As has been said time and time again, it is of the utmost importance that we look to the past to ensure that we learn from our mistakes, to ensure that our future is better than our history, and to ensure that the most horrific and evil elements of history do not repeat themselves. These humbling photos of bravery, terror, and resilience during World War II will hopefully stand as a sobering and timeless reminder of what humanity is capable of.

20 Prisoners As Targets

Prior to the outbreak of World War II, several international laws prohibiting the mistreatment of prisoners of war (POWs) already existed. However, these laws were frequently either “bent” or completely ignored as the war raged on. Here, Sikh prisoners await an untimely death at the hands of their Japanese captors. Although all participating nations broke the rules to some extent when it came to POW treatment, most historians agree that the Japanese were the worst offenders.

19 Glimpse Of Humanity

Even during history’s darkest hours, there are glimmers of decency and humanity. And although many prisoners and casualties of war were treated horrifically or left to die, some were given a rare second chance at the hands of their enemies. Such “luck” befell this infant, whom a US soldier is carrying to safety after the Battle of Saipan.

18 D-Day

Perhaps the most famous event of World War II, the Invasion of Normandy, which was nicknamed “Operation Overlord” and carried out by the Allies as the largest amphibious assault in history, was launched on the northern coast of France on June 6, 1944. The landing, although ultimately a success, came at the cost of over 209,000 Allied casualties. Many soldiers died before even reaching the beach.

17 Easy Way Out

Of course, a large majority of deaths during World War II took place in the midst of battle or in concentration camps, but there were other ways to die as well. As the war began to reach its inevitable conclusion, and it became clear that the Allies would be victorious, many German administrators, such as Ernst Lisso (pictured above), chose to kill themselves rather than face almost certain execution at the hands of the Allies for crimes committed during the war.

16 Guadalcanal

The legendary Battle of Guadalcanal (code-named “Operation Watchtower”) was fought on the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific between August 1942 and February 1943 and marked the first major offensive against the Japanese by the Allies. Until then, the Allies had employed a “Europe First” strategy, since it was imperative to stop the surprisingly swift expansion of German-held territory. However, it soon became clear that complete Japanese control of the Pacific would be almost equally problematic, and it was only after the Allied victories in both Guadalcanal and New Guinea that the Japanese began to lose their momentum.

15 Constant Fear

With seemingly endless bombing campaigns reducing cities to rubble, those lucky enough to not be directly engaged in combat still often lived in constant fear of death. Pictured above are British schoolchildren during an air raid drill. It is unlikely that either their wooden desks or their hand placement would have provided much protection had they suffered a direct hit from a German bomb.

14 Seeking Shelter

While most schoolchildren cowered under desks during bombing raids, adults who were out and about when terror struck often had to flee to the nearest underground Tube station to minimize their chances of being killed, such as these Londoners pictured during a German air raid. While the Tube offered a relatively high level of protection, those sheltered there could still find themselves confined to their new tubular home for days, with bombs occasionally penetrating the shallower parts of the stations.

13 An Unexpected Ditch

Due to the indiscriminate and constant nature of much of the bombing that took place during World War II, even those who did their best to reach shelter at the beginning of a raid often failed to act quickly enough. Such was the case for the passengers aboard this London bus.

12 Tides Turn For Japan

During the Battle of Midway, Japanese dominance of the Pacific was finally called into question. From June 3 to June 7, 1942—only six months after the Japanese had devastated the US fleet at Pearl Harbor—the US dealt Japan a decisive and crippling blow in the Pacific, leaving four carriers, one heavy cruiser, and 248 Japanese aircraft destroyed in the aftermath. Roughly 3,057 Japanese were killed during the campaign, as opposed to only 307 Americans.

11 Collision

Although many troops during the war sought the prestige of air combat over the grueling realities of fighting on the ground, pilots were also forced to endure an almost endless array of terrors in the sky. Technical difficulties leading to engine failures were not uncommon, and those lucky enough to avoid being shot down in a firefight were also vulnerable to midair collisions, as was the case for this unfortunate airman.

10 Bombing For Revenge

For a large part of the war, the Germans reigned supreme when it came to aviation. Their illustrious and feared Luftwaffe, led by Hermann Goering, was by far the largest and most powerful air force during World War II. They devastated London in the Battle of Britain. Here, however, the British take at least a small amount of revenge, as they bomb the German-occupied Abbeville Aerodrome in France.

9 Battle Of Kursk

Terror presented itself in all forms during World War II, and sometimes, it was terrifying even to be in the company of your own brethren. Here, a Russian soldier hopes that the dirt around his trench does not give way to the massive Russian T-34 tank that is trying to gain a better position during the Battle of Kursk, which took place between German and Soviet forces in July and August 1943.

8 Compassion

War is Hell. It can turn men who would otherwise be kind and loving into barbarous monsters capable of untold destruction, torture, and inhumanity. Sometimes, however, humanity prevails, as was the case for this German soldier, who chose to relinquish some of his food rations to a starving Russian POW and her daughter.

7 Things Are Not What They Seem

Although it looks as though Georges Blind, the man facing a line of German rifles in this photo, is about to be executed, it was all a lie. The Germans were only attempting to extract information from Blind, a member of the French Resistance movement. When Blind refused to divulge what the Germans were after, the guns were lowered, and he was instead sent to a concentration camp, where he died almost immediately.

6 Strange Beauty

During bombing raids of any kind, it was not uncommon for cities to undergo “blackouts,” wherein all houses were ordered to eliminate all light, which would theoretically make it harder for enemy aircraft to find targets. Occasionally, however, such light was unavoidable, especially when antiaircraft fire such as that pictured here above Algiers lit up the sky in its entirety.

5 Resolute

In this iconic photo, British POW Horace Greasley stares down one of the top figures of the Nazi Establishment: Heinrich Himmler. Seen here touring one of the many German POW camps in operation, Himmler was the leader of the dreaded Nazi SS and was the primary overseer of the concentration camps that systematically slaughtered millions of people.

4 Defeat

As part of the Allies’ quest to rid the Pacific of Japanese control, a strategy of “island hopping” was implemented, which led the Allies to systematically gain control of several prominent Japanese-held islands. One such island was Okinawa. Although the Allies were ultimately victorious, the victory was hard-won, and the Japanese insistence on fighting to the end during this engagement was one of the reasons the atomic bomb was ultimately deemed necessary.

3 Endgame

Although World War II brought untold devastation in a variety of forms, the devastation of the atomic bomb (nicknamed “Little Boy”) that was dropped over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was the most severe. US officials deliberated whether or not to use the bomb. They finally justified its use on the grounds of it being a “necessary evil” as well as the fact that if they didn’t drop such a devastating device, the Japanese would continue to fight until the last man—ultimately leading to more death and destruction.

2 Devastation

After the bomb was dropped, roughly 12.2 square kilometers (4.7 mi²) of the city of Hiroshima had been destroyed, with buildings reduced to irreparable rubble. The intensity of the blast also immediately began a series of powerful fires, which quickly burned down any homes that had been lucky enough to remain standing.

1 Second Strike

Only three days after Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, another atomic bomb (this time nicknamed “Fat Man”) was dropped over the city of Nagasaki. Although Fat Man was a more powerful bomb, Nagasaki’s numerous hillsides and narrow valleys helped to reduce some of the fallout and damage. While most historians agree that dropping the first atomic bomb was justified, many question whether or not President Truman should have dropped the second bomb—as opposed to waiting for a potential Japanese surrender.

Although the physical terrain of Nagasaki helped to reduce the devastation to some extent, this was of course relative to the unprecedented impact of the first type of bomb in history to harness the power of the atom and produce energy comparable to roughly 20,000 tons of dynamite. One can take a small degree of solace, however, in the fact that this bomb officially ended the most devastating war in human history.

+ Shell-Shocked

Although World War I was technically the first major war to take place during the industrialized age, World War II brought a wide array of far more powerful weaponry. These modern guns, tanks, and explosives were deafening to both the user and recipient, and many soldiers suffered permanent hearing loss as a result.

A lot of hard work goes into making a movie, especially when there is hype and anticipation surrounding its release. Long hours and tough conditions often lead to off-screen moments that are in such contrast to the on-camera scenes that they become iconic. On this list are just a few examples of behind-the-scenes moments that are still awesome after all these years.

10 Pictures That Almost Got Their Photographers Killed

10 Cameron in the water

Titanic made a huge splash in 1997, becoming the highest grossing movie in history at that time. The movie features a host of memorable and quotable scenes, including Rose wanting to jump off the ship, Jack shouting that he is the king of the world, the car scene, the band playing in the midst of chaos and the woman who tells her children a bedtime story, knowing they are all going to die.

However, most fans’ favorite scene comes at the end when Rose and Jack are in the water and Jack is unable to clamber onto the floating door. Instead he dies from hypothermia in the icy Atlantic Ocean and sinks down beneath the surface. One of the most iconic ‘on set’ photos shows Cameron getting into the water with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio during the filming of this scene, highlighting his commitment to getting the job done.

9 Tobe Hooper at work

Poltergeist (1982) was directed by Tobe Hooper and written by Steven Spielberg. The film became a massive commercial success, amassing over 120 million at the box office. The movie also gained the reputation of being cursed after a series of cast deaths.

Poltergeist features a lot of unforgettable scenes such as the ‘spirits in the TV’ and skeletons in the swimming pool. The photo below depicts Tobe Hooper directing another awesome scene: Robbie is yanked through his bedroom window by an ‘evil, possessed tree.’

8 Happy twins

The Shining introduced the world to perhaps the creepiest twins ever when it was released in 1980. Even though there are only glimpses of them throughout the film, it was enough to give audiences nightmares for life. It is therefore good to see that the twins, played by Lisa and Louise Burns, were just regular little girls in real life. Check out this picture of them posing for the camera, smiling and clearly having a grand old time, even if they were still decked out in their creepy twinsies outfits.

7 Masterpiece in the making

Jaws, released in 1975, was a massive hit in theatres worldwide. It grossed over 470 million from a budget of just 9 million and is a classic thriller that people enjoy to this day. As one can imagine, there are tons of behind-the-scenes photos that were taken during filming, but the ones featuring the giant mechanical shark named Bruce are truly iconic. The picture below features Bruce in all his glory during outdoor filming. Not sure what Joe’s doing. Flossing, maybe?

6 Bullet-time

Before there was John Wick there was Neo. The Matrix is a mind-bending sci-fi action film that people either love to love or love to hate. The movie features mind-blowing bullet-time moves, the choice between the red or blue pill, and the Oracle. The image below shows Keanu Reeves in his Neo get-up, ready to make some magic in front of a green screen.

10 Journalists Disciplined For Faking Pictures

5 Getting in on the action

A lot of scenes in Saving Private Ryan received high praise for their graphic depiction of the horror soldiers had to face during World War II. Not to mention the heartbreaking scene where a mother learns that three of her four sons had died during battle. In this image, Steven Spielberg is having a chat to Tom Hanks about the details of the scene they’re shooting.

4 You’ll think a man can fly

In 1951 Lippert Pictures released Superman and the Mole Men, the first Superman feature film. However, whenever anyone talks about Superman, it is impossible not to think of the man who really made the role iconic: Christopher Reeve. Superman: The Movie was released in 1978 and the tagline “You’ll think a man can fly” added to the excitement and anticipation surrounding its release. The movie cost 55 million to make and grossed over 300 million, earning praise and three Academy Awards Nominations.

This picture shows Reeve on set during filming, flanked by Colin Chilvers who was the Director of Special Effects.

3 Have the lambs stopped screaming?

Sir Anthony Hopkins might be famous these days for playing the role of Odin, but in 1991 he brought life to one of the most unnerving characters of all time: Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The Silence of the Lambs had a modest budget of 19 million but grossed over 270 million worldwide, becoming the fifth-highest grossing movie that year. It also earned 5 Academy awards.

Naturally, there were several behind-the-scenes photos taken during filming, but the eeriest of all has to be Hopkins trying to eat a french fry through his toothy mask.

2 Welcome to Jurassic Park

The simple line ‘Welcome to Jurassic Park, still has the ability to send shivers of excitement down one’s spine. Jurassic Park was a super blockbuster in 1993, grossing over 1 billion worldwide. The huge T-Rex stole the show on screen and off. In this image, a stage-hand is preparing the gigantic dino for filming. The animatronic T-Rex was used for the pivotal car scene, while a CGI version was used for other scenes where full-length shots were required.

1 The Empire Strikes Back

The highly recognizable, crawling opening credits of the Star Wars films are almost as iconic as the movies themselves. The crawl is used to give details on the backstory and context of the film. A wall of text against a starry backdrop, this simple ‘scene’ has been replicated by TV shows including The Big Bang Theory and Glee (which references the Star Wars Holiday Special.)

This surprisingly low-tech, behind-the-scenes image reveals how the opening crawl for The Empire Strikes Back was filmed. The Star Wars crawls were inspired by similar ones used for Flash Gordon and the 1940s Buck Rogers film serials.

10 Stories Behind Astounding Space Pictures Of Earth

There is a saying that true evil hides in plain sight, and nothing could be truer in the notorious case of Ted Bundy. At face value, he was charming, handsome, intelligent, and charismatic.

Yet lurking under this superficial demeanor was a cold-blooded killer who stalked, raped, murdered, and dismembered his victims. Later, he returned to violate the corpses further. He confessed to killing 30 young women and girls in seven states between 1974 and 1978, but the true total number of his victims is unknown.

See Also: 10 Shocking Facts About The Last Days And Execution Of Ted Bundy

Following a renewed interest in these murders and the stories of those who knew him best, his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer rereleased her memoir, The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy, under the pseudonym Elizabeth “Liz” Kendall. This new edition included a contribution from her daughter, Molly, and never-before-seen photos.

These photos from their personal collection give us a chilling insight into the mind of a sadistic killer.

9 Ted On Vacation In Utah
1970

Four years before Ted Bundy began his known brutal killing spree, this vacation photo was taken in Ogden, Utah, in 1970. On either side of Ted are Liz and Molly. They brought Ted along to see their family home before they had moved to Seattle. A year earlier, Liz had been down on her luck as a newly divorced mother of one when she landed a receptionist job at the University of Washington.

Not long after her arrival in Seattle, she bumped into the “handsome” Ted in a bar and the pair began a relationship that was on and off for about seven years. Desperate for a father figure in Molly’s life and someone to help her feel less lonely, Liz tolerated a lot of behavior that she regrets now.

On reflection, Liz said:

This is kind of hard to even think about, but if you could put aside the fact that Ted Bundy was a terrible, murderous man, he was [also] a bad boyfriend. [ . . . ] Some of the things were just plain, flat-out codependence on my part. [ . . . ] I hope that women don’t do what I did, which was just settle for being treated not 100 percent truthfully.^[1]

8 Camping Trip In The Pacific Northwest
1970

Ted and Liz went on their first camping trip together in the Pacific Northwest where they both enjoyed the great outdoors. The Pacific Northwest, particularly Olympia and Seattle, would later become one of Ted’s preferred areas for claiming the lives of his victims.

In 1974, Ted abducted 21-year-old Lynda Ann Healy and strangled her to death. One month later, he kidnapped and murdered 19-year-old Donna Gail Manson and never revealed where the body was buried. By September 1974, he had claimed the lives of six more young women.

Following the abduction of two victims at Lake Sammamish in King County in July 1974, police knew from witness accounts that they were on the lookout for a “handsome young man who called himself ‘Ted.’ ” They also learned that he had used an arm sling to lure women into helping him back to his now-notorious VW Beetle.^[2]

The photo of Ted happily jumping in the mountains could not have foretold what darkness lay ahead. This was his final year of freedom before he was locked behind bars for his horrendous crimes.

7 Ted Awakens From A Nap
1971

Photo credit: Abrams Press/Amazon Prime Video

Liz captioned this photo, “An unhappy Ted who just woke up from a nap.” The photo was taken in Green Lake, Seattle, years before Ted’s killing spree had peaked. Obviously, he could no longer keep his mood swings hidden.

Psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Lewis interviewed Ted after his arrest and testified during his mental competency hearing. She revealed, “I believe he was suffering a bipolar mood disorder stemming from a manic-depressive illness.”^[3]

Later, these mood swings were on display for the public during subsequent trials. Ted jumped around the courtroom, flashed his smile at the television cameras, and waved to the public gallery. Moments later, he appeared agitated and uninterested in the case.

Ted’s trial for the Lake City murder of Kimberly Leach was moved to Orlando. Due to pretrial publicity, the court was unable to obtain an impartial jury. However, it was these outbursts and moments of frenzy that caused more damage to his character than any media coverage. Jurors were able to see for themselves just how volatile a man Ted really was.

6 Ted And Molly Driving A Boat
1971

At age three, Molly began to look up to Ted as a father figure and enjoyed days spent in his company. Now realizing who the monster behind the mask really was, Molly has recalled disturbing memories of her own, which she has detailed in the new edition of her mother’s memoir.

Molly recalls playing hide-and-seek with Ted when he was babysitting one evening. But she was left frightened after finding him naked. Frowning, Molly exclaimed, “You’re naked!” Ted replied, “I know, but that’s because I can turn invisible. But my clothes can’t, and I didn’t want you to see me!”

Molly added, “I tried to shove him out of the way, and comedically, Ted fell down to the shower mat where he sat cross-legged, covering his penis with his two hands.” When she recalled the memory in adulthood, she finally realized that Ted had had an erection at the time.

She also writes, “My next memory is of him leaving my room. I lay awake in fear for a very long time, watching the door. Hoping he would not come back. He did not.”^[4]

5 Ted Playing With Neighborhood Children
1972

Photo credit: Abrams Press/Amazon Prime Video

Enjoying the sunshine in the University District of Seattle, Ted can be seen playing with a young Molly and her friends in the neighborhood. Ted’s own childhood was a troubled one. He was brought up to believe that his mother was his sister and his grandparents were his parents.

Ted was born on November 24, 1946, at a home for unwed mothers in Burlington, Vermont. His mother, Eleanor “Louise” Cowell, considered putting the baby up for adoption, but her father, Ted’s grandfather, insisted that the baby return to their family home in Philadelphia. For the next decade or so, Ted was raised with the belief that his mother was his sister.

In The Stranger Beside Me, Ann Rule writes that Ted told her, “Maybe I just figured out that there couldn’t be 20 years’ difference in age between a brother and a sister, and Louise always took care of me. I just grew up knowing that she was really my mother.”^[5]

Later interviews revealed that Ted had discovered his own parentage when a cousin teased Ted about his birth certificate, which said that he had no known father. This was something that haunted Ted for the rest of his adult life.

4 Ted Taking A Nap
1974

Photo credit: Abrams Press/Amazon Prime Video

This photo was taken as Ted woke from a nap on Liz’s childhood bed during a Christmas break at her childhood home in Ogden, Utah. In 1974, the brutal murders that would later shock the world had begun. Liz said that she had noticed subtle changes in his personality that made her feel like she was “losing him.”

Kevin Sullivan, author of The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History, explained, “There were two Bundys. The only people who ever saw the diabolical Bundy were his victims.” Sullivan added, “This is what makes 1974 so extremely different. He is going to launch himself into full-time murder, and he was just going to keep doing it until he was captured or killed.”

In later interviews with investigators, Ted said that he was ruled by the “entity,” a demon that emerged whenever he was tense and told him to commit violence toward women. The serial killer confessed, “The tension would be too great, and the demands and expectations of this entity would reach a point where they just could not be controlled.”^[6]

3 Molly Playing With Ted’s Hair
1975

During a Nightline interview with Molly and her mother, Molly said, “I adored this man. We were like a family.”

They almost did become a real family when Liz became pregnant with Ted’s baby in 1972. However, Liz made the difficult decision to have an abortion. In the book The Phantom Prince, Liz wrote, “Both of us knew it would be impossible to have a baby now. He was going to start law school in the fall, and I needed to be able to work to put him through.”

She added, “It was awful. Ted took me home and put me to bed. He lay down beside me and talked about the day when I wouldn’t have to work and we would have lots of kids. He fixed me food, which I couldn’t eat, and did all he could to comfort me.”^[7]

Later, Ted did have a child of his own—a daughter named Rose (aka Rosa). He fathered Rose with his wife, Carole Ann Boone, while he was in prison. The whereabouts of Rose and her mother, Carole, are unknown as of this writing.

2 Ted And Liz In Utah
1975

Photo credit: Abrams Press/Amazon Prime Video

Liz was eventually encouraged by a close friend to speak to detectives about her suspicions surrounding Ted. She had discovered various suspicious items, including women’s clothes that did not belong to her and a pair of crutches. Later, after Ted’s arrest, Liz was interviewed again by Detective Robert D. Keppel. This time, her statements were taken more seriously.

She revealed:

About the crimes . . . he told me that he was sick and that he was consumed by something that he didn’t understand. And that he just couldn’t contain it. He said that he tried, he said that it took so much of his time, that’s why he wasn’t doing well in law school and couldn’t seem to get his act together because he spent so much time trying to maintain a normal life. And he just couldn’t do it, he said that he was preoccupied with this force.

Liz added, “He . . . started by saying that he was sick, that ‘I don’t have a split personality.’ And he said, ‘I don’t have blackouts, I remember everything I’ve done.’ “^[8]

1 Ted Drinking On The Courthouse Steps
1980

On January 15, 1978, Ted broke into the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University. He brutally murdered students Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy. Three other young women were attacked that night but miraculously survived. Then came his final act of evil—the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. This was the undoing of the serial killer, and these murders landed him in the electric chair.

During the four-day hearing, US District Judge G. Kendall Sharp refused to allow the defense team to claim that Ted was incompetent during his initial trial. They tried to argue that Ted was provided alcohol smuggled in by his partner, Carole Ann Boone, and that he was heavily under the influence of Valium and other pills. Disagreeing, Sharp stated, “[Ted] is the most competent serial killer in the country at this time.”^[9]

On January 24, 1989, Ted Bundy was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison.

About The Author: Cheish Merryweather is a true crime fan and an oddities fanatic. Can either be found at house parties telling everyone Charles Manson was only 5’2″ or at home reading true crime magazines. Founder of Crime Viral community since 2015.

Oftentimes images of terrifying people become so indelible in the hippocampus, that it’s almost unfathomable for us to think that they can be anything but. However, the 10 photos shown below prove that even the most terrifying people can still be human, or show at least some semblance of it.

10 Gordon Ramsay

He’s the chef we all love to hate, and why not? His expletive-laced outbursts on his shows make him a very terrifying but entertaining figure to watch. Gordon credits his various mentors as well as his father-in-law for his explosive personality.

However, Gordon Ramsay the Family Man is just… more docile than Gordon Ramsay the Chef. He has 3 daughters and 1 son together with his wife of 17 years.

9 Mike Tyson

During his prime, Mike Tyson was widely feared for his amazing boxing skills, but did you know he was also an avid lover of pigeons? That’s right, Iron Mike loves his feathered friends.

In fact, one of the main reasons Mike got into boxing was because during his childhood, one of his pet pigeons got killed by a bigger kid. And in fact, just recently, he complained that one his ex-girlfriends ate one of his beloved birds. Ouch.

8 Danny Trejo

Aside from being a total bad-ass, Danny Trejo is also an ardent dog lover. The Machete star and his wife Debbie run K9 Compassion Foundation, a shelter that rescues and puts dogs up for adoption.

Danny also uses his star power to help owners find their missing pets.

7Vladimir Lenin

One of the key players in the formation of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin was a political genius admired by his supporters and feared by his enemies. His fiery speeches and indomitable leadership allowed the Soviets to tighten their grip and eventually become the dominant party in Russia. He was so revered that after his death, Communist leaders re-named a city in his honor, and had his body preserved, which is still exhibited to this day.

Lenin was a cat person, and he reportedly owned several of them throughout his lifetime.

6 Al Capone

Al Capone was one of the most famous and controversial gangsters to have operated in the US. Nicknamed “Scarface”, he effectively turned Chicago into his personal fiefdom in the Prohibition-era. Smuggling, prostitution, and extortion were some of his gang’s common illegal activities. He was also implicated in the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, when he ordered the execution of seven rival gang members.

Despite being a notorious criminal, Al Capone was very close to his mother. That bond remained strong throughout life, as mother and son were seen frequently together, even during the last days of his life.

5Charles Manson

The psychopathic leader of the cult-like Manson Family died at the end of a life sentence for masterminding the murders of several people, including Sharon Tate, who was the wife of the famous pedophile and film director Roman Polanski.

What could easily have been mistaken for a young boy’s mischievous grin was in fact the beginning of the facial expressions of a future madman. By the way, is it just me or could this be mistaken for a photo of a young Tobey Maguire?

4 Ted Bundy

It can be said that one of the triggers that prompted Ted Bundy to become a serial killer was his resentment for his mother. Louise Cowell gave birth to Ted as an unwed mother, and though he was suspicious about it, Ted grew up believing she was his sister and his grandparents were his biological parents. His mother eventually married John Bundy, and it was only in college that Ted found out about his true parentage.

Despite what he did, his mother loved him all the way to the bitter end. Moments before he was executed, they talked on the phone and she told him “You will always be my precious son.”

3Osama bin Laden

It’s hard to think of Osama Bin Laden as anything more than a radical Islamic terrorist who met his well-deserved end in 2011. After all, he was the man responsible for the attacks that resulted in the deaths of thousands, innocents who had nothing to do with his “holy war”. Yet, there was a time when he seemed just like any other person.

Osama went on a visit to Sweden with the rest of his family when he was a teenager. Judging by that look, you’d never guess that he’d grow up to become one of the world’s most notorious terrorists.

2 Josef Stalin

Josef Stalin became the de facto leader of the Soviet Union following the death of Lenin. To consolidate his rule, he and his followers organized massive purges in the military and imprisonment or exile of all his political opponents. It can be said the brutality of his regime goes far above that of his German rival, Adolf Hitler. Stalin’s oppressive rule only got worse as time went by, such that his own family grew to loathe him.

Out of his three children, Stalin only enjoyed the company of his daughter Svetlana. However, even that relationship deteriorated thanks to Stalin’s controlling personality.

1 Adolf Hitler

Regarded as the one of the most evil men of the last century, and deservedly so, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis orchestrated the deaths of millions of people in one of man’s worst genocides, beaten out on numbers only by the socialist purges of Stalin.

Surprisingly, Hitler was very fond of animals. He owned a German Shepherd named Blondi who kept him company until the closing days of the war. It is bizarre how someone who loved animals so much could also commit such atrocities against his fellow man.

Aside from the telescope, the most important invention for the field of astronomy was the camera. With a camera, astronomers no longer had to rely on the flimsy observations they scribbled in their notebooks. Instead, they could spend weeks analyzing a single frame and pulling out all its details.

Since then, astronomers have captured some of the universe’s most incredible objects and phenomena in their lenses. Some astronomy photos have even gone down in history.

10 Amazing Astronomical Events Caught On Camera

10 The Birth Of A Solar System

Previously, the process that forms planets was only known through mathematical models and computer simulations. Then, in 2014, astronomers were able to photograph the process in greater detail than ever before.

The photo showcases a protoplanetary disk, which encircles a newborn star—in this case, HL Tauri—after the star’s leftover material settles. You might notice discrete rings throughout the disk. Those are the orbits of soon-to-be planets.

The most amazing thing?

This system is forming planets, and HL Tauri is no more than one million years old! Due to this photo, astronomers now believe that planets form almost immediately after the birth of their star.^[1]

9 Supernova 1987A

When the most massive stars in the universe die, they explode. The explosion is called a supernova, and it can be seen from millions or billions of light-years away. Unfortunately, before 1987, we only saw supernovae from those distances, so the information we gathered on them was very limited.

Then, on a cold winter night in ’87, various observers saw the light from a blue supergiant that had gone supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, just 166,000 light-years away. SN 1987A, as it was dubbed, was the closest supernova to Earth since Kepler’s Supernova in 1604. Therefore, it was a rare opportunity to study the explosive death of a star in detail.

Most of what we know about supernovae today comes from SN 1987A. Astronomers learned all the steps that lead to such an explosion, got irrefutable proof that these explosions create the elements necessary for life on Earth, and were even able to detect the neutrinos (particles similar to electrons but far more elusive) created in the explosion.^[2]

8 Cracks In Europa

On July 9, 1979, NASA’s Voyager 2 probe flew by Jupiter and revealed the first high-resolution images of Europa, one of the planet’s moons. Due to its low density, scientists knew that Europa had a significant amount of water. However, its distance from the Sun (5.2 times as far as Earth) made many scientists believe that all of Europa’s water was frozen.

Accordingly, shock waves traveled through the scientific community when Voyager 2 sent back a photo of Europa’s surface showing that it was covered with dozens of prominent dark streaks. A topographical map of Europa identified these streaks as massive cracks in the ice.

Similar features are found in Earth’s ice sheets when a liquid ocean underneath the ice pulls it apart, causing water to rush between the cracks and freeze over. Scientists now believe that a several-mile-deep liquid water ocean exists beneath Europa’s surface. What could be swimming there?^[3]

7 Stars Orbiting A Supermassive Black Hole

Sagittarius A* is a mysterious radio source in the center of our Milky Way. It has long been hypothesized that Sagittarius A* is an extreme breed of black hole—a supermassive black hole.

We usually think of black holes as those left behind when the biggest stars go supernova. They are about as massive as 10 Suns. However, supermassive black holes are millions (and sometimes billions) of times the mass of the Sun.

In 2002, the existence of supermassive black holes was essentially confirmed when a team of international astronomers took an incredible photo of a star in orbit around Sagittarius A*. It’s an eerie image. The star looks like it’s orbiting an empty patch of space, but it’s being whipped around at 5,000 kilometers (3,100 mi) per second.

Mapping this star’s orbit allowed scientists to probe the gravitational field of Sagittarius A*, giving nearly conclusive evidence that a supermassive black hole is the only thing it could be. This photo implicitly confirms that the mysterious mass concentrations that appear in the centers of other galaxies are also supermassive black holes.^[4]

6 The Hubble Deep Field

The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the busiest telescopes in the world. For that reason, it was quite a surprise when scientists decided to point the telescope at a completely empty patch of space for 10 consecutive days in 1995. Amazingly, the image that turned up was not empty at all.

It contained almost 3,000 galaxies, all of which were too faint to have been picked up earlier. Almost every point of light you see in the image is a galaxy. Some of them are so far away that we’re looking at them 10 billion years in the past and glimpsing the first stages of their formations.^[5]

Furthermore, as closer galaxies also appear in the image, we’re essentially looking at a timeline of the universe. The Hubble Deep Field, as the photo was named, is a tiny portion of the sky. (It’s about 1/30th the size of the full Moon). Therefore, the sheer number of galaxies contained within it hints at how vast our universe is.

10 Incredible Images from the Hubble Telescope

5 The Bullet Cluster

Whenever astronomers look at a galaxy, it always has a stronger gravitational pull than justified by the stars and gas within the galaxy. This discrepancy is one of the greatest mysteries in astrophysics. But it could be solved by the existence of dark matter.

Dark matter is a hypothetical particle that does not interact with light whatsoever, though many believe that it comprises the majority of the matter in the universe. Whether dark matter exists is still up for debate, but a famous photo taken in 2006 provides serious evidence in favor of the idea.

It’s a photo called the Bullet Cluster, and it captures two galaxy clusters in mid-collision. The collision created a unique setup where the stars are separated from the gas and dust.

As gas and dust make up the majority of the mass in a galaxy, they should exhibit the strongest gravitational pull. Yet the gravity is focused around the stars, which implies that there is still an invisible heavyweight in the universe.^[6]

4 A Direct Photo Of A Black Hole

A photo of a black hole sounds impossible. After all, by definition, black holes emit zero light. However, the gas falling into a black hole does emit light. Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts that a black hole will create a “shadow” or “silhouette” among the glowing gas, and that is possible to photograph.

As this target is incredibly dim, the endeavor theoretically requires a telescope the size of the Earth. Amazingly, that’s exactly what scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope did.

They synchronized eight telescopes around the world to mimic one giant telescope with a diameter equal to the distance between the telescopes. After painstaking data processing, the resulting photo immediately made history.

The picture shows a supermassive black hole, 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun, sitting at the heart of its galaxy, M87, about 55 million light-years away from Earth. The event horizon (the black hole’s boundary) also presented itself exactly as Einstein’s theory predicted, confirming the theory like never before.^[7]

3 The Cosmic Microwave Background

Just 380,000 years after the big bang, the temperature and density of the universe had dropped enough for the first photons (particles of light) to be sent zooming through space. As the universe expanded, these photons were stretched to larger wavelengths. Today, we observe them as microwaves, so we call them the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB).

The CMB was discovered in 1965. But it was only in 1989 that a satellite was launched to make detailed measurements as well as a panoramic map of the CMB. Although more detailed maps were created in the following years, it was the initial map that first enchanted the world. Not only did it capture the imprint of the big bang but it also formally verified the big bang theory.^[8]

2 The VAR! Plate

Before 1923, we weren’t sure if the Milky Way was the entire universe or if other galaxies existed. Astronomers had seen other galaxies but only as unresolvable “fuzzy” patches that they chalked up to be nebulae.

One of those objects was the Andromeda galaxy. In October 1923, the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble was focusing on Andromeda with the world’s biggest telescope at the time. He photographed the galaxy on a glass plate (the way astronomy photos were taken back then).

After careful analysis, he noticed that one star had changed its brightness from previous nights of observation. Those are called variable stars, and this specific type can be used to determine distance. Excited by this find, Hubble wrote “VAR!” (meaning “variable”) on the plate.

He calculated the distance to Andromeda and found that it is far out of range of the Milky Way. Just like that, the universe expanded tremendously. We now estimate that 100 billion galaxies are in the observable universe.^[9]

1 The 1919 Solar Eclipse

Can gravity bend light?

It’s a radical idea, but a young Albert Einstein was certain of it. Einstein’s theory of general relativity didn’t just start a revolution in astronomy, it changed the entire field of physics forever. Although Newton was able to describe the effects of gravity, Einstein essentially answered the question, “Why does gravity happen?”

According to his idea, space is like a trampoline. If you put a heavy object (like the Sun) on it, space will bend. Other objects, like the Earth, then orbit because they are just following the natural curvature of space.

As incredible as the theory is on paper, the scientific community needed proof, of course. According to Einstein, if you could prove that the Sun’s gravity was warping the light from stars behind the Sun, his theory would be verified. However, such an experiment could only be done during a solar eclipse so that the intense rays of the Sun wouldn’t obscure the stars.

In May 1919, three years after the publication of the theory of general relativity, a total solar eclipse occurred. Under the instruction of Einstein, famous astronomer Arthur Eddington took a photo of the eclipse and marked the location of the stars behind it.

However, the stars weren’t where they were supposed to be, indicating that their light was being bent. Einstein became a celebrity overnight, and the photo was immortalized in history.^[10]

10 Historical First Images Captured Of Space

About The Author: I am an amateur astronomer, astrophotographer, and tutor based out of Long Island. Check out my astrophotography instagram @universe_selfies.

Let us ask you a question… How many photos of the earth have you seen? By photos of the earth, we aren’t talking about photos taken from the upper atmosphere or the international Space Station. We mean photos taken from space or some other planet.

For most people, the answer would be one or two. One of those photos will probably be the famous Blue Marble, which was shot by Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972. However, the popular Blue Marble is just one of the few breathtaking photos of the earth out there. We have ten more here, the majority of which you’ve never seen before.

10 Amazing Things You Probably Don’t Know About The Space Race

10 Photo of the Earth from Saturn

On 19 July 2019, NASA’s Cassini space probe shot a breathtaking photo of earth from Saturn. The photo shows part of Saturn and its rings up close with the Earth appearing as a small dot in the distance. The moon is beside the Earth but is barely visible. NASA named the photo “The Day the Earth Smiled”.

The Day the Earth Smiled is considered one of the best photos of earth. It turned out perfect because Saturn blocked the sun, which would have cast shadows on Cassini’s field of view and destroyed what would’ve been a perfect shot. Despite its popularity, this photo is just one of the many photos Cassini shot from Saturn.

In 2006, Cassini captured a photo of the Earth with parts of Saturn’s rings in the foreground. That photo is called the Blue Orb. It’s cool too but not as cool as this one. Cassini also took another photo of the Earth and moon on July 19, 2013. The moon is visible this time but Saturn’s rings are not.^[1]

9 Farthest photo of Earth from space

What’s the farthest photo ever taken of planet Earth? That’s the Pale Blue Dot, which was shot by NASA‘s Voyager 1 space probe on 14 February 1990. The photo shows the Earth as a very tiny dot in the upper half of a ray of sunlight that runs from the top to the bottom of the photo.

Voyager 1 was 3.7 billion miles away from Earth at the time it shot that photo. That’s beyond the orbit of every planet in our solar system including Pluto. To put that into perspective, the photo arrived Earth on 1 May 1990, two-and-a-half months after it was shot.

The Pale Blue Dot is one of 60 photographs Voyager 1 shot around the same time. The probe also took photos of Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. It didn’t take a photo of Mercury because the light emitted by the planet was overwhelmed by the brighter light from the sun. Mars was blocked by sunlight and Pluto was too small, dark and distant to be captured.

Talking about Voyager 1, the space probe is now in an area called interstellar space. That’s the region where our Sun’s gravitational pull is almost non-existent. In one sentence, Voyager 1 is no longer in our solar system. We shouldn’t expect any more photos from it either since it turned its cameras off right after taking those photos.^[2]

8 Photo of the Earth rising from the moon

On Christmas Eve 1968, the three-man crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to travel to the moon. They did not land on the moon but only orbited round it before returning to Earth. However, their flight would have a lasting effect, particularly on the founding of environmental activism.

Environmentalism wasn’t really a thing until Apollo 8 crewman, Astronaut William Anders shot a colored photograph of the Earth rising from the moon. The upper half of the Earth was bright blue while the lower half was pitch black, as if it were nonexistent. The dry, sunbaked surface of the moon is visible in the foreground.

That photo was named Earthrise even though it isn’t the first photo of the Earth rising from the moon.^[3] That honor belongs to a similar photo shot two years earlier. The photographer wasn’t a human but the Lunar Orbiter 1, a space probe NASA deployed to study the moon.

The 1966 Earthrise photo looks like Ander’s Earthrise except that it was grainy and shot in black-and-white. Little wonder it didn’t have the same effect as Ander’s clearer and colored photo. On 13 November 2008, NASA released a high-resolution photo it created from the 1966 Earthrise. The updated photo looks better even though it still lacks color.^[4]

7 Photo of a crescent-like Earth

We all know what comets look like when viewed from Earth. Now, let’s turn that scenario around a bit. What does the Earth look like when viewed from a comet? We don’t really have an answer to that but we have an idea. The Earth may look like a crescent.

The beautiful photo you see up there was shot by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta space probe in 2009. It isn’t an edited photo of the moon or some earth-like planet. It’s the Earth. The entire planet is completely blacked out save for the South Pole, which retains Earth’s distinctive blue color.

Rosetta was prepping to attempt a landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at the time it took the photo. However, it first needed to make three flybys past Earth to generate enough velocity to intercept the comet. It took the photo during its third flyby.

6 First photo of the Earth

The first photo of the Earth was shot on 24 October 1946 and you wouldn’t believe what we used to shoot that photo. It wasn’t a space probe, satellite or astronauts in a spacecraft. It was a missile. A Nazi missile.

That missile was the infamous V-2 (Vengeance Weapon 2). The Nazis developed the missile during World War II and fired lots of it at their primary rival, the British. However, they still had many unused missiles lying around at the time they were defeated.

The US military transported those missiles to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico where some researchers attached a camera to one of them to capture the first photo of space. The photo was shot in black-and-white and shows a part of the Earth with some streaks of white clouds against the dark space.^[5]

10 Joys And Terrors Of Space Exploration

5 First photo of the Earth and moon

On 22 December 1966, the NASA Applications Technology Satellite 1 (ATS-1) did what no human, satellite or space probe had ever done. It took a photograph of the Earth and moon together. In that photo, we can see part of the Earth in the foreground with the full moon in the background.

Many people including space enthusiasts have never seen this photo and some even credit the Voyager 1 orbiter with taking the first photo of the Earth and moon together. Voyager 1 took the first full photo of the Earth and moon and not the first photo of the Earth and moon.^[6]

4 Photo of planets Earth and Venus from Mars

It’s not every time we get to see a photo of Earth from Mars. Thanks to the doggedness of the Mars Curiosity rover, which is still kicking six years past its planned two-year lifespan, we know what the Earth looks like from the surface of Mars.

In mid-2020, Curiosity pointed its camera at the Martian sky and shot two photos, one of Earth and the other of Venus. Its operators here on Earth merged both photos together to create a single photo of planets Earth and Venus.

That photo isn’t detailed since both planets appear as overtly bright dots against the night sky. Talking about brightness, can you guess why Earth and Venus were very bright even though the stars are almost invincible?

It’s because Mars atmosphere was very dusty at the time the photo was shot. The dust particles in the air reflected the light from the sun, causing the sky to become overtly bright. The result is that only the nearest and brightest things appear bright.^[7]

3 Photo of the Earth and Moon from Mercury

On 19 July 2013, NASA’s MESSENGER space probe shot a photo of the Earth and moon from Mercury. As you can see in the photo, the Earth and moon are so bright it’s almost impossible to tell them apart. This has a lot to do with the mission of the space probe.

NASA sent MESSENGER to Mercury to find small satellites that may be orbiting the planet. Considering the small size of the objects it was searching for, the probe needs to aim its cameras at the target area for some time before taking a photo.

Photographers call this overexposure and the idea is to allow the cameras capture as much light as possible from an object. That’s the only way the cameras can detect small elusive objects that would have remained unseen. The Earth and the moon would have been no larger than a pixel if the probe had shot the photo right after aiming its camera.^[8]

2 First full photo of the Earth

Taking a full close-up photo of the Earth from space is challenging for two reasons. The first is that the photographer needs to be far enough to capture the planet in full but close enough to capture all its details. The photographer also needs to select the perfect time when the sun will not cast shadows on the Earth.

If we asked most people if they knew the first full picture of the Earth, they would have mentioned the Blue Marble, which was shot by Apollo 17 astronauts traveling to the moon in 1972. Anyone who calls the Blue Marble the first full photo of the Earth is wrong. It is actually the second.

The first was shot by NASA’s ATS-3 experimental weather and communications satellite in November 1967. It’s unclear why the 1967 Blue Marble (as it is now called) is not as popular as the one that came after it. It’s probably because its colors are a bit duller.^[9]

1 The Last full photo of the Earth

The 1967 and 1972 Blue Marbles we mentioned in the previous entry are just two of the many Blue Marbles out there. The latest Blue Marble was shot in 2015 and it’s called the 2015 Blue Marble. The 2015 Blue Marble should’ve been shot earlier but was delayed because Republicans and Democrats couldn’t find a middle ground.

Trouble began in 1998 when Vice president Al Gore revealed NASA was planning to launch a satellite to take a full photo of the Earth. Republicans opposed the program and nicknamed the satellite Goresat, a pun on Al Gore’s name. Both parties remained in disagreement until George W. Bush became president in 2000.

Bush’s administration asked NASA to remove the cameras on the satellite but NASA explained that the satellite and cameras would perform other tasks apart from taking photos. NASA also clarified that the reduced weight would affect the stability of the satellite in space. However, the Bush administration insisted and told NASA to replace the cameras with sandbags.

NASA mothballed the project instead since it was clear that the Bush administration was unwilling to fund it. Development only resumed when Barack Obama became president in 2008. The satellite was launched a few years later and it took the photo in 2015.^[10]

10 Space Myths We Believe Because Of Movies

These are Top ten of the most influential photos of all time. There is no formula that makes a picture influential. According to time magazine editor; “Some images are on our list because they were the first of their kind, others because they shaped the way we think. And some made the cut because they directly changed the way we live. What all 100 share is that they are turning points in our human experience”. More info: time.com

Have a look at 10 most influential photos of all time.

The Terror Of War, Nick Ut, 1972

This photo is taken by Nick Ut, on June 8, 1972. A 9-year-old girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc running alongwith a group of children and soldiers. She had been hit by napalm that South Vietnamese air force mistakenly dropped on the village. The photo was awarded Pulitzer prize in 1973. See historical images.

Starving Child And Vulture, Kevin Carter, 1993

The most haunting image on the most influential photos of all time. In March 1993, photographer Kevin Carter made a trip to southern Sudan, where he took an iconic photo of a vulture preying upon an emaciated Sudanese toddler near the village of Ayod. See more details.

Lunch Atop A Skyscraper, 1932

It’s the most dangerous or risky yet playful lunch break ever captured. 11 men casually eating, chatting and sneaking a smoke as if they weren’t 840 feet above Manhattan with nothing but a thin beam keeping them aloft. That comfort is real; the men are among the construction workers who helped build Rockefeller Center. But the picture, taken on the 69th floor of the flagship RCA Building (now the GE Building), was staged as part of a promotional campaign for the massive skyscraper complex.

Alan Kurdi, Nilüfer Demir, 2015

The war in Syria had been going on for more than four years when Alan Kurdi’s parents lifted the 3-year-old boy and his 5-year-old brother into an inflatable boat and set off from the Turkish coast for the Greek island of Kos, just three miles away. Within minutes of pushing off, a wave capsized the vessel, and the mother and both sons drowned. On the shore near the coastal town of Bodrum a few hours later, Nilufer Demir of the Dogan News Agency, came upon Alan, his face turned to one side and bottom elevated as if he were just asleep. See details.

A Man On The Moon, Neil Armstrong, Nasa, 1969

Jewish Boy Surrenders In Warsaw, 1943

Migrant Mother, Dorothea Lange, 1936

The picture that did more than any other to humanize the cost of the Great Depression almost didn’t happen. Driving past the crude “Pea-Pickers Camp” sign in Nipomo, north of Los Angeles, Dorothea Lange kept going for 20 miles. Migrant Mother has become the most iconic picture of the Depression. Through an intimate portrait of the toll being exacted across the land, Lange gave a face to a suffering nation. See also; The Disturbing Photographs Telling Tales Of Disaster.

The Hindenburg Disaster, Sam Shere, 1937

This photo of 804-foot-long German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg, was taken by the Sam Shere of the International News Photos service, at the Lakehurst, N.J., Naval Air Station on May 6, 1937. It was taken exactly when, the grand ship’s flammable hydrogen caught fire, causing it to spectacularly burst into bright yellow flames and kill 36 people.
Shere was one of nearly two dozen still and newsreel photographers who scrambled to document the fast-moving tragedy. But it is his image, with its stark immediacy and horrible grandeur, that has endured as the most famous—owing to its publication on front pages around the world and in LIFE and, more than three decades later, its use on the cover of the first Led Zeppelin album.

Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still, 1978

Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Since she burst onto the art scene in the late 1970s, Cindy Sherman the person has always been obscured by Cindy Sherman the subject. Her images have become some of the most valuable photographs ever produced. By manipulating viewers and recasting her own identity, Sherman carved out a new place for photography in fine art. And she showed that even photography allows people to be something they’re not.

Untitled (Cowboy), Richard Prince, 1989

The picture by Richard Prince taken in 1989, named Untitled (­Cowboy). It was sold for $1.2 million at auction in 2005. It was the highest publicly recorded price for the sale of a contemporary ­photograph. See also; Top 10 Most Expensive Photographs Ever Sold.

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