History is often described as a living entity, comprised of moments that have been etched in time and have come to define the story of humanity. Yet, countless rare and seldom-seen moments often go unnoticed or forgotten within this grand narrative.
In this post, you'll see 20 remarkable historical images that shed light on these rarely-seen events. Each photograph serves as a portal to bygone eras, from the haunting remains of an ancient Roman city to the heart-pounding dogfight above St Paul's Cathedral during the Battle of Britain, and from the chilling mugshot and fingerprints of Benito Mussolini to the joyous chaos of a snowball fight in France in 1896.
Related: Step Back in Time With These Rare Historical Photographs
1. Iran, 1979 - Thousands of Iranian women take to the streets to protest the prospect of mandatory hijab.
2. 650 American officers and enlisted men pay tribute to the more than 8 million horses, mules, and donkeys who died in World War I service
3. Shavarsh Karapetyan, an Armenian fin swimmer (ten-time world record holder), who rescued 20 drowning passengers from a sinking trolleybus that fell off a bridge into Yerevan Lake
4. A shepherd and his children from the village of Knalk, Azerbaijan, 1970s
5. During a patrol, a Polish border guard and his horse drink water from a stream in the Bieszczady Mountains, 1980
6. The remains of the Ancient Roman City of Timgad in Algeria's Aures Mountains
7. “Mother's Eyes" - The Bedouin Mother. Photograph by Ilo Battigeli, 1948
8. German and British pilots engaged in a dogfight above St Paul's Cathedral during the Battle of Britain, London, 1940, World War II
9. Mugshot and fingerprints of Benito Mussolini, Bern, Switzerland, 1903
10. A lone dog sits in the snow next to a retreating Italian soldier column at Stalingrad, Soviet Union, December 1942, World War II
11. Goodyear's Illuminated Tires - On an October night in 1961, a woman adjusts her stocking using the light emitted by the Goodyear tire.
12. The coins that saved a soldier's life at the beginning of World War I
13. 111 football games were played at Hackney Marshes in London, United Kingdom in 1962
14. J. Robert Oppenheimer with Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study, 1947
15. A French Foreign Legion soldier holds the battalion mascot, Fritz, at Bir Hakeim. Fritz "moved over to the other side" in Narvik in 1940 and remained with them ever since.
16. Drive-in theater, Los Angeles, 1949
17. Snowball fight in Lyon, France, 1896
18. Japanese Samurai, 1870's
19. Members of the New York City's Fat Men's Club in 1904. All participants had to learn a secret handshake and password, were required to weigh at least 200 pounds (91kg), and pay a dollar as a fee.
20. A Canadian police officer guarding the pharmacy in waist-high flood waters in Galt, Ontario, 1974
