Yesterday Today

28 Rare Photographs of the Romanov Family Years Before Their Execution

At about 1 a.m. on July 17, 1918, in a fortified mansion in the town of Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, the Romanovs—ex-tsar Nicholas II, ex-tsarina Alexandra, their five children, and their four remaining servants, including the loyal family doctor, Eugene Botkin—were awoken by their Bolshevik captors and told they must dress and gather their belongings for a swift nocturnal departure.

The White armies, which supported the tsar, were approaching; the prisoners could already hear the boom of the big guns. They gathered in the cellar of the mansion, standing together almost as if they were posing for a family portrait. Alexandra, who was sick, asked for a chair, and Nicholas asked for another one for his only son, 13-year-old Alexei. Two were brought down. They waited there until, suddenly, 11 or 12 heavily armed men filed ominously into the room.

Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov (18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 – 17 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas’s commitment to autocratic rule, strong aristocratic opposition and defeats sustained by the Russian military in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate the throne, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty’s 304-year rule of Russia (1613–1917).

Nicholas signed the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which was designed to counter Germany’s attempts to gain influence in the Middle East; it ended the Great Game of confrontation between Russia and the British Empire. He aimed to strengthen the Franco-Russian Alliance and proposed the unsuccessful Hague Convention of 1899 to promote disarmament and solve international disputes peacefully. Domestically, he was criticised for his government’s repression of political opponents and his perceived fault or inaction during the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Jewish pogroms, Bloody Sunday and the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution. His popularity was further damaged by the Russo-Japanese War, which saw the Russian Baltic Fleet annihilated at the Battle of Tsushima, together with the loss of Russian influence over Manchuria and Korea and the Japanese annexation of the south of Sakhalin Island.

During the July Crisis, Nicholas supported Serbia and approved the mobilization of the Russian Army on 30 July 1914. In response, Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August 1914 and its ally France on 3 August 1914, starting the Great War, later known as the First World War. The severe military losses led to a collapse of morale at the front and at home; a general strike and a mutiny of the garrison in Petrograd sparked the February Revolution and the disintegration of the monarchy’s authority. After abdicating for himself and his son, Nicholas and his family were imprisoned by the Russian Provisional Government and exiled to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution, the family was held in Yekaterinburg, where they were executed on 17 July 1918.

In 1981, Nicholas, his wife, and their children were recognized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, based in New York City. Their gravesite was discovered in 1979, but this was not acknowledged until 1989. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the remains of the imperial family were exhumed, identified by DNA analysis, and re-interred with an elaborate state and church ceremony in St. Petersburg on 17 July 1998, exactly 80 years after their deaths. They were canonized in 2000 by the Russian Orthodox Church as passion bearers. In the years following his death, Nicholas was reviled by Soviet historians and state propaganda as a “callous tyrant” who “persecuted his own people while sending countless soldiers to their deaths in pointless conflicts”. Despite being viewed more positively in recent years, the majority view among historians is that Nicholas was a well-intentioned yet poor ruler who proved incapable of handling the challenges facing his nation. (Wikipedia)

After Tsar Nicholas II and his family were executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries, a collection of the royal family’s personal photographs was smuggled out of Russia. The albums offer a haunting glimpse into the life of a family destined for tragedy.

Nicholas II and his wife, Empress Aleksandra (far right), with their four daughters and son. The tsar was forced to abdicate in 1917 and he and his family were shot and stabbed to death by Bolshevik troops, in 1918, before their bodies were doused in acid and dumped into a mine shaft.

**Tsar Nicholas II wading on the rocky shore of Finland. After the early death of his father, he confided to a friend, “I am not yet ready to be tsar. I know nothing of the business of ruling.”**

**Tsar Nicholas II and his son, Aleksei, near St. Petersburg. The young heir suffered from hemophilia, a genetic disorder that prevents blood from clotting.**

Anna Vyrubova (right) wading at the beach with Grand Duchesses Tatyana and Olga. After the family was murdered, Anna, a close friend of the royal family, was able to flee Soviet Russia with six albums containing these photographs.

Empress Aleksandra (left) with Anna Vyrubova, and Olga, the eldest of the grand duchesses. Anna was arrested after the revolution but managed to escape to Finland with the albums, which contain more than 2,600 photographs of the private lives of the Romanovs. She died in Helsinki in 1964.

Empress Aleksandra being greeted aboard the Standart, the imperial yacht that served the tsar’s family for holidays and official tours. In the background, her young daughters, known as Russia’s grand duchesses, are saluted by the crew.

**Two of the grand duchesses aboard the Standart. When the children were small, each was assigned a sailor to ensure they didn’t fall overboard.**

**Nicholas II and his daughters hiking in Crimea.**

A footbridge at Spala in Poland. During the royal family’s 1912 trip here, Tsarevich Aleksei fell while jumping into a rowboat and badly bruised his thigh, triggering internal bleeding that brought the heir apparent to the brink of death.

Tsar Nicholas II posing with a deer felled at Spala shortly before the crisis with his son began. When the Siberian mystic Rasputin apparently helped the tsarevich make a miraculous recovery from his internal bleeding, Rasputin became a close confidant of the royal family.

**Empress Aleksandra and her daughter, Grand Duchess Tatyana. The two were said to be especially close.**

**Tsar Nicholas II (left) greeting an unidentified man aboard the Standart.**

**Tsarevich Aleksei Romanov, the heir to the Russian throne. The boy was 13 years old when he and his family were assassinated.**

Tsarevich Aleksei, third from left, playing soldiers. Andrey Derevenko (far left) was one of two minders tasked with looking after the vulnerable heir apparent. Derevenko joined the Bolsheviks soon after the revolution and taunted the tsarevich before disappearing into obscurity.

Klementy Nagorny (right) was also tasked with looking after Tsarevich Aleksei (second from right on trolley). After the 1917 revolution, Nagorny joined the royal family in captivity despite knowing it was likely he would be killed. While imprisoned with the Romanovs, he intervened to stop a Bolshevik guard from stealing Aleksei’s gold chain; he was shot a few days later.

Pierre Gilliard, the family’s French tutor, with his pupils Olga and Tatyana Romanov. Gilliard was another of the family’s retinue who joined them in captivity. After the murders, he assisted the investigation into the killings before fleeing Russia as Vladimir Lenin tightened his grip on power. He died in Switzerland in 1962.

**The grand duchesses with their mother and two officers.**

**Aboard the Standart, sailors take turns bouncing their shipmates down the deck on mats.**

**Tatyana Romanov aboard the Standart. Tatyana was described by an associate as a “poetical creature, always yearning for the ideal, and dreaming of great friendships which might be hers.”**

**Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatyana, and Maria aboard the Standart in 1914. The sisters were 22, 21, and 19 years old when they were killed.**

Empress Aleksandra having her likeness modeled in clay. In the three years before the revolution of 1917, the German-born Empress became a figure of suspicion and contempt as Russia fought against Germany on the ruinous battlefields of WWI.

**Olga Romanov in a wicker chair aboard the Standart.**

**Villagers photographed during a trip made by the tsar and his family. The picture is one of only a few in the albums which focus on the ordinary people of Russia.**

Anastasia, the youngest of the Grand Duchesses, photographed after a round of tennis with an officer and her father, Nicholas II. On the night of the murders, on July 17, 1918, Anastasia fainted in the initial hail of bullets. She awoke moments later and screamed before the Bolshevik troops piled onto her with bayonets.

**The grand duchesses striding across the deck of the Standart. Life on board the yacht was relaxed and informal, and flirtations sprang up between the sailors and the grand duchesses.**

**Nicholas II and three of the grand duchesses floating in one of the canals of Tsarskoe Selo, near St. Petersburg.**

**In the months after the 1917 Revolution, Grand Duchess Tatiana helping to dig a vegetable garden while being held in captivity by revolutionaries.**

Tsar Nicholas II and his son Aleksei sawing wood while in captivity. They were killed a few months later. The diary of a senior Soviet leader recalls that Vladimir Lenin made the decision to have the Romanovs executed, after concluding “we shouldn’t leave the [anti-Bolshevik forces] a living emblem to rally around, especially under the present difficult circumstances.”

(Photos courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

30 Amazing Vintage Photos of American Car Races from the Late 19th to Early 20th Centuries

Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing,[1] or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition.

Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organised, with the first recorded as early as 1867. Many of the earliest events were effectively reliability trials, aimed at proving these new machines were a practical mode of transport, but soon became an important way for automobile makers to demonstrate their machines. By the 1930s, specialist racing cars had developed.

There are now numerous different categories, each with different rules and regulations.

The first prearranged match race of two self-powered road vehicles over a prescribed route occurred at 4:30 A.M. on August 30, 1867, between Ashton-under-Lyne and Old Trafford, a distance of eight miles. It was won by the carriage of Isaac Watt Boulton.

Internal combustion auto racing events began soon after the construction of the first successful gasoline-fueled automobiles. The first organized contest was on April 28, 1887, by the chief editor of Paris publication Le Vélocipède, Monsieur Fossier. It ran 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from Neuilly Bridge to the Bois de Boulogne.

On July 22,[4] 1894, the Parisian magazine Le Petit Journal organized what is considered to be the world’s first motoring competition, from Paris to Rouen. One hundred and two competitors paid a 10-franc entrance fee.

The first American automobile race is generally held to be the Thanksgiving Day Chicago Times-Herald race of November 28, 1895. Press coverage of the event first aroused significant American interest in the automobile.

The Targa Florio was an open road endurance automobile race held in the mountains of Sicily near the island’s capital of Palermo. Founded in 1906, it was the oldest sports car racing event, part of the World Sportscar Championship between 1955 and 1973.

With auto construction and racing dominated by France, the French automobile club ACF staged a number of major international races, usually from or to Paris, connecting with another major city, in France or elsewhere in Europe.

Aspendale Racecourse, in Australia, was the world’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit, opening in January 1906. The pear shaped track was close to a mile in length, with slightly banked curves and a gravel surface of crushed cement.

Brooklands, in Surrey, was the first purpose-built ‘banked’ motor racing venue, opening in June 1907. It featured a 4.43 km (2.75 mi) concrete track with high-speed banked corners.

One of the oldest existing purpose-built automobile racing circuits in the United States, still in use, is the 2.5-mile-long (4.0 km) Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana. It is the largest capacity sports venue of any variety worldwide, with a top capacity of some 257,000+ seated spectators.

NASCAR was founded by Bill France, Sr. on February 21, 1948, with the help of several other drivers of the time. The first NASCAR “Strictly Stock” race ever was held on June 19, 1949, at Daytona Beach, Florida.

From 1962, sports cars temporarily took a back seat to GT cars, with the FIA replacing the World Championship for Sports Cars with the International Championship for GT Manufacturers.

From 1962 through 2003, NASCAR’s premier series was called the Winston Cup Series, sponsored by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company cigarette brand Winston. The changes that resulted from RJR’s involvement, as well as the reduction of the schedule from 56 to 34 races a year, established 1972 as the beginning of NASCAR’s “modern era”.

The IMSA GT Series evolved into the American Le Mans Series, which ran its first season in 1998. The European races eventually became the closely related Le Mans Series, both of which mix prototypes and GTs.

Turismo Carretera (Road racing, lit., Road Touring) is a popular touring car racing series in Argentina, and one of the oldest car racing series still active in the world. The first TC competition took place in 1931 with 12 races, each in a different province. Future Formula One star Juan Manuel Fangio (Chevrolet) won the 1940 and 1941 editions of the TC. It was during this time that the series’ Chevrolet-Ford rivalry began, with Ford acquiring most of its historical victories. (Wikipedia)

**The first U.S. oval track events took place in early September 1896 at Narragansett Park, Rhode Island**

**The Sioux City Speedway race, July 4, 1914**

The start of the Elgin National Road Races on Aug. 23, 1919. The annual dirt-track races went from 1910 to 1920, except for a three year break during World War I. Tommy Milton was the winner in 1919, racing 301 miles in a Duesenberg and winning the Elgin National Watch Company trophy.

**1908 Long Island Motor Parkway Sweepstakes**

**Auto races, Abilene, Kansas, ca. 1910s**

**Auto races, Minneapolis, Kansas, August 1917**

**Car racing at the old wooden race track in north Omaha, 1915**

**Fairgrounds Speedway, Nashville, Tennessee, 1911**

**First auto race at Orange County Fair, Middletown, NY, 1915**

**George Hill and his mechanician in car, a Stutz, on the new Tacoma Speedway track, 1915**

**Indianapolis Motor Speedway, September 9, 1916**

**Metropolitan trophy race, Sheepshead Bay, May 13, 1916**

**Vanderbilt Cup races at Motor Parkway Sweepstakes, 1908**

**Narragansett Park Speedway in Providence, Rhode Island on a sunny fall afternoon, 1915**

**Racing at the Readville racetrack in Boston, Massachusetts, 1909**

**Racing came to Arizona early as evidenced in this cartoon from the November 2, 1908 edition of the Los Angeles Times**

**Golden Potlatch race, Tacoma, July 5, 1915**

**Earl Cooper approaches the checkered flag in his Stutz racing car at the Tacoma Speedway, July 4, 1915**

**The first auto race in Rush County, Kansas, 1911**

44 Stunning Photos of Priscilla Presley at Her Beverly Hills Home, 1975

A prolific celebrity photographer, Ron Galella is considered the godfather of American paparazzi culture. Over the course of his career, Galella has shot candid photographs of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Mick Jagger, and Bruce Springsteen, among countless other iconic celebrities; been through two high-profile court battles with Jacqueline Kennedy, resulting in a restraining order for the photographer; and suffered a broken jaw at the hands of Marlon Brando.

Galella was the subject of the documentary film, Smash His Camera, and his photographs have appeared in publications including Time, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times.

Priscilla Ann Presley (née Wagner, changed by adoption to Beaulieu; born May 24, 1945) is an American businesswoman and actress. She is the ex-wife of Elvis Presley as well as the co-founder and former chairwoman of Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE), the company that turned Graceland into one of the top tourist attractions in the United States. In her acting career, Presley co-starred with Leslie Nielsen in the three successful Naked Gun films, and played the role of Jenna Wade on the long-running television series Dallas.

These beautiful photoshoots Galella shot Priscilla Presley at her Beverly Hills home, California on April 9, 1975.

22 Amazing Vintage Photographs Showing Life in Paris During the 1920s

After the austerity and bloodshed of World War I, France longed for joy and light-heartedness. Pre-war values were rejected as people embraced new lifestyles and new technologies, and discovered a lust for extravagance and partying that had the era named Les Années Folles (the Roaring Twenties, or the ‘mad years’). Cars appeared on the roads; picture houses opened, projecting the world’s first silent movies; radios appeared in households; jazz flourished, and musical halls – where icons like Josephine Baker and Maurice Chevalier launched their careers – became the places to see and be seen in.

Paris was at the heart of it all, not only in terms of fashion and entertainment, but in the domains of decorative art and architecture, as movers and thinkers drew inspiration from cubism, modernism and neoclassicism to create the ‘total’ style we know and love today: art deco. Such was the impact of this ‘modern style’ that it carried on well into the 1930s.

Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 square kilometres (41 square miles), making it the 34th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world’s major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, science, and arts, and has sometimes been referred to as the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the region and province of Île-de-France, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,997,058 in 2020, or about 18 percent of the population of France, making it in 2020 the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and 14th largest in the world in 2015. The Paris Region had a GDP of €709 billion ($808 billion) in 2017. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, in 2021 Paris was the city with the second-highest cost of living in the world, tied with Singapore, and after Tel Aviv.

Paris is a major railway, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris–Charles de Gaulle (the second-busiest airport in Europe) and Paris–Orly. Opened in 1900, the city’s subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily; it is the second-busiest metro system in Europe after the Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th-busiest railway station in the world, but the busiest located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre received 2.8 million visitors in 2021, despite the long museum closings caused by the COVID-19 virus. The Musée d’Orsay, Musée Marmottan Monet and Musée de l’Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art. The Pompidou Centre Musée National d’Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe. The Musée Rodin and Musée Picasso exhibit the works of two noted Parisians. The historical district along the Seine in the city centre has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991; popular landmarks there include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité, now closed for renovation after the 15 April 2019 fire. Other popular tourist sites include the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, also on the Île de la Cité; the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889; the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, built for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900; the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées, and the hill of Montmartre with its artistic history and its Basilica of Sacré-Coeur.

Paris hosts several United Nations organisations: the UNESCO, the Young Engineers / Future Leaders, the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, and other international organisations such as the OECD, the OECD Development Centre, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the International Energy Agency, the International Federation for Human Rights, the International Organisation of La Francophonie; along with European bodies such as the European Space Agency, the Euro Banking Association or the European Securities and Markets Authority. Other international organisations were founded in Paris such as the CIMAC in 1951 (International Council on Combustion Engines | Conseil International des Machines à Combustion), or the modern Olympic Games in 1894 which was then moved to Lausanne, Switzerland.

Tourism recovered in the Paris region in 2021, increasing to 22.6 million visitors, thirty percent more than in 2020, but still well below 2019 levels. The number of visitors from the United States increased by 237 percent over 2020. Museums re-opened in 2021, with limitations on the number of visitors at a time and a requirement that visitors wear masks.

The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris. The 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. The city hosted the Olympic Games in 1900, 1924 and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, as well as the 1960, 1984 and 2016 UEFA European Championships were also held in the city. Every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. (Wikipedia)

**A triporteurs race is shown passing under a backdrop of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, January 1920.**

**Two Parisian women enjoy an afternoon cup of coffee, circa 1925.**

**The Eiffel Tower is shown peeking between the Parisian back streets.**

**Two women elegantly show off the fashions of their era.**

**Children are seen selling lilies in the streets of Paris, 1929.**

**A couple enjoys a nice bottle of wine and a breathtaking view from the Eiffel Tower in 1928.**

**A women sits comfortably in 1925 fashions: a jumper suit with contrasting trim, worn with a cloche hat with turned back brim.**

**The Eiffel Tower as seen from the Trocadéro, circa 1925.**

**Mlle Marie Simonne is seen with her friends after winning the “Pearly Queen of Paris” beauty pageant, August 1926.**

**Cycling up the Champs Elysees are the nearly 160 competitors of the Tour de France in June, 1926.**

**An ice-cream vendor selling sodas and sweets to children on the city streets, 1925.**

American publisher Sylvia Beach stands in the doorway of her bookshop “Shakespeare & Company”, during the 1920s. The shop gained recognition for being run by the only person willing to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses in the English language and was regarded as a haven for American expatriates during the 1920s and 1930s.

**A crowded bar is shown at La Boule Blanche, a much-frequented Paris nightclub of the era.**

**Patrons have a drink and take a swim at the Champs Elysees Lido in Paris, circa 1925.**

**A group of women celebrate a réveillon in Paris, circa 1925. A réveillon is a dinner party preceding Christmas and New Year, at which luxury foods and wines are often served.**

Members of the “Friday The Thirteenth Club” walk under a ladder in single file line at a meeting in a Paris bar. The club met every Friday 13th to do everything that superstitious people traditionally avoid.

**A Parisian bar is shown bustling after dark.**

**“The Hoffman Girls” pose for a picture backstage before appearing at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, February 1924.**

**Gardeners taking care of a tulip field in front of the Carrousel du Louvre, in spring 1929.**

**A little girl hands a posy of lilies to a police officer on duty at the Porte Saint-Denis in Paris, 1920.**

**A deserted street in Paris at night, 1929.**

**The Moulin Rouge cabaret, January 1929.**

23 Fascinating Vintage Photos That Show How Swimsuits Evolved From the Victorian Era to the Bikini Age

Think it’s hot at the beach these days? Imagine wearing wool, which is what the first garments we’d recognize as swimsuits were made of.

But maybe wool had its charms. Just check out these interesting vintage photographs below and see how swimsuits evolved from Victorian times to the bikini Age.

**A woman wearing a fashionable bathing costume, circa 1870.**

**Holidaymakers posing in bathing suits in the ocean surf at Santa Monica, Calif., circa 1890.**

**Woman in one-piece bathing suit and cap reclining on a beach in France, circa 1900.**

**A Girl in A Bathing Costume, circa 1909.**

**Four young women in matching beach wear run out of the surf, Los Angeles, California, circa 1910.**

**Actress Elsie Marson in a red silk swimsuit with white embroidered spots, circa 1918.**

**A woman in a bathing suit poses in front of a studio ocean scene, Paris, France, circa 1920.**

**Woman having her swimsuit measured for length violations on a Washington DC beach, circa 1922.**

**Five women walking arm-in-arm on the beach wearing wool bathing suits, circa 1925.**

Alice Nikitina, well known Russian ballet dancer, teacher, and opera singer wearing one of her striking bathing suits at the beach in Italy, Alassio, Italy, circa 1929. Some called it a ‘bizarre bathing suit’.

Two men wearing bathing suits (jersey tank tops and belted trunks) climbing up ladder toward two models (the one standing on the left is Georgia Graves) wearing belted one-piece jersey bathing suits (Ondine) with stripes on the bottom; designed by Lucien Lelong; bathing caps.

**A model walks the runway during a swimsuit fashion show at the Molitor swimming pool, circa 1930 in Paris, France.**

**Woman wearing cut-out swimming suit at the Aquatic gala at Molitor swimming pool, on June 23, 1931 in Paris.**

**Verna Lee Fisher sporting her newly created crossword swimsuit with matching bathing hat, at Palm Beach, Fla., circa 1933.**

**The Latest In swimwear on a beach In California, circa 1934.**

**circa 1935: Actresses Ida Lupino (1918 – 1995), and Kathleen Burke (1913 – 1980), model the latest swimwear.**

**Actress Alexis Smith in a swimming costume running along the beach in southern California, USA circa 1940.**

Bathing suit clad female members of the British Imperial Censorship Staff, who call themselves the censorettes, standing poolside at the Princess Hotel, which also serves as their offices on the island. Circa 1941.

**Model posing in bathing suit in Florida, circa 1945.**

**Two models wearing bathing suits and bathing caps, circa 1946.**

The new ‘Bikini’ swimming costume caused a sensation at a beauty contest at the Molitor swimming pool in Paris. Designer Louis Reard was unable to find a ‘respectable’ model for his costume and the job of displaying it went to 19-year-old Micheline Bernardini, a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris. She is holding a small box into which the entire costume can be packed. Celebrated as the first bikini, Luard’s design came a few months after a similar two-piece design was produced by French designer Jacques Heim.

40 Amazing Photos of Pablo Picasso in His Villa La Californie in the late 1950s

David Douglas Duncan (1916 – 2018) was an American photojournalist who is best known for his dramatic combat photographs. However another really interesting and much more unknown side of him, is the record that he made in 1957 about the intimate life of the great Pablo Picasso in his Villa La Californie in Cannes, France.

The two met in southern France in 1956, and remained friends for the remaining 17 years of Picasso’s life. Duncan was a trusted friend of Pablo Picasso and his family. He has said that his favorite person to photograph was Pablo Picasso, and took thousands of photographs of the artist, inside his studio-homes, and of his then-unknown canvases.

According to KatariMag, the story of why this photographer was interested in meeting Picasso is awesome. Reporting in south of Afghanistan, he unearthed a Greek carnelian engraved with a rooster from the time of Christ, that reminded him of Picasso’s paintings. Once back in Rome, he ordered Bulgari to turn it into a ring, so that someday he could give it to the enigmatic Spaniard.

Years later, on his way to Morocco, he passes through Cannes. The only common friend they had was the late photographer Robert Capa, who had recently died in Indochina. Jaqueline answers the phone and invites him to the house. When he arrives at the huge turn-of-century mansion, Jaqueline receives him and leads him to Picasso; the painter was giving himself a bath tub.

In those years, Picasso age 70, was living with his second wife named Jacqueline Roque; who was forty years younger and who accompanied him until the day he died. Around the house were also Claude and Paloma Picasso, children of the painter with Francoise Gilot, who came from Paris to spend their vacations. Many stories are told about the brilliant Picasso; womanizer, abandoning father, egomaniac, etc. But Duncan assures that during the time he spent in La Californie, there was a peaceful, benevolent and cheerful air.

He assures that he was given absolute access to the artist’s intimate life. There was never a “no-answer” to a shooting and nothing was ever set up for a better framing. Everything was spontaneous.

Picasso did not usually leave La Californie. He got up at mid-morning, had coffee with milk, ate toast, and received his mails. After a frugal lunch, he used to start working in complete isolation until late hours at night.

In the room he used as a studio, hundreds of pieces from multiple disciplines such as sculptures, ceramics, paintings and drawings, were scattered. He was one of the most prolific artists in history. At his death, at age 91, he left 45,000 pieces. We can imagine his intense daily work… the artist’s tremendous compulsion to create art.

According to Duncan, the only rule of the house was that nothing could be moved. Every corner of disorder could mean for Picasso a strange composition that only he could see and digest in his head.

The only ones who could ignore this rule were the children and the animals (among them a goat), who ran and played freely around the house. The love he felt for his goat was so big that, in addition to letting it lie between his bronze sculptures, he would enter it into the house when it rained. On the second floor, in a fenced space full of straw, the goat slept, shielding itself from the weather.

Duncan recounts that Paloma was devoted to painting just like her father. She spent long hours at his side with the same concentration toward her work. At that time, he saw her as the possible heiress of Picasso’s immense talent.

The work of David Douglas Duncan allows us to immerse ourselves in the private world of one of the greatest artists in history. Knowing his daily routines and the space that surrounded him when creating his intriguing works. The photos are a real gem.

30 Wonderful Photos Showing Fashion Styles of 1960s Older Couples

A cool photo collection shows what older couples looked like from the 1960s.

Nuremberg in the 1910s – 66 Amazing Vintage Photos Showing Street Scenes in the Bavarian City 100 Years Ago

Nuremberg is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest city in Germany. On the Pegnitz River (from its confluence with the Rednitz in Fürth onwards: Regnitz, a tributary of the River Main) and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it lies in the Bavarian administrative region of Middle Franconia, and is the largest city and the unofficial capital of Franconia. Nuremberg forms a continuous conurbation with the neighbouring cities of Fürth, Erlangen and Schwabach with a total population of 800,376 (2019), while the larger Nuremberg Metropolitan Region has approximately 3.6 million inhabitants. The city lies about 170 kilometres (110 mi) north of Munich. It is the largest city in the East Franconian dialect area (colloquially: “Franconian”; German: Fränkisch).

There are many institutions of higher education in the city, including the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg). With 39,780 students in 2017, it is Bavaria’s third-largest and Germany’s 11th-largest university, with campuses in Erlangen and Nuremberg and a university hospital in Erlangen (Universitätsklinikum Erlangen). Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm and Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg are also located within the city. The Nuremberg exhibition centre (Messe Nürnberg) is one of the biggest convention center company in Germany and operates worldwide. Nuremberg Airport (Flughafen Nürnberg “Albrecht Dürer”) is the second-busiest airport in Bavaria after Munich Airport, and the tenth-busiest airport of the country.

Nuremberg Castle, with its many towers thrones above the city, is one of Europe’s largest castles. Staatstheater Nürnberg is one of the five Bavarian state theatres, showing operas, operettas, musicals, and ballets (main venue: Nuremberg Opera House), plays (main venue: Schauspielhaus Nürnberg), as well as concerts (main venue: Meistersingerhalle). Its orchestra, the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg, is Bavaria’s second-largest opera orchestra after the Bavarian State Opera’s Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich. Nuremberg is the birthplace of Albrecht Dürer and Johann Pachelbel. 1. FC Nürnberg is the most famous football club of the city and one of the most successful football clubs in Germany. Nuremberg was one of the host cities of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. (Wikipedia)

Here below is an impressive photo collection that captured this city during the 1910s.

15 Classic Photos of New York Moviegoers at the Cinema in the 1940s

Weegee is best known for his images of urban crime, death, and nightlife but these photographs are part of a series Weegee made in New York City theaters in the mid-1940s with infrared film. From bemused children to entwined couples, lonely sleepers to exhilarated teenage girls, this gallery of portraits constitutes a powerful, unique, and moving tribute to cinema lovers. The passion conveyed in these images—their lyricism, magic, and poetry—remind us of the quintessential role played by the arts, and specifically still and moving images, in our society.

19 Amazing Behind the Scenes Photos From the Making of TV Classic ‘Little House on the Prairie’ (1974-1983)

Little House on the Prairie (later known as Little House: A New Beginning in its sequel season) is an American Western historical drama television series, starring Michael Landon, Melissa Gilbert, Karen Grassle, and Melissa Sue Anderson, about a family living on a farm in Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. The show is an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s best-selling series of Little House books. In 1972, with the encouragement of his wife and daughter, television producer and former NBC executive Ed Friendly acquired the film and television rights to Wilder’s novels from Roger Lea MacBride and engaged Blanche Hanalis to write the teleplay for a two-hour motion picture pilot. Friendly then asked Michael Landon to direct the pilot; Landon agreed on the condition that he could also play Charles Ingalls.

The regular series was preceded by a two-hour pilot movie, which first aired on March 30, 1974. The pilot was based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s third Little House book in the series, Little House on the Prairie. The series premiered on the NBC network on September 11, 1974, and last aired on May 10, 1982. During the 1982–83 television season, with the departure of Landon and Grassle, a sequel series was broadcast with the new title Little House: A New Beginning, generally considered Season Nine for syndicated packages. (Wikipedia)