A sizable number of history's most unforgettable images were photographed in black and white. Now, through the digital process of colorization, we can see how these scenes might have appeared in person.


The picture above was taken by Joe Rosenthal in 1945 during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Hoover Dam Turbine Construction, early 1930s


(via NolanFans)

Bud Fraker: Audrey Hepburn, 1953

Jack Delano: Sergeant George Camblair learning how to use a gas mask in practice smokescreen, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 1942


(via Shorpy)

Seth Kinman, a Californian hunter and trapper, 1865


Ruth Orkin: Albert Einstein At a Princeton University Luncheon in 1953


Dorothea Lange: Unemployed lumber worker goes with his wife to the bean harvest. Note Social Security number tattooed on arm, Oregon, August 1939


Mark Twain relaxing in a garden, c. 1899-1901


Toni Frissell: A model floating in the water at Weeki Wachee Spring, Florida. Published in Harper's Bazaar in December 1947, colorized by Michael Catanachapodaca in 2012


(via Shorpy)

Portrait of Dorothea Lange atop a car with her giant camera, February 1936


(via Shorpy)

Testing a bulletproof vest, Washington, D.C., September 13, 1923


Che Guevara


Malcolm Browne: The self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức, 1963


(via Diacritics)

Charlie Chaplin, 1915


Operation Crossroads Baker Event in Bikini Atoll, 1946


(via Imgur)

Roger Higgins: Salvador Dalí with ocelot and cane, 1965


1927 Solvay Conference Photo


(see earlier)


Yousuf Karsh: Albert Einstein, 1948


Charles Darwin


Margaret Bourke-White: African American Flood Victims Lined Up, 1937


(via Imgur)

Alexander Gardner: The last living photograph of Abraham Lincoln, 1865


Dorothea Lange: Country store on dirt road, Gordonton, North Carolina, 1939


(via Shorpy)

Yousuf Karsh: Winston Churchill, 1941


George Orwell


Dorothea Lange: Migrant Mother, 1936


Yousuf Karsh: Ernest Hemingway, 1957


Alfred Eisenstadt: Sailor Kiss, VJ Day, 1945


(via reddit)

Eddie Adams: The Execution of a Viet Cong Guerilla, 1968


(via Imgur)

Mauretania's first Chief Engineer with other gentlemen in Canada Dock, Liverpool, 1909


(via Imgur)

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Pictures are colorized by Mads Madsen, except where noted otherwise.