The oldest surviving camera photograph, View from the Window at Le Gras, was taken by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. Since then photographers have captured countless historic moments. Sometimes, they appreciated the significance of the moment, other times they have not. Here’s an amazing selection of photos, full of human emotions, which include both these categories.



Bill and Hillary Clinton when they first meet as university students, 1973.

Residents of West Berlin show their children to their grandparents living in East Berlin, 1961.

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The Olympic flame arrives in Berlin, 1936.

Climbers bringing down corpses of their fellow climbers from Mont Blanc, 1895.

Fidel Castro plays baseball in Havana, 1959.

Searchlights on the Rock of Gibraltar, 1942.

Execution by cannon, in Shiraz, Iran, mid-late 19th century.

Gold diggers marching through Chilkoot pass, the only way towards Dawson City, 1898.

Ferdinand Porsche, far left, showing a model of the first Volkswagen Beetle to Hitler, 1934.

Major General Horatio Gordon Robley with his collection of tattooed Maori heads, 1895.

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Toffs and Toughs – The famous photo by Jimmy Sime illustrating the class divide in pre-war Britain, 1937.

Woodstock – The Opening Ceremony. Bethel, New York, 14 August 1969.

The last prisoners leaving Alcatraz, 1963.

Photographed in 1912 with red and black paint on it, this iceberg was believed to have sunk the Titanic.

Gentlemen taking selfies, circa 1920.

A rare colour photograph of two Parisian women from 1930.

The world’s last commercial sailing ship, The Pamir, rounding Cape Horn for the last time in 1949.

Japanese guards bow before US prisoners of war being released from a Yokohama detention centre following the capitulation of Japan, 1945.

Iranian woman hanging out on the beach before the Islamic Revolution, 1960.

James Dean posing in the coffin in the local undertaker in his home town the year he died in a car crash, January 1955.

British soldier checking out the Argentinean helmets after the Battle of Goose Green on the Falkland Islands, May 1982.

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