Rare photos

Wizzed.com has an article about some rare historical photos:

The nineteenth century saw the demise of the samurai in Japan. The cost of maintaining highly-trained armies to defend themselves in civil conflicts became cost prohibitive. Prior to becoming politically activated the samurai were some of the most proficient fighting machines in the known world. They had a culture based on honor, which they revered.

This is a White Star Line third-class steerage ticket for RMS Titanic, departing on 10 April 1912. The mighty luxury liner sank in the Atlantic Ocean four days later, after colliding with an iceberg. Titanic lies on the ocean floor two miles deep and three hundred and eighty miles southeast of Newfoundland.

This shows Albert Einstein’s matriculation certificate from the Aargau Kantonsschule. The grades are on a scale from one to six.

This three thousand, two hundred, and forty-five-year-old rope seal has been perfectly preserved by Egypt’s dry and arid climate. Tombs of a similar age from the Mayan dynasty in the Central American jungles have little or no organic matter remaining.

ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first computer ever made. The 1946 machine was hailed as a “giant brain” with a speed of one thousand times that of electro-mechanical machines. ENIAC used common octal-base radio tubes and in her early years would burn a few of these out every day, causing the machine to be inoperable much of the time. After a memory upgrade in 1947, ENIAC was moved to Maryland where it was in continuous operation until 1955. Philadelphia proclaimed 15 February 2011 as ENIAC Day to celebrate this famous machine’s sixty-fifth anniversary.

This photograph was taken at the moment President George Bush was informed of the terrorist attacks on New York City’s Twin Towers. Simply remembered now as 9/11, the World Trade Centre’s twin towers were attacked and destroyed with hijacked civilian passenger aircraft by terrorists on 11 September 2001. This cowardly and heinous act killed almost three thousand innocent people and ran up a damage bill of around ten billion dollars. The American government started an immediate war against terrorism, and eventually discovering the whereabouts of the 9/11 perpetrator, Osama bin Laden. They executed him and threw his body into the ocean to ensure he could never become a martyr to fundamentalist Muslims.

After the German defeat in Berlin in 1945, this was one of the first photographs taken of the dictator’s Führerbunker. It is reported that in the months that Hitler lived underground he was almost pathologically afraid to go outside. The man became thin and emaciated, and some of the final military decisions made by him were catastrophic disasters for Germany. His proclamations and orders were contradictory and confusing for his commanders in the field. Hitler had the bunker constructed to withstand the wholesale bombing of Berlin by the Allies; it had thirteen feet of concrete in the roof alone.

Enola Gay was the name given to the B-29 bomber which dropped the first nuclear bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, ending (after a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki) the long and bloody conflict in the Pacific. It was the first nuclear device to be used as a weapon of war, although much testing and trials had been done beforehand in nuclear physics.

This 1899 photograph shows the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas, horsing around with a friend. In 1917, he and his entire family were butchered by the Bolsheviks. His full inherited title was Emperor of Russia, Grand Duke of Finland, and titular King of Poland. Officially it was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias. During his reign, Russia experienced many defeats, most notably against Japan, and much civil turmoil, causing economic and military collapse. The alleged incompetent handling of Russia’s involvement in the First World War by the Tsar, which cost the lives of more than three million Imperial soldiers, is believed to be one of the main causes of the fall of the Romanov dynasty.

Quoted as being “the only surviving authenticated portrait of Billy the Kid", this tintype portrait of William Bonney sold at auction in June of 2011 for over two million dollars.

Be careful who's taking your picture while you're taking a 'selfie'.

Rico says some photos are important, some are trivial (if erotic)...