These amazing photos were captured by Allan Hailstone on a trip to Rome as a schoolboy with his father and a friend in August 1956. They had been inspired to go after seeing the 1954 movie Three Coins in the Fountain.
“Before the advent of cheap airfares and mass tourism, it was easy in 1956 to see all of the sights in Rome without any waiting time.” Hailstone told MailOnline Travel. “Things were much more leisurely than now when you will be among crowds of visitors.”
Take a look back at the Eternal City in 1956 through these 26 beautiful vintage black-and-white pictures.
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Born 1924 in Newark, New Jersey, American jazz singer Sarah Vaughan grew up with a love of music and performing. Her first step toward becoming a professional singer was winning a talent competition held at Harlem’s Apollo Theater launched her singing career. She worked with bandleaders Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine before becoming a successful solo performer who commingled pop and jazz.
Nicknamed “Sassy” and “The Divine One”, Vaughan won four Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Critic Scott Yanow wrote that she had “one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century”.
Vaughan’s final concert was given at New York’s Blue Note Club in 1989. She passed away from lung cancer in 1990, at age 66, in Hidden Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles, California. Married and divorced four times, she was survived by her adopted daughter.
Throughout her career, Vaughan was recognized as a supremely gifted singer and performer. She was invited to perform at the White House and at venues like Carnegie Hall, was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1989 and was selected to join the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1990. She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Take a look at these beautiful photos to see portraits of young Sarah Vaughan in the 1940s and 1950s.
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The American gangster known as Machine Gun Kelly is shown handcuffed and shackled while being escorted from court under heavy guard in Memphis, Tennessee, 1933
WWI Biplane Pilot Selfie
The last picture of the Titanic before sinking, 1912
USAAF B-25 sinks Japanese destroyer Amatsukaze off the coast of Xiamen, China, 1945
American Civil War veteran Samuel Decker built his own prosthetics after losing his arms in combat.
Jack with a newspaper about himself
1931 – One wheel vehicle introduced
1970 – Jimi Hendrix’s last concert – Love and Peace Festival, Germany
Partially excavated Sphinx in Egypt, 1878.
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Singapore is a sovereign island city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It is composed of one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet, the combined area of which has increased by 25% since the country’s independence as a result of extensive land reclamation projects.
Singapore has the second greatest population density in the world. With a multicultural population and recognizing the need to respect cultural identities, the country has four official languages; English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. English is the lingua franca. Multiracialism is enshrined in the constitution and continues to shape national policies in education, housing, and politics.
After early years of turbulence and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation rapidly developed to become one of the Four Asian Tigers based on external trade, becoming a highly developed country; it is ranked ninth on the UN Human Development Index and has the second-highest GDP per capita (PPP) in the world.
Singapore is placed highly in key social indicators: education, healthcare, quality of life, personal safety, and housing, with a home-ownership rate of 91%. Singaporeans enjoy one of the world’s longest life expectancies, fastest Internet connection speeds and one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.
These fascinating photos show what Singapore looked like in 1971.
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Daguerreotypes were the first commercially viable photographic process. Developed by French chemist Louis Daguerre in 1839, the technique quickly made its way to the US in the 1840s, the beginning of what some historians characterize as the “golden age” of childhood.
To make the image, a daguerreotypist polished a sheet of silver-plated copper to a mirror finish; treated it with fumes that made its surface light sensitive; exposed it in a camera for as long as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; made the resulting latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; removed its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment; rinsed and dried it; and then sealed the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure.
The image is on a mirror-like silver surface and will appear either positive or negative, depending on the angle at which it is viewed, how it is lit and whether a light or dark background is being reflected in the metal. The darkest areas of the image are simply bare silver; lighter areas have a microscopically fine light-scattering texture. The surface is very delicate, and even the lightest wiping can permanently scuff it. Some tarnish around the edges is normal.
Several types of antique photographs, most often ambrotypes and tintypes, but sometimes even old prints on paper, are commonly misidentified as daguerreotypes, especially if they are in the small, ornamented cases in which daguerreotypes made in the US and the UK were usually housed. The name “daguerreotype” correctly refers only to one very specific image type and medium, the product of a process that was in wide use only from the early 1840s to the late 1850s.
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Born 1937 in Cardiff, Welsh singer Shirley Bassey began performing as a teenager in 1953. In 1959, she became the first Welsh person to gain a number-one single on the UK Singles Chart. In the following decades, Bassey amassed 27 Top 40 hits in the UK, including 2 number-ones. She became well-known for recording the soundtrack theme songs of the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979).
Bassey is best known for her career longevity, powerful voice. In 2020, she became the first female artist to chart an album in the Top 40 of the UK Albums Chart in seven consecutive decades with her album I Owe It All To You.
Bassey has also had numerous BBC television specials and she hosted her own variety series Shirley Bassey. In 2011, BBC aired the television movie Shirley, based on Bassey’s life and career.
Bassey received the first award for Best British Female Solo Artist at the 1st Brit Awards in 1977. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts in 1999. In 2003, she was ranked among the “100 Great Black Britons”. Her song “Goldfinger” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.
Take a look at these vintage photos to see portraits of a young and beautiful Shirley Bassey in the 1950s and 1960s.
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Niagara Falls completely frozen over in the year 1911
Marilyn Monroe, California, 1951
This Incredible Angel Oak Tree found on Johns Island in South Carolina is over 1,500 years old.
A 10 year old Frank Sinatra, 1925
A child posing for a photograph with Santa back in 1912.
In 1908, Bertha Boronda was found guilty of “Mayhem” and sentenced to 5 years in a Minnesota state prison for cutting off her husband’s penis with a straight razor.
A police officer riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle transports a prisoner inside a mobile booking cage, 1921
In the early 1900’s, women’s tampons were soaked in opium and belladonna to help combat menstrual pain.
AC/DC in London, 1976
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Women formed a large and increasing part of the new novel-reading public. The traditional discrepancy between male and female literacy rates was narrowed, and finally eliminated by the end of the 19th century. The gap had always been the widest at the lowest end of the social scale.
Perhaps more women than we realize could already read. The signature test, commonly used by historians to measure literacy, hides from view all those who could read, but were still unable to sign their own name. This group was essentially female. The Catholic Church had tried as far as possible to encourage people to read, but not to write. It was useful for parishioners to be able to read the Bible and their catechism, but the ability to write as well might have given peasants an undesirable degree of independence in the eyes of the clergy. Perhaps for this reason, many women could read but not sign or write. In some families, there was a rigid sexual division of literary labour, according to which the women would read to the family, while the men would do the writing and account-keeping.
Although feminist movements at the end of the 18th century had tried to set up precedents for women’s reading, 19th century models for the ideal women concentrated on activity, for instance charity work and above all motherhood. The only reading advocated for women was as part of educating their children or running their households. Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management was first published in 1861. Although novel reading was common among leisured women, it was somewhat looked down on, unless the text was of a serious or ‘improving’ nature.
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Born 1907 as Alfred Reginald Jones in Neath, Glamorgan, Welsh-American actor and film director Ray Milland served in the Household Cavalry of the British Army, becoming a proficient marksman, horseman and aeroplane pilot before becoming an actor. He had his first major role in The Flying Scotsman (1929). This led to a nine-month contract with MGM, and he moved to the United States, where he worked as a stock actor.
After being released by MGM, Milland was picked up by Paramount, which used him in a range of lesser speaking parts, usually as an English character. He was loaned to Universal for the Deanna Durbin musical Three Smart Girls (1936), and its success had Milland given a lead role in The Jungle Princess (also 1936) alongside new starlet Dorothy Lamour. The film was a big success and catapulted both to stardom. Milland remained with Paramount for almost 20 years.
Milland appeared in many other notable films, including Easy Living (1937), Beau Geste (1939), Billy Wilder’s The Major and the Minor (1942), The Uninvited (1944), Fritz Lang’s Ministry of Fear (1944), The Big Clock (1948), and The Thief (1952), for which he was nominated for his second Golden Globe, and A Man Alone (1955). After leaving Paramount, he began directing and moved into television acting.
Once Paramount Pictures’ highest-paid actor, Milland co-starred alongside many of the most popular actresses of the time, including Gene Tierney, Jean Arthur, Grace Kelly, Lana Turner, Marlene Dietrich, Maureen O’Hara, Ginger Rogers, Jane Wyman, Loretta Young, and Veronica Lake.
Milland is best remembered for his Academy Award-winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1945) and also for such roles as a sophisticated leading man opposite John Wayne’s corrupt character in Reap the Wild Wind (1942), the murder-plotting husband in Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954), and Oliver Barrett III in Love Story (1970). His last appearances were in The Sea Serpent (1985) and The Gold Key (1985).
Milland died of lung cancer in 1986 at the age of 79. These vintage photos captured portraits of a young and handsome Ray Milland in the 1930s and 1940s.
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The “Dance of the Seven Veils” is Salome’s dance performed before Herod II, in modern stage, literature and visual arts. It is an elaboration on the biblical story of the execution of John the Baptist, which refers to Salome dancing before the king, but does not give the dance a name.
In the 1953 film Salome, Rita Hayworth performs the dance as a strip dance. She stops the dance before removing her last veil when she sees John’s head being delivered on a platter, as she did not want him to be killed in this version of the story.
Salome was the last film produced by Rita Hayworth’s production company (The Beckworth Company). She later said that her dance “Dance of the Seven Veils” in this film was “… the most demanding of my entire career,” and that it required “endless takes and retakes.”
Having seen the magnificent results, it was time well spent and effort that certainly paid off. While Rita is celebrated as one of the great beauties and as a wonderful actress, she deserves just as much attention for her dancing talent – it was extraordinary.
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