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A historical photograph can preserve a moment perfectly while still leaving out almost everything that makes the story interesting. A group of construction workers eating lunch, an empty space on a museum wall, or a celebrity getting a routine injection might not seem particularly mysterious at first. Look into what happened before or after the camera clicked, however, and things can get considerably stranger. Some famous images were carefully staged, others captured bizarre accidents, and a few became misleading once their original context was forgotten. In certain cases, the real explanation sounds far less believable than anything we could make up. Here are 15 historical photos with much stranger backstories than they seem.
Lunch Was Not Quite as Casual as It Looked
The 1932 photograph of 11 construction workers eating on a beam hundreds of feet above Manhattan looks like an astonishingly casual lunch break. The men really were ironworkers, but the scene was arranged as part of a publicity shoot promoting Rockefeller Center, with other staged photographs showing workers pretending to sleep and tossing a football on the beam.
Niagara Falls Did Not Simply Run Dry
Photos from 1969 show the American Falls looking almost completely dry, as though something had gone terribly wrong with Niagara. Engineers had actually diverted the water on purpose for several months so they could study erosion and determine whether loose rocks should be removed from the base of the falls.
The Mona Lisa Was Missing
An old photograph of visitors staring at a blank spot on a Louvre wall becomes much stranger once you know what should have been hanging there. The Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 by museum employee Vincenzo Peruggia, who hid inside the building and walked out with the painting concealed under his clothing.
Elvis Was Helping Fight Polio
A 1956 photograph of Elvis Presley getting an injection backstage might look like an ordinary celebrity medical moment. It was actually a carefully publicized polio vaccination intended to encourage American teenagers to get vaccinated at a time when uptake among young people was lagging.
Theodore Roosevelt Never Rode That Moose
The photograph of Theodore Roosevelt apparently riding a moose through a river is so perfectly suited to his outdoorsman reputation that it circulated as genuine for years. In reality, it was a 1912 composite created as part of a series depicting presidential candidates riding the animals associated with their political parties.
Salvador Dalí’s Anteater Was Part of the Show
A photograph of Salvador Dalí casually walking a giant anteater through Paris in 1969 somehow seems believable given the artist involved. Despite reports that it was another one of his exotic pets, the encounter appears to have been a deliberately arranged photo opportunity, with the animal likely borrowed for the occasion.
Einstein Was Tired of Smiling
Albert Einstein’s famous tongue photograph looks like the physicist simply decided to act silly for the camera. He had actually spent his 72nd birthday being followed by photographers and, when Arthur Sasse asked for yet another smile as Einstein was leaving, he responded by sticking out his tongue instead.
Boston Was Flooded With Molasses
Photos of twisted buildings and wreckage in Boston’s North End in 1919 could easily be mistaken for the aftermath of an explosion or severe storm. A giant storage tank had actually burst and released roughly 2.3 million gallons of molasses into the neighborhood, killing 21 people and leaving an enormous cleanup operation behind.
Mike Was Missing Something Important
Photos of Mike the Headless Chicken look so absurd that the story sounds like an old carnival hoax. After a farmer attempted to kill him in 1945, enough of Mike’s brain stem remained intact for him to survive, and he lived for another 18 months while his owners took him around the country as an attraction.
A Princess Was Training as a Mechanic
Photographs of a young woman in overalls working on military vehicles during World War II do not immediately suggest royalty. The mechanic was future Queen Elizabeth II, who joined Britain’s Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1945 and trained in driving and vehicle maintenance.
The World’s Fair Had a Tattooed Beauty Contestant
Photographs of heavily tattooed performer Betty Broadbent already stood out dramatically in the 1930s. Her story became even more unusual at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, where she entered a televised beauty contest while displaying the tattoos that had made her a famous sideshow performer.
Miss Atomic Bomb Was Selling Las Vegas
The 1957 photograph of Lee Merlin wearing a fluffy mushroom-cloud-shaped costume looks like an unusually cheerful response to nuclear weapons. She was actually “Miss Atomic Bomb”, part of Las Vegas tourism’s bizarre embrace of nearby nuclear testing, which had turned mushroom clouds into a spectacle visitors could watch from hotels and rooftops.
The Photographer Caught a Disaster Nobody Expected
Images from the Hindenburg disaster show a massive airship consumed by flames while horrified witnesses watch below. What makes the photographs even stranger in retrospect is that the Hindenburg had successfully completed dozens of passenger flights before the 1937 landing disaster abruptly helped bring the glamorous era of commercial zeppelin travel to an end.
One Coconut Became a Presidential Souvenir
A photograph of John F. Kennedy with a coconut seems like an unusually random presidential keepsake. During World War II, after his patrol boat PT-109 was destroyed, Kennedy carved a rescue message into a coconut shell and gave it to local islanders, who helped get word to Allied forces; he later kept the shell encased in wood on his Oval Office desk.
The Milkman Wasn’t Actually Delivering Milk
The famous 1940 photo appears to show a remarkably dedicated milkman continuing his route through the bomb-damaged streets of London. But photographer Fred Morley staged the scene with his assistant dressed as a milkman, creating an optimistic image that could get past wartime censors while still showing the devastation of the Blitz in the background.
The post 15 Historical Photos With Much Stranger Backstories Than it Seems appeared first on Den of Geek.
