Rarely Seen “Enchanted” Moments of US History (Megapost)

Mark Twain in Tesla’s lab, 1894

A 10 x 15-foot wooden shed where the “Harley-Davidson Motor Company” started out in 1903

Testing football helmets in 1912

Helmets again: A Pyramid of captured German ones in front of the NYC Grand Central Terminal, 1918

A bar in New York City, the night before prohibition began,1920

Mount Rushmore Before Carving, 1920s

Traffic jam in New York, 1923

A quiet little job at a crocodile farm in St. Augustine, Florida, 1926 (UPDATE: well, an alligator farm of course, as Roy notes in the comments below)

World economic crisis, 1929

Central Park in 1930

Last four couples standing at a Chicago dance marathon, ca. 1930

Meeting of the Mickey Mouse Club, early 1930s

Confederate and Union soldiers shake hands across the wall at the 1938 reunion for the Veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg

When they realized women were using their sacks to make clothes for their children, flour mills of the 30s started using flowered fabric for their sacks, 1939

NY, Coney Island, 1940

The thirty-six men needed to fly and service a B-17E in 1942 (Photo by Frank Scherschel, Life Magazine)

A man begging for his wife’s forgiveness inside Divorce Court. Chicago, 1948

Three young women wash their clothes in Central Park during a water shortage. New York, 1949

19 year-old Shigeki Tanaka was a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima and went on to win the 1951 Boston Marathon. The crowd was silent as he crossed the finish line. (UPDATE: As Peter notes in the comments below, “Tanaka was not exactly “a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima” — when the bomb was dropped, he was at home, about 20 miles from the site. He saw a light and heard a distant rumble, but was personally unaffected by the bomb.”)

Florida’s last Civil War veteran, Bill Lundy, poses with a jet fighter, 1955

NASA scientists with their board of calculations, 1960’s

Muhammad Ali’s fists after the fight with Cooper, 1963

New York firemen play a game after a fire in a billiard parlor, 1969

An abandoned baby sleeps peacefully in a drawer at the Los Angeles Police Station, 1971

Boy hiding in a TV set. Boston, 1972 by Arthur Tress

A spectator holds up a sign at the Academy Awards, April 1974

Robert De Niro’s cab driver license. In order to get into character for the film Taxi Driver, he obtained his own hack license and would pick-up/drive customers around in New York City.

Nancy Reagan sits on the lap of Mr. T, dressed as Santa, 1983

Ronald Reagan wearing sweatpants on Air Force One, 1985

Rarely Seen “Enchanted” Moments of US History Part 2

Rarely Seen “Enchanted” Moments of World History Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Sources: Imgur, Reddit, RLT blog