77 Pictures Showcasing Examples Of ‘Incredible History’

Some of the most exciting stories you’ll ever hear are those that come straight out of history books. But sadly, the way these tales are often delivered tends to bore us to tears or leave us snoring through our lessons. So if you’re interested in taking your understanding of history into your own hands, we’ve got the perfect list for you, pandas.

Below, you’ll find photos of some of the most fascinating moments from the past couple centuries that have been captured on film, courtesy of the Incredible History Instagram account. Enjoy scrolling through this virtual blast from the past, and keep reading to find a conversation with Luke Rosa, teacher and creator of Students of History!

#1 Iran, 1979 – Thousands Of Iranian Women Protesting On The Streets Against Prospects Of Mandating Hijab

#2 650 American Officers And Enlisted Men Paying Tribute To More Than 8 Million Horses, Mules And Donkeys That Died In Service In The World War I

#3 A Shepherd From The Village Of Kınalık With His Children, Azerbaijan, 1970’s

#4 Shavarsh Karapetyan, An Armenian Finswimmer(10-Time World Record Holder), Who Saved Lives Of 20 Drowning Passengers In A Sinking Trolleybus Which Fell Of A Bridge Into The Yerevan Lake

#5 Polish Border Guard And His Horse Drinking Water From The Stream In The Bieszczady Mountains During A Patrol, 1980

#6 The Arkadiko Bridge, A Mycenaean Bridge Near The Modern Road From Tiryns To Epidauros On The Peloponnese, Greece. Dating To The Greek Bronze Age, It Is One Of The Oldest Arch Bridges Still In Existence And Use Today And The Oldest Preserved Bridge In Europe

#7 “Mother’s Eyes” The Bedouin Mother; Photograph By Ilo Battigeli, 1948

#8 German And British Pilots Engaged In A Dogfight Above St Paul’s Cathedral During The Battle Of Britain, London, 1940, World War II

#9 A 9000-Year Old Skeleton Was Found In A Cave Near Cheddar, England, And Nicknamed “Cheddar Man”

#10 The Bridge To Nowhere

#11 A Lone Dog Sits In Snow Next To A Column Of Retreating Italian Soldiers Near Stalingrad, Soviet Union, December 1942, World War II

#12 Remains Of An Ancient Roman City Of Timgad In The Aures Mountains Of Algeria

#13 March 16, 1945: A U.S. Marine Approaches A Japanese Soldier On Iwo Jima, Japan During World War II

#14 Princess Elizabeth At 19 Years Of Age Is Seen In The Auxiliary Territorial Service In The 1945, During World War II

#15 111 Football Games Played At Hackney Marshes, London, United Kingdom In 1962

#16 Actor Yul Brynner Arriving To The Premiere Of The Movie “The Ten Commandments” In His Mercedes 300 Sl Roadster, 1956

#17 Activist Ben Masel Smokes A Joint While Voting In The 1976 Presidential Election Taking Advantage Of An Apparent Law That Prohibits Arrest While Voting

#18 Goodyear’s Illuminated Tires – A Woman Adjusts Her Stocking Using The Light Emitted By The Goodyear Tire On An October Night In 1961

#19 To Protect It From Drying Out, A Worker Sprays Water Onto A Millennia-Old Chariot Recently Unearthed In The City Of Luoyang In Central China

#20 Paris, France, 1890

#21 Painter Marc Monnier Paints A Canvas On The Front During The Gulf War In October 1991, Kuwait

#22 A Soldier Of The French Foreign Legion Holding The Dog “Fritz”, The Battalion Mascot, At Bir Hakeim. Fritz “Moved Over To The Other Side” And Joined The Battalion In Narvik In 1940, And Stayed With Them Ever Since

#23 The Coins That Saved A Soldier’s Life- At The Beginning Of World War I

#24 J. Robert Oppenheimer With Albert Einstein At The Institute For Advanced Study, 1947

#25 Drive-In Theater, Los Angeles, 1949

#26 Young Boy With Prepared Molotov Cocktails On A Rooftop Of A Building In Derry, During The Battle Of The Bogside, August 1969

#27 The Cockpit Of An American B-24 Bomber From The 392nd Bomb Squadron Of The 30th Bomb Group, Damaged By A Japanese Anti-Aircraft Shell On January 27, 1945, During A Sortie To Bombard Iwo Jima

#28 Snowball Fight In Lyon, France, 1896

#29 The Crew Of British Hm Submarine ‘Unison’ Display Their ‘Jolly Roger’ At Devonport, Plymouth, Having Returned From A Successful 16 Months In The Mediterranean. 1943, World War II

#30 Last Sword Duel In History In France, 1967, Between The Mayor Of Marseille -Gaston Defferre, And Another Member Of French Parliament, Rene Ribière

#31 A Fake Tree Used As An Observation Post And Sniper Nest On The Frontline By The British Army During World War I

#32 Portus, Roman Empire’s Imperial Port, As It Would Have Appeared In The Past Compared To Today. The Port Was Established By Emperor Claudius, And Enlarged By Emperor Trajan, To Supplement The Nearby Port Of Ostia

#33 Babies Left To Sleep Outside In The Freezing Cold, Enforcing Their Immune System, Moscow, Soviet Union, 1958

#34 Jordanian Brides Wearing Full-Face Veils Seen Waiting Patiently For Their Mass Wedding Ceremony

#35 A 1960’s Coca Cola Advertisment Made By Spreading Grain For Pigeons In St. Mark’s Square, Venice, Italy

#36 Members Of The Fat Men’s Club Of New York, 1904. All Members Had To Be At Least 200 Pounds(91kg), Pay A One Dollar Fee And Learn A Secret Handshake And Password

#37 Japanese Samurai, 1870’s

#38 Germany, 1923: During Hyperinflation, Banknotes Had Lost So Much Value That They Were Used As Wallpaper, Being Much Cheaper Than Actual Wallpaper

#39 World War I Us Army Helmet With Skull Trench Art On The Front

#40 The U.S. Pacific Fleet Seen Positioning For Battle During The Marshall Islands Campaign, 1944, World War II

#41 Canadian Police Officer Guarding The Pharmacy In Waist-High Flood Waters In Galt, Ontario, 1974

#42 American Pilot Robert L. Brown Of Denver, Colorado, Poses In The Cockpit Of An F6f Hellcat Aboard The Uss Yorktown (Cv-10) Aircraft Carrier With “Scrappy,” The Ship’s Mascot, November-December 1943, In Pacific, World War II

#43 Mugshot And Fingerprints Of Benito Mussolini, Bern, Switzerland, 1903

#44 Pavlik Manukyan, Armenian War Hero During The First Nagorno-Karabakh War In The Early 1990’s, Seen During A Visit To His Family Away From The Frontline. He Is Posing Armed With A Pkm Machine Gun, Standing Next To His Son

#45 Burning Kuwaiti Oil Fires, Caused By The Iraqi Military Setting Fire To Approximately 700 Oil Wells As Part Of A Scorched Earth Policy While Retreating From Kuwait In 1991 Due To The Advances Of Us-LED Coalition Forces In The Gulf War. Photograph By Steve Mccurry

#46 Luftwaffe Pilot Adolf Galland Preparing To Take A Gift Basket Of Lobster And Champagne For General Osterkamp’s Birthday, 1941

#47 American Heavyweight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali During His Visit To Egypt, June 1964

#48 Digital Reconstruction Of Untouched Manhattan, New York, In Year 1609, In Comparison To Year 2021

#49 A British Soldier Is Seen Tempting Turkish Snipers To Give Away Their Positions While Others Snatch Some Shut-Eye During The Gallipoli Campaign In 1915, World War I

#50 An Elderly Chechen Man Wearing Traditional Clothes, Poses On A Horse While Chechen Rebels Behind Him Stand On Top Of A Captured Russian Armored Vehicle, Grozny, Chechnya, First Chechen War(1994-1996

#51 Kurdish Peshmergas, Iraq, 1970’s

#52 Croatian Soldier Attending A Mass In Front Of A Destroyed Church, Croatian Homeland War, 1991-1995

#53 An American Soldier Poses On The Dragon At The “Nibelungenhalle” In Königswinter, North Rhine-Westphalia Germany – 1945

#54 The Ball Turret On The American B-17 Bomber Plane, 1943, World War II

#55 Bosnian Girl With An Ak-47, Smoking Smokes While Waiting For A Funeral Service At Sarajevo’s Lion’s Cemetery On Monday, Sept. 14, 1992

#56 Austro-Hungarian Officer At The Frontline In Galicia, Eastern Front, 1915, World War I

#57 German Kaiser Wilhelm II Of The German Empire, Photographed Smoking In Silesia In 1913

#58 German Fallschirmjäger Armed With The Fg 42 Automatic Rifle, Seen During The Battle Of Monte Cassino, 15 March 1944, World War II

#59 Us Marine Resting After The Capture Of Saddam Hussein’s Presidential Palace In Tikrit, Iraq, April 14 2003

#60 Oil Derricks And Beach-Goers At The Huntington Beach, California, 1930’s

#61 Us Soldier Circa 1942 With A Flamethrower And Experimental Camo At Fort Belvoir, Which A Testing Ground For The Us Army

#62 A Man Rushes Off With A Trolley Full Of Diapers During The 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Photograph By Kirk Mckoy

#63 The Norrmalmstorg Robbery – Press Photographers And Police Snipers Side By Side On A Roof Opposite Of Kreditbanken Bank In Stockholm, Sweden, August 1973

#64 Soldier Of The 1st Mechanized Guard Brigade “Tigers” Of The Croatian Army, Posing With A Tiger Cub, The Unit’s Mascot. 1991, Croatian Homeland War

#65 Rest In Peace, Tony Sirico

#66 Continuation War, Finland. Close-Up Of The “Elephant-Gun”, The Lahti L-39, Lipola

#67 Lebanese Christian Militia Of The Phalanges. Note The Iraqi Made Ak ‘Tabuk’ And Hungarian Made Amd65 Rifles. Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1990

#68 Dubai, United Arab Emirates

#69 A Crew From The 16th/5th Lancers, 6th Armoured Division, Clean The Gun Barrel Of Their Crusader Tank At El Aroussa In Tunisia, 1943, World War II

#70 German Ski Patrol Equipped With A Mg 34 Machine Gun In Snowy Conditions In The Soviet Union, Winter 1942, World War II

#71 Town Of An-Loc, Vietnam. Soviet -Built North Vietnamese T54 Tank Destroyed By South Vietnam’s 81st Airborne Ranger Group, 1972, Vietnam War

#72 A German Mg 34 Machine Gunner On The Eastern Front, World War II (Winter, 1941)

#73 Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)

#74 Chechen Fighter, 1995, First Chechen War

#75 Two Croatian Soldiers On The Frontline In Turanj, Croatia, 1992, Croatian Homeland War

#76 Teenage Wasteland – A Young Us Marine Takes A Break During A Ground Movement 25 Miles North Of An Hoa, North Vietnam. 1969, Vietnam War

#77 Members Of The 1st Guards Brigade – Tigers Of The Croatian Army, On Trpinja Road, Vukovar, 1991, Croatian Homeland War