Christmas 1894: Frozen River Thames

It's hard to imagine these days but in our recent history, most of the fast flowing rivers around the UK would completely freeze over in the winter months. Not only did this stop alot of the boats going up and down them it would mean a welcome activity for families and kids to play on the ice. Here was can see the Thames in 1894, exact spot unknown but one can speculate by the amount of people not far from London suburb. Even the dog seems to be having a good time.

Christmas Past: Boris Karloff, Ginger Rogers & a toy

Boris Karloff and Ginger Rogers at a gala Hollywood Christmas party - 1932. How about that for a dress? I wonder what colour is was? my guess is yellow. I do wonder what this photo was staged around. Here Boris take this toy dog. Woof.

Christmas Past! 1930's & 1920s

 Two women and their dogs in a car, taken by Zoltan Glass, c. 1933. I really liked this photo when I found it today. Something really iconic about it. Typical fashion of the day, with the must have dogs :) these days they carry their dogs in bags and carry them around.

 

Carole Lombard. Christmas, 1920s Very vintage photo, look at the style of the lady and the wavy hair, high heels and shorts. Wonder what Santa brought her that year? Shame Carole died so young, a great movie star at the time.

Christmas Soliders & Sparkles

 German soldiers celebrating Christmas in the trenches, 1915.

I am guessing this is from a movie in Wartime, one of this Hollywood spectatulars where the costumes take a life on their own!

Christmas War: Palestine 1941

Christmas in Gaza, Palestine, 1941. V.A.Ds (Voluntary Aid Detachments). Decorations in those days may look a bit different but you get the jist! Saying that the man in the bed behind the nurse seems too busy sleeping to notice :)

The curse of King Tutankhamun, Valley of the kings

 

Valley of the Kings: The entrance to Abu Simbel is the most amazing part, with four giant statues of Rameses II. Look at the scale of the statues! just grasp the size of them compared to the people walking by. How long did these take to make and how many slaves/workers did they use? nothing it seemed was beyond the realms of possibility when it came to the Egyptians and their tombs.

 In the late 1800's Howard Carter like many others went to Egypt to discover lost tombs and treasures from the past. With the backing of wealthy folk from back home we was able to spend years (literally 30+) searching for undiscovered tombs. In 1922 he hit the jackpot when he found King Tutankhamun's tomb. The amazing thing was it was completely intact, not robbed at all. The only tomb that has been discovered that had not been robbed.

As we can see inside Tut's tomb the lavish untouched chambers. The condition of the walls and artifacts were pristine. But the discovery of the tomb did come at a price. There was talk of a curse hitting the party involved in the expedition. Many died soon after but Howard Carter bucked the trend and lived to the ripe old age of 62. We don't get to see many photo's of inside tombs in the Valley of the Kings as it is forbidden, color on the walls would fade with people using camera's so only the official photos are available. Even more reason to go visit and see inside them yourself.

WW1 Officers Wat Wat!

Officers prepare to depart for the Channel coast and Dear Old Blighty. Looks like they wont see much trench action, although they have enough warm clothes on them to be OK in the trenches! I like the fact their trousers had enough tape around them to protect them from anything. As least they seem happy.

WW1 Injured Soliders, BoardWalk Empire

One of my Favorite shows is Boardwalk Empire, a story shot in America just after WW1. One of the leading characters had half his face blown off in the War. He wears a protective mask to hide his disfigured face. WW1 was the first time for many they had to deal with mass amounts of men, troops coming back injured, wounded, badly scared etc.

Wounded Canadians en route to Blighty (England). Just look at the poor chaps, covered with bandages around the face, left with a life or pain and suffering.

WW1: Mealtime in the trenchs, Sunday prayers

 

 Mass is held in the ruins of a church at Cambrai, France, October 1918. Oh yeah churches and all places or worship were not spared in the bombings and War zones.

Either Scottish or Canadian Troops in the Chilly weather. Did he want to wear something warmer? long trousers with padded socks are in order me thinks. This is taken from the winter of 1916.

WW2 Passchendaele 1917: Canadian Troops, Mud!

Men of a Canadian machine-gun company huddle in shell holes at Passchendaele, November 1917. Now I really like this photo. It looks nothing more than a muddy hell hole, its hard to even see their are people in the picture! They had to stay in those holes for days on end, firing at the enemy and keeping guard. No wonder they ended up with so many horrid alignments, trench foot etc. As far as the eye can see the landscape looks the same, muddy, holes no trees, wildlife.

This photo also from Passchendaele shows the problems that the troops had. Guns wedged, stuck in mud, wooden slats trying to save it from sinking. Moving these blighters must have been a right bugger. They would use horses for this.

American Civil War: Big Cannon, Barges

 

The American Civil War brought the first use of large weaponry on the battle field. These included large cannons! We can see from the photo that it took 4-5 men to operate and fire these things. The effects of these and the improved guns the soldiers used would often lead to battlefields with a large amount of casualties on both sides.

African-American refugees on a barge which contains their household belongings.
1865.

WW2 Propaganda Poster: Rising Sun

Not only is this WW2 Poster clever it has a lot of instructions/guidelines for Americans. Taking care of the rising sun is a reference to Japan in WW2. Fighting in the Pacific is an often overlooked element to WW2 but none the less crucial in how the War panned out. Did people really stop and read all the different lines? Each one being a 'Key' to Victory. We it worked in the end I guess.

James Bond!

 

New Bond film out this week, but can they ever match the dizzy heights of Sean playing the main man? Skyfall looks great and cannot wait to see it, Daniel Craig has done a great job in recent movies so expect more the same. I must say Sean not looking his best in the photo above, a bit shaken?

Every time I hear about a bond film it takes me back to playing computer games on the Amiga early 90's late 80's, one of the most frustrating games every invented was:

Jump jump fall fall, die die. Did we really spend hours upon hours playing these games? Funny when looking the James Pond games it seems there were many versions for the Mega drive for years to come, no doubt milked the franchise to death.

WW2 Propaganda Posters: Festive Cheer

Yes its coming up to Xmas and so we can start rolling out all the festive photo's for the blog. I guess due to the large number of Posters America used during WW2 is comes as no surprise Santa reared his ugly head!

1800's Photos Part 4: Frozen Building!

When water was used to put out a burning building in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in the late 19th century, the air temperature was so cold that the water quickly turned to ice.