Iconic Photographs

Looks like Manchesters gay parade...

Red Army soldiers in a trench as a Soviet T-34 tank passes over them, 1943.

I had to do this when I was based at Dover in the Junior Leader's Regiment RE!

Soviet soldiers duck under passing tanks during an intensive training before the Battle of Kursk. The goal was to desensitize them to this experience and also to teach them the importance of digging trenches and holes strong enough to resist being driven over by tanks. Russian soldiers called this training “ironing”. The Germans actually developed a technique called “milling” to squish enemy troops to death who are hiding in foxholes or trenches, which is essentially wiggling the tank side to side to dig down and crush the occupant of the hole. Part of infantry training was focused overcoming the soldiers’ fear of tanks and on the ability to control antitank rifles, grenades and Molotov cocktails to perfections in order to boldly enter battle against enemy.

Vladimir Lenin's last photo. He had had three strokes at this point and was completely mute, 1923.
This last photo shows Vladimir Lenin in a wheelchair after suffering three stokes in the previous two years. By the end he was paralyzed and completely mute. Beside him are his sister Anna Ilyinichna Yelizarova-Ulyanova and one of his doctors A. M. Kozhevnikov.

The mental strains of leading a revolution, governing, and fighting a civil war aggravated the physical debilitation consequent to the wounds from the attempted assassinations. In 1918, Lenin narrowly survived an assassination attempt, but was severely wounded. His long term health was heavily affected. In March 1922 physicians prescribed rest for his fatigue and headaches. Upon returning to Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) in May 1922, Lenin suffered the first of three strokes, which left him unable to speak for weeks, and severely hampered motion in his right side. By June, he had substantially recovered; by August he resumed limited duties, delivering three long speeches in November. In December 1922, he suffered the second stroke that partly paralyzed his right side, he then withdrew from active politics. On March 10, 1923, Lenin’s health was dealt another severe blow when he suffered the third stroke, this one taking away his ability to speak and concluding his political work. Lenin was mute and bed-ridden until his death but officially remained the leader of the Communist Party.

Vladimir Lenin died at 18:50, Moscow time, on 21 January 1924, aged 53, at his estate at Gorki settlement (later renamed Gorki Leninskiye). In the four days that the Bolshevik Leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin lay in state, more than 900,000 mourners viewed his body in the Hall of Columns.

Died in Moscow,,, I thought he was shot in New York...

Davidov Chapmanski...

still locked up i think. got refused parole 8 or 9 times

Yeah, read that recently...

Feeding polar bears from a tank, 1950. (This story is blox. Polar bears starve when it's summer time and there is no ice cover for them to catch seals...)

Photo taken during a routine military expedition in Chukchi Peninsula, Soviet Union. It isn’t sure if the Chukchi Peninsula has more people or white bears. The climate is very severe and sometimes weather can be so fierce in winter that the temperature falls 40 C degrees below zero (-40 Fahrenheit) so that poor white bears and their cubs start starving and freezing.

The soldiers, who served on the Army District of Chukchi Peninsula, didn’t turn their backs on the poor and starving animals and started to feed them every now and then. Of course you do not have such big amounts of meat at home to feed several white bears. And soldiers decided to feed the bears up with what they had in abundance – tins, or to be more exact, condensed milk.

Soldiers would open such a tin with a tin-opener and then give the can to the bear who licked all the milk from tin and then feed her little bears with it. Those blue and white tins of condensed milk were the winter dessert staple of every Soviet kid. The condensed milk (called in Russian: sgushchennoye moloko) had indeterminately long shelf life and there was always plenty of it. It was a common dessert in the army too. It isn’t surprised to see it given away to bears, because unlike some stuff that was rationed the condensed milk in USSR was available in unlimited amounts.



They must be feckin' mad...

The Falling Soldier, 1936. Spanish civil war.

The Falling Soldier became famous for the way it seems to capture, with terrifying immediacy, the moment when a bullet fatally strikes a Spanish Loyalist militiaman; later, it became famous for allegations that the photograph was “faked”, or at least (though this was common practice at the time) staged. The soldier is collapsing backwards, having been fatally shot in the head. He is dressed in civilian-looking clothing but wearing a leather cartridge belt, and his rifle is slipping out of his right hand. The photo was taken by Jewish Hungarian photographer Robert Capa. From 1936 to 1939, Capa worked in Spain, photographing the Spanish Civil War.

It was understood to have been taken on September 5, 1936, and was long thought to depict the death of a Republican during the Spanish Civil War. He was later identified as the anarchist militiaman Federico Borrell García (this is still disputed though). The original title of the photograph is “Loyalist militiaman at the moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936”. The story behind this photo is too much complicated and disputed. Some historians say it’s genuine, some others say it’s staged. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. However, one thing is true, the photo was not taken on Cerro Muriano, but at the village of Espejo.

Fake...

Adam Mint wrote:Fake...

Ooh! Trump's infiltrated the forum!

Pele and Bobby Moore swapping jerseys after Brazil defeated England, 1970.

This picture was taken during the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, where England, the 1966 champion, lost the trophy. Brazil won the match, 1-0, in Guadalajara and went on to win the tournament, fielding perhaps the finest soccer team ever.

Above and beyond that, this photograph captured the respect that two great players had for each other. As they exchanged jerseys, touches and looks, the sportsmanship between them is all in the image. No gloating, no fist-pumping from Pele. No despair, no defeatism from Bobby Moore. The Times wrote that this picture broke down racial prejudices (which might be a little hyperbolic).

Moore, in many eyes the most accomplished English defender ever, died of cancer in 1993. He regarded this photograph as his favorite in a career during which he captained his country 90 times, including the day England won the World Cup. Pele, the three-time winner of the World Cup and the most complete player in history, still considers this picture a defining moment in his life. “Bobby Moore was my friend as well as the greatest defender I ever played against”, Pele said after Moore’s death. “The world has lost one of its greatest football players and an honorable gentleman”.

Highbury Stadium in London, 1951.

No camera crews. No advertisements. Just fans and football. This match also confirmed a long-standing friendly relationship between Rangers and Arsenal.

There’s always been something romantic about football under lights. This striking photograph is captured as 62,000 fans fill the Arsenal Football Stadium in Highbury, North London to see Arsenal challenge the Glasgow Rangers. It is Arsenal’s second match ever to be played under Highbury’s floodlights (the first during a September 19 match against Hapoel Tel Aviv). Under these powerful new lamps Arsenal would claim a 3-2 victory over Glasgow; conquest and stadium both immortalized in wide-format monochrome.

This particular floodlights seemed to bring luck to Arsenal regardless of venue. In 1962 the lights were sold to Bohemian Football Club at a back-then cost of $24,500 and installed in Dublin’s Dalymount Park. The first competitive match the lights shone upon? Bohemian vs. Arsenal, with Arsenal claiming an 8-3 victory.

Floodlighting in football dates as far back as 1878, when there were floodlit experimental matches at Bramall Lane, Sheffield during the dark winter afternoons. With no national grid, lights were powered by batteries and dynamoes, and were unreliable. Lights were later be used by clubs such as Thames Ironworks, but they stopped the practice after joining the Southern League in 1888. In the 1930s, Herbert Chapman installed lights into the new West Stand at Highbury but the Football League refused to sanction their use. This situation lasted until the 1950s, when the popularity of floodlit friendlies became such that the League relented.

Terry Sawchuk - The face of a hockey goalie before masks became standard game equipment, 1966.

This face belongs to Terry Sawchuk, a 36-year-old goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Re-created here, by a professional make-up artist and a doctor, are some of the more than 400 stitches he had earned during 16 years in the National Hockey League. Terry Sawchuk’s face was bashed over and over, but not all at one time. His wounds healed. The scars weren’t easily seen – except for a few of them. The re-creation of his injuries was done to help show the extent of his injuries over a span of years.

Sawchuk had sustained other injuries not shown here: a slashed eyeball requiring three stitches, a 70% loss of function in his right arm because 60 bone chips were removed from his elbow, and a permanent “sway-back” caused by continual bent-over posture.

Bobby Fischer playing 50 opponents simultaneously, 1964.

Bobby Fischer is considered by many to be the greatest chess player who ever lived. In this particular simultaneous exhibition, he won 47 of the matches, drew 2 and lost 1. He lost to Donn Rogosin, not a well-known player. Fischer was 21 in this picture.

He is playing white, that’s a big advantage in high-level chess. You can choose an opening that you know well and your opponent doesn’t know well. Basically, you get decide which direction the game’s going to go for the first few turns. Openings are by the book so to speak, but there are variations and choices you can make. This is especially obvious in gambit style openings where you offer to sacrifice a piece for position, here the opponent can choose to take it or not. So there is a lot to know even if the best moves in a given position are known. But grand masters will know most of these of course and a lot of preparation goes into finding answers to the opening you expect from your opponent.

After only 4 moves, there are already millions of possible openings. Not all of these openings would be viable or “good moves”. There are a lot of openings that have been discovered and masters of the game would know a lot of those. There are some variations that are more common than others, and those have been logged as ‘book lines’ far past a typical opening sequences. The great thing about chess is there are so many ways to create an entirely unique game for yourself each time. Strategies and patterns often repeat, but positions are rarely equal.

Bit slow for me, i would boot the board up in the air, Aries innit

Dagen H, the day Sweden switched sides of the road, 1967.

Dagen H (H day) was the day, 3 September 1967, on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. The “H” stands for “Högertrafik”, the Swedish word for “right traffic”. After all, Sweden’s Scandinavian neighbors were on the right side of the road, most of Europe was on the right side of the road, and Swedish cars had left hand steering.

Sweden’s early automotive era relied on imported American automobiles. Sweden had, nevertheless, maintained a dominant left-hand traffic system since the mid 18th century. Initially, the usage of American cars (with drivers positioned on the left side of the vehicle) in left-hand traffic was advantageous to early drivers. It allowed them to negotiate the tight squeezes past oncoming traffic by paying close attention to the underdeveloped left shoulders of the country’s old roads.

By the 1950s and 1960s, increased auto traffic and more developed roads created dangerous overtaking situations due to the mismatch of left-hand roads and American style left-side drive. Therefore, the Swedes implemented a switch in the name of logic, safety and consistency with their Scandinavian and continental counterparts.



A girl with Dagen H logo on underwear.

The German embassy in Sweden flying the flag at half mast the day Hitler died, 1945.

The embassy is an official state function and since the Third Reich outlived Hitler by six weeks, it would be more odd if they did not raise the flag when the head of state died. Actually Hitler’s death wasn’t officially announced until May 1st, but the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (German High Command) obviously got the news well before that and might have informed embassies so they could bring the news out worldwide on May 1st, but perhaps the flag got lowered to half mast prematurely in Sweden.

Germany did not invade Sweden because Sweden was traditionally a neutral country for over 200 years and Hitler did not want to bother Sweden when he already had Norway, a more strategically located nation. During the invasion of Scandinavia, Sweden kept neutral, but because much of their income was generated by exporting iron, they continued to sell it to Nazi Germany. Sweden would not help Finland fight off the Soviet attack, but 8,000 Swedes volunteered for the Finnish army. Sensing the impending trouble, nearly everyone in the country pitched in to bolster the Swedish defense lines. Although Sweden was surrounded by chaotic war, its citizens led relatively normal lives. However, every Swedish family was affected by it because so many civilians were called into the military reserves.

Looks like they had a log burner

Anti-blast wall maybe?

Campbell Brodie wrote:Anti-blast wall maybe?

Do they give out more heat

Our PM, De Valera, sent a telegram of condolence to the German people on the death of hitler . We were meant to be neutral, but our weather stations were telegraphing the war office in London ( they delayed D-Day because of a report sent from here, ).
we also numbered all the headlands ( big numbers made with stone on the ground) and sent these toLondon. The numbers were passed on to the RAF and Americans who then found it easier to navigate. But the biggest thing was, any Germans who sank and washed up, or crash landed , were interred for the duration of the war. Any Allied troops, were also interred. They were marched into camp, where their name and number were recorded, and, I kid you not, told where the back door of the building was, where the fence wasn't finished, and told, under no circumstances were they to go through said door and fence, and they were also forbidden to look at the map beside the back door, showing the way across the border into the north,@ 20/25 miles away

The moment Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, 1963.

On November 24, 1963, two days after Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, he was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver.

Note that Jack Ruby is using his middle finger to pull the trigger on the revolver. It suggests that this was not Ruby’s first rodeo so to speak. Using the middle finger to pull the trigger of a snub nose revolver was a gun slinger type of method. It is used for close-in, very fast shooting where shooter doesn’t bring the revolver up to aim. The trigger finger (index finger) is placed along the side of the revolver and then the shooter points the gun while pulling the trigger with the middle finger. This is not something a novice would do.

Although hundreds of cameras and news reels captured the moment, the most famous image of Ruby’s killing was made by the Dallas Times-Herald reporter, Robert H. Jackson. He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Photography for the above photo, which showed “the hunched determination of the assassin, the painful gasp of the handcuffed victim, and the shock of helplessness on the face of a policeman”.

Wonder if Oswald was guilty