Old photographs often travel the internet with short captions that grow less accurate each time they are shared. This collection brings together twenty-five images from roughly the 1840s to the 1970s, covering sport and leisure, Prohibition, war and persecution, civil rights, famous faces and feats of engineering. For each one we explain what the picture shows, who took it where that is known, and what was happening at the time.
Where a popular caption turned out to be wrong, we say so and give the better-supported version. Where a date or claim cannot be confirmed, it is marked as approximate or traditional. All photos are kept as historical documents.
Sport, play and leisure
Dance marathon survivors, Chicago, around 1930
Dance marathons were endurance contests in which couples stayed on their feet, with short breaks, for days or even weeks to win a cash prize. They boomed during the Great Depression, when a prize and free meals could matter a great deal. The four exhausted couples here are leaning on each other to stay upright, which is exactly what the rules allowed as long as they kept moving.
Princeton boxers, 1893
Three Princeton students pose with bruised faces after a bout. Boxing and other rough sports were popular in American colleges in the 1890s, before modern safety rules. The swollen eyes and stern expressions make this one of the more memorable college photos of the era.
Kathrine Switzer at the Boston Marathon, 1967
Kathrine Switzer entered the 1967 Boston Marathon as "K. V. Switzer" and wore bib number 261, becoming the first woman to run it as a registered competitor. A few miles in, race official Jock Semple tried to tear off her number. Her coach Arnie Briggs tried to shield her, and her boyfriend Tom Miller shoved Semple aside. She finished in about 4 hours 20 minutes; Boston did not officially accept women until 1972.
Three archers, Japan, late 19th century
This studio-style picture shows three archers in traditional dress with the long asymmetrical Japanese bow, the yumi. It is usually dated to between about 1860 and 1900, when foreign and Japanese photographers in Yokohama sold such images to travellers. Kyudo, the art of Japanese archery, is still practised today.
"Edinburgh Ale", around 1844
Often called the earliest photograph of people drinking beer, this calotype was made by the Scottish partnership of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson in the mid-1840s. It shows three men, traditionally identified as James Ballantine, Dr George Bell and Hill himself, sharing ale at a table. Its relaxed mood was unusual at a time when exposures were long.
Louis Armstrong at the Sphinx, 1961
During a tour of Africa and the Middle East in 1961, jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong played for his wife Lucille in front of the Great Sphinx at Giza. Armstrong toured widely in these years, and his trips were sometimes promoted as cultural diplomacy. The photo is a delightful mix of the ancient and the modern.
Prohibition tricks and raids
"Cow shoes" used by moonshiners, 1920s
During Prohibition in the United States (1920 to 1933), some moonshiners strapped wooden blocks shaped like hooves to their shoes so their tracks in mud or snow would look like those of cattle. Federal agents publicised the trick after finding examples, and photos of the shoes were widely printed. The picture is usually dated to the early 1920s.
A "lumber truck" full of liquor, Los Angeles, 1926
Smugglers built a hollow load of timber on this truck to hide bottles inside. According to the usual account, agents became suspicious when they smelled alcohol from a broken bottle. Hidden compartments of all kinds were common during Prohibition, as were the photographs officials took to show off their finds.
War, persecution and liberation
Tereska draws "home", Poland, 1948
Photographer David Seymour, known as Chim and a co-founder of Magnum Photos, travelled through post-war Europe in 1948 on a UNICEF commission to document children affected by the war. In a residence for disturbed children in Poland he photographed Tereska, who had grown up in a concentration camp, as she drew a picture of "home" on a blackboard as a mass of scribbles. It became one of the best-known images of the war's effect on children.
Liberated prisoners near Magdeburg, April 1945
This photo is generally identified as the moment, on 13 April 1945, when American troops reached a train near Farsleben, close to Magdeburg in Germany. The train was carrying Jewish prisoners from the Bergen-Belsen camp, and the women in the picture are running towards the soldiers after realising they were free. It was taken by a US Army officer and is preserved in Holocaust memorial collections.
Reading the war news in New York, 1940
A man stands on a Manhattan corner holding a newspaper whose headline reports the German army 75 miles from Paris. The image comes from the New York City Municipal Archives, whose street photographs from this period show everyday city life. Paris fell to Germany a few weeks later, on 14 June 1940.
A Japanese American family returns home, 1945
After the United States entered the Second World War, Executive Order 9066 led to the forced removal of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. This family was held at the Minidoka camp in Hunt, Idaho, which imprisoned more than 13,000 people between 1942 and 1945. When they returned to Seattle in May 1945, they found their property daubed with racist graffiti telling them they were not wanted.
Rome's Fascist headquarters, 1934
The Palazzo Braschi in Rome served as a Fascist party headquarters and was covered with a giant image of Mussolini's face surrounded by the word "SI" (yes). The display is usually linked to the 1934 plebiscite, in which voters could only approve or reject a single list of candidates. After the war the building housed refugee families and later became the Museo di Roma.
"The Long Walk"
This photograph shows a British Army bomb disposal technician walking alone towards a suspected device, a task soldiers called "the long walk". The setting appears to be a Northern Irish street during the Troubles, when such devices were common; a sign on the wall reads "Prepare to meet thy God". The exact date and place are not recorded with the image as it circulates.
Civil rights and protest
A Black Union soldier with his family, 1863 to 1865
This tintype shows an African American soldier in Union uniform with his wife and two daughters. It is held by the Library of Congress, and the family's names are not known. Photographs of Black soldiers with their families from the Civil War are extremely rare, which is why it is often described as the only one of its kind.
Martin Luther King Jr. and a burned cross, 1960
Martin Luther King Jr. pulls a charred cross out of the front lawn of his home in Atlanta while one of his young sons stands beside him. Cross burnings were a Ku Klux Klan intimidation tactic aimed at civil rights activists. King and his family faced repeated threats, including a bombing of their Montgomery home in 1956.
Christopher Street Liberation Day, New York, 1970
On 28 June 1970, marchers set off from Greenwich Village to Central Park to mark the first anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. Estimates of the crowd ranged from a few thousand to as many as 20,000. The march is considered one of the first Pride marches in the United States, and its banner can be seen in this photo.
Famous faces before they were famous
The earliest known photo of Abraham Lincoln
This daguerreotype is the earliest known photograph of Lincoln. It is usually credited to Nicholas H. Shepherd of Springfield, Illinois, and dated to about 1846 or 1847, when Lincoln was in his late thirties and had just been elected to Congress. The popular caption "c. 1840" is several years too early.
Nine kings at Windsor, 20 May 1910
Nine reigning monarchs gathered in London for the funeral of Britain's King Edward VII and were photographed together at Windsor Castle. They included George V of the United Kingdom, Wilhelm II of Germany, Haakon VII of Norway, Frederick VIII of Denmark, George I of Greece, Alfonso XIII of Spain, Manuel II of Portugal, Ferdinand of Bulgaria and Albert I of Belgium. Within a decade, several of their thrones had fallen.
Jack, Bobby and Ted Kennedy
The three Kennedy brothers who went into politics stand together in casual clothes, probably at the family home in Hyannis Port. The usual caption says "mid-1930s", but that cannot be right: Ted Kennedy was born in 1932, and he appears here as a teenager, which places the photo in the mid-to-late 1940s. John became president, and Robert and Ted both served as senators.
Microsoft's early team
Eleven of Microsoft's thirteen employees posed for this portrait in Albuquerque, New Mexico, shortly before the company moved to Bellevue, Washington, on 1 January 1979. Bill Gates sits at the front left, and co-founder Paul Allen sits at the front right. The photo is often dated to 7 December 1978.
Machines, buildings and big projects
Electric light in a Russian village, around 1920
A peasant couple looks at a single electric light bulb, with a portrait of Lenin on the wall behind them. The image is linked to early Soviet electrification, when Lenin promoted the slogan that communism meant Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country. The version shown here has been colourised, and the exact village and date are not certain.
Looking over the railroad, Nevada, around 1868
A Native American man stands on a rock high above a river canyon, looking down at new railroad tracks. The photo is associated with the building of the Central Pacific section of the first transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869. For many Native nations, the railroad meant the loss of land, bison herds and independence.
Opening of the New York City Subway, 1904
The New York City Subway opened on 27 October 1904, and these officials and guests were among the first passengers at City Hall station. Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. drove the first train himself. The station's Guastavino tile vaults made it the showpiece of the line; it closed to passengers in 1945 but can still be glimpsed from passing trains.
The Mingun Bell, Myanmar
King Bodawpaya ordered this enormous bell cast between 1808 and 1810 for his unfinished Mingun pagoda. It weighs about 90 tonnes and stands roughly 3.7 metres tall. An earthquake knocked it from its supports in 1839, and it was rehung in 1896. This view, with plants growing over the frame, dates from the late 19th century.
How to check an old photo caption yourself
Many of the captions that came with these images were close to the truth, but a few were not, and the errors follow familiar patterns. Dates get rounded, "rare" turns into "only", and well-known names get attached to photos of strangers. A few simple habits help.
First, look for the archive or collection that holds the original, such as the Library of Congress or a city archive. Second, check the date against something you can confirm in the picture, such as a person's age, a building or a headline. That is how the Kennedy and Lincoln dates above were corrected. Third, treat words like "first" and "only known" as claims to test, not facts. For more on reading archive photos with fresh eyes, see Historical Images as Questions: Looking Beyond a Familiar Caption.
Sources: photo credits as originally shared: Imgur, Reddit, Facebook (Girls Inc.), Daily Mail and NYC Municipal Archives, Village Voice, Pinterest; Tereska by David Seymour (Chim), Magnum Photos; "Edinburgh Ale" by Hill & Adamson. Background: Wikipedia: Kathrine Switzer; Wikipedia: Christopher Street Liberation Day; Wikipedia: City Hall station (New York City Subway); Wikipedia: Minidoka National Historic Site; Wikipedia: Mingun Bell; Wikipedia: Palazzo Braschi; Wikipedia: History of Microsoft; Wikipedia: David Seymour (photographer).
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