in Amiens, France in 1918.

#30 One of the largest and heaviest horses ever recorded, Brooklyn Supreme, photographed in c. 1940s. He stood 19.2 hands (198 cm (6 ft 6 in)) tall and weighed 3,200 lb (1,451 kg).

Shanilou Perera

Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.