No one can predict the future, but we can better understand the present by looking back at history.
Here are 100 must-see historical moments – significant events that have shaped our world. From wars and revolutions to scientific discoveries and technological innovations, these are some of the most important moments in human progress.
Whether you’re a history buff or want to learn more about our fascinating past, check out this list!
A protestant husband and his catholic wife were not allowed to be buried together. Here are their headstones reaching across the two cemeteries in 1888.
Demonstrating how bulletproof vests work, 1923.
A family poses with their covered wagon in Kansas, 1908.
Building the hand and torch of the Statue of Liberty, Paris, 1876.
The tallest man to ever live, Robert Wadlow, poses with his family in 1935.
Teaching the physics of surfing, California, 1970s.
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Young German soldier after being captured, 1945. Getty Images
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Lenin giving a speech in Moscow, 1920
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Samurai in full armor and sword, c. 1860.
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Photo of an ironworker during construction of the Columbia Tower, Seattle, 1984.After Randall Champion touched a high-voltage line, electrocuting himself and stopping his heart, J.D. Thompson gave him CPR until help arrived, allowing Champion to survive. “The Kiss of Life.” (1967) by Rocco Morabito.
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Three-year-old Robert Quigley smoking a cigar, 1928. Photo by Henry Miller
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A father searches for his two sons who went missing during the Kosovo war in 1999.
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Windows on the World. Restaurant on the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, 1976. Photo by Ezra Stoller
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Disco Granny, a regular fixture at Studio 54.
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A 17-year-old Fidel Castro playing basketball, 1943.
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A baby cage, initially named a “health cage”, was essentially a bed encased in wire, dangling from the windows of city apartments.
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During World War II, Steinway & Sons air-dropped pianos with large parachutes and complete tuning instructions into the battle for the American troops.
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Anne Frank photographed with her sister Margot at the beach in Zandvoort, Netherlands, in 1940.
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This photo from 1902 shows French knife grinders. They would work on their stomachs in order to save their backs from being hunched all day.
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Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi (1915 – 1997) is emotionally overcome on his return to Tokyo on February 2nd, 1972.
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The photo, taken by Irving Penn in 1947, shows Peter Freuchen, a Danish adventurer, writer, and scientist.
Captain Lewis Nixon of Easy Company, suffering a hangover after celebrating V-E Day in 1945.
The Statue of Liberty as seen from the torch.
Three soldiers who lost their left leg in the New Georgia Campaign exercise the stump of their legs in preparation for using artificial limbs. McCloskey General Hospital, Texas, January 1944.
A young man unphased by his arrest for growing marijuana, 1970s.
This is the first image captured of Chernobyl, taken 14 hours after the explosion on April 26, 1986.
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The old Cincinnati library before it was demolished.
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Two Maori Women. New Zealand, 1902.
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Cats drinking milk straight from the source. 1954.
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Joe Biden withdraws from the 1988 presidential election
