Eerie Photos Not Meant For The History Books - The Delite

Eerie Photos Not Meant For The History Books



History can often be concerning. It can be scary. But it can be important to learn from it regardless. Here will be some images you won’t often see in the history books. And that’s because of how eerie and concerning some of them can get.

Blanche Monnier


Blanche Monnier was once a beautiful, young woman, with many suitors. But when she told her mother that she wanted to marry a near-penniless lawyer, her mother became furious. She locked her in an attic for 26 years. This starved the young woman, leading to her entering a decrepit state. It wasn’t until 1901 when an anonymous letter alerted the authorities of her situation.

Ella Fitzgerald In Jail


The singer Ella Fitzgerald was arrested October 7th 1955 and jailed in Houston, Texas. And her only crime was performing in front of an integrated audience. By this point in time, segregation had been made illegal, but not everyone was ready to let go. Tour managa, Norman Granz, had taken down the “White” and “Negro” only signs in the venue. The theatre owner got mad and alerted the police, which led to Fitzgerald, along with Duzzy Gillespie and Illinois Jacquet, to be arrested on false charges.

Above The North Tower


The North Tower of the World Trade Center began in the summer of 1968. Construction of the South Tower began six months after that. Hundreds of laborers constructed it using American and Bethlehem steel. And some of the people working on the buildings were laborers such as these men. It was a dangerous job, with 60 workers dying during its construction. The Towers were finished in 1970 and 1971 respectively, and the official dedication was in 1973.

Toy Guillotine


One of the most recognizable medieval execution tools was the guillotine. And the event it’s most heavily associate with was the French Revolution. It was an incredibly bloody and terrible time for France. And that’s probably why this toy guillotine is such a disturbing idea. Children had plenty of questionable toys made for them in the past, but this one served no real purpose outside of pretending to execute your friends.

Montparnasse Station


The Granille-Paris Express was going just a little too fast when it came in at the Gare Montparnasse terminus on October 2nd 1895. The train ended up overrunning the buffer and crashing through the back wall of the station. The locomotive and one of the cars dangled above or otherwise hit the ground below. All of the passengers and crew survived, but a woman was killed by falling debris. It took several days before the mess and the train were finally cleaned up.

Famous Diver Amelia Earhart


Amelia Earhart was better known as an aviator, but she did briefly dabble in deep-sea diving. Inventor, Simon Lake, had designed a submarine and offered Earhart the opportunity to explore the ocean floor. However, despite being known as a thrill-seeker, Earhart just didn’t have the stomach for diving. She got cold feet rather quickly into the whole process, saying that divers really “must have their nerve”.

Marching Past The Gulags


This photo from 1943 is of German prisoners being taken to a gulag in Siberia. Vladimir Lenin, the head of the Soviet government, had many forced labor camps in this inhospitable environment. They weren’t just used to house prisoners of war, but political dissidents and rivals as well. Sometimes even a petty criminal could be sent to a gulag. Not only was the weather terrible, but the labor conditions were much worse. They weren’t properly fed or clothed. Getting sent to a Gulag was akin to a death sentence.

Early Office Life


AutoCAD really made things easy for engineers and drafters. But before 1982, these people had to make their designs by hand. You’d need a lot of supplies, including pencils, rulers, T-squares, protractors, and massive sheets of paper. A lot of the time people had to lay on the ground in order to their work.

Bella The Hippo


During the Siege of Leningrad, the Leningrad Zoo needed to be evacuated. Many of the animals were transported elsewhere, but some were too large to be able to move. One such animal was Bella the Hippo. She, like other animals stuck in the zoo, were doomed to die of starvation. But thanks to their caregiver, Yevdokia Dashina, they were kept fed well enough to survive the 872-day siege. She transported barrels of water to the zoo via sled and brought vegetables from her own garden for Bella to eat.

A Burning Tank


The M4 Sherman tank was the most commonly used medium-sized tank used by the Allied Forces in World War II. It was a useful tank, but the one thing it lacked was durability. But it was quite easy to return them from the front and either repair them or strip them for parts. However, not all tanks were able to be recovered, such as the one pictured here. And sometimes, not every member of the crew was able to make it out.

New Prussia


During both World Wars, the Allied Forces used a lot of propaganda to drum up support and get people to enlist in the military. This is a map that was released in 1916, implying what would happen if the Allies lost the war against the Central Powers. According to the map, most of the US would be controlled by the Germans and be referred to as “New Prussia”. Japan would take the West Coast and call it “Japonica”. The Native Americans would get a small portion of New Mexico, Turkey would get Florida, and for some reason Canada would become a lawless land ran by barbarians.

Dunnotar Castle


Since it was built in the Medieval Era, Donnattar Castle in Scotland has been reduced to ruins. It had been the hiding palce of the crown jewels of Scotland when Oliver Cromwell invaded in the 17th Century. It also served an important role in the Jacobite Rising 100 years after that. In the 20th Century it was mostly restored and is not open as a tourist attraction.

Running Off The Rails At Union Station


Here’s another image of a train going off the rails, albeit a little bit more modern. The California train’s brakes failed when it was departing from the Los Angeles union Passenger Terminal. It broke through the guardrail and barrier before stopping. The engine was left dangling about 20 feet off the ground. Fortunately there were no fatalities, and property damage was kept to a minimum, but it took a few days for the engine to be safely backed up.

House Dresses


Until the 1900s, it was expected that a housewife would sew all the clothing for the family. The textile industry exploded, clothing could be mass-produced at a more affordable price. These are all images of the “casual” house dresses that housewives could wear while at home.

The Tomb Of Ramses II


Ramses II was a pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. Perhaps one of the most powerful and effective to ever rule the land. There were several monuments dedicated to his rule, built out of loyalty to him. His life was also incredibly long, with some historians believing he died in his early 90s. While he was buried in the Valley of the Kings, it was later moved to prevent it from being stolen by tomb raiders. Pictured here was his tomb, one of the largest and most elaborate in the whole valley.

A Fair Ride


This was a thrill ride made at an amusement park. It was built by amateurs and is likely one of the reasons we have theme park regulations nowadays. Injuries were common and that led to a series of death. Since then, several safety regulations were put into effect. This included seatbelts, automatic shut-off mechanisms, and actual safety testing.

A DC Car Crash


Automobiles became more widely used between the 1910s and 1920s. And with that increase in cars came an increase car accidents. The one pictured here is a colorized photo from 1921. Of course, there weren’t any real auto safety features in cars yet. People had to learn about those with more trial and error. Forget safety features in the cars, they didn’t even have traffic lights or signs yet.

Janos And Istvan Lukacs


These two were Janos and Istvan Lukacs, a pair of Hungarian twins and bachelors. They lived their entire lives on a rural farmhouse with no electricity or running water. They worked ten or more hours a day tending to their farm and animals. Janos Stekovics, a photographer, was so enamored by their lifestyles he captured this photo and many more of the twins.

Tiananmen Square, 1989


If this year and location sounds familiar, then you probably already know the story. During a time of political and social reform in China, thousands of students packed into Tiananmen Square in protest. They wanted free speech, press, government accountability, democracy, and due process under the law. The protests were initially small, but at their peak there were one million people in the square. On May 20th that year, the government declared martial law and sent 300,000 troops to Beijing to break up the protests. And on June 4h, tanks rolled in. That same day, the military opened fire on the students. China never released an official death toll, but experts believe as many as several thousand protesters were killed.

The Real Ingalls


The Ingalls Family were the ones that inspired the television series Little House on the Prairie. There were some differences though, such as the family moving around much more often. The parents ended up eventually settling in DeSmet, South Dakota, eventually moving into town with their daughter, Mary. Funnily enough, Mary never married.

A Trio Of Princesses


In this photo is Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, and Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia. A mother, a daughter, and her sister. The women were all known for their beauty, charm, and intelligence. They each spoke multiple languages, played several instruments, and had such impeccable fashion sense they inspired some styles still around today.

Pearl Bailey And Louis Bellson


Pearl Bailey and Louis Bellson had a long and loving marriage. But it almost never happened. In the 1950s, interracial marriages were looked down upon. It was Bellson’s father that was most against their union. However, this didn’t stop them in 1952, when they took a flight to London to officially wed.

Abandoned Farmhouse


This building in New Hampshire was built over a century ago. And despite the fact that it’s fallen into disrepair, it’s still standing. The family that once lived there was likely more well-off, but it’s truly a shame the state the home has fallen into.

The Pony Express


Legends of the Pony Express are intertwined with people’s understanding of the Old West. However, the Pony Express didn’t actually last that long. It was a massive money sink in the first place and riders were hard enough to come by. Just looking at poster shows you how high the likelihood of injury of death actually was. And they didn’t even want anyone over 18. The specifically wanted young, resourceful kids that didn’t have anyone to return to at the end of the day.

Ice Delivery


Before the invention of the refrigerator, people had to make do with iceboxes. The man pictured here was an ice delivery man. Their job was to take large blocks of ice (so that they wouldn’t melt to fast) and transport them to families in need of ice. It wasn’t exactly as easy as one might expect, as that ice turned out to be really heavy. And you had to transport it fast.