This is a photo of Frederick Fleet, the Titanic lookout who is often remembered for his immortal
words: "Iceberg, right ahead!"... Frederick was a British sailor born in Liverpool in 1887.
He never knew his father, and his mother abandoned him and fled with a boyfriend in
the United States, never to be seen or heard again. Fleet was raised by foster
families and distant relatives. At age 16 he decided to board a ship for a life at sea.
In April 1912, at age 24, he joined Titanic as a lookout, along with five other watchmen.
On the fateful night of 10th April 1912, Fleet was on duty in the crow’s nest and
he was the first one to spot the iceberg and alert the crew. Fleet survived the sinking
of Titanic. He served two World Wars and went on to live to the age of 77 in 1965.
In his later years, he became a newspaper seller, going through difficult economic times.
He lived with his wife’s brother and after his wife died on 28th December 1964, her
brother evicted him from the house. From there on, Fleet fell into a downward spiral of depression.
He returned to his brother-in-law’s home and hanged himself in the house’s garden,
on 10th January 1965. His grave remained unmarked until 1993, when a headstone bearing and engraving
of the Titanic was erected through donations raised by the Titanic Historical Society.
This photo is often depicted as the World's First Camera, nothing could be further from the truth.
However, the story behind this photo is actually quite fascinating. Dating back to the year 1900,
around 60 years after the first camera was invented, it was one of the largest cameras
in the world at the time, and possibly the first ever camera with a telephoto lens.
This camera, built by the commercial photographer George Lawrence, was nicknamed The Mammoth Camera,
as it took 15 people to operate with a rear glass plate measuring an incredible 2.4 x 1.3m.
The purpose of a camera of such magnitude was to take a whole picture of a brand new
train standing in the distance, built by the Chicago & Alton Railway Company.
Dubbed, "the handsomest in the world" the trains promotional pamphlet was sent to the World Fair of
1900 in Paris. However, Parisians were sceptical and believed it to be fake, thinking that there
is no such camera that can take a picture of that size. Quelling the people's doubts,
a French consul was ordered from New York to Chicago to confirm the authenticity. After
everything checked out, George Lawrence won the Grand Prize for World Photographic Excellence.
This photo is from 1966, showing singer and actress Chris Noel visiting troops in
Vietnam. Noel made frequent entertaining visits to troops and was shot down twice in helicopters, but
she never quit. She kept doing this even though the Viet Cong had a $10,000 bounty on her head.
She is perhaps best known by veterans of the Vietnam war for her work on the
Armed Forces Radio And Television Service as the "Voice of Vietnam".
Her radio program "A Date With Chris" was one of Armed Forces Radio's most popular
shows and is fondly remembered by many Vietnam vets. For her work,
she received the Distinguished Vietnam Veteran award in 1984 from the Veterans Network.
This unusual photo taken in Los Angeles,
of a woman flashing her front, dates back to 1943 and is in fact a very innocent display,
promoting safety clothing for women during the War World II. The uniform includes a plastic "bra",
to prevent future occupational accidents among feminine workers.
Here is another interesting photo of a man with an unusual hairstyle,
taken in 1895 by the famous French photographer, Nadar. We heard about the "Man on the Moon" in
1969 but apparently, the "Man in the Moon" happened much earlier than that.
Did you know that, after parcel post service was introduced in US in 1913,
at least two children were sent by the service.
With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers
to their destination. Understandably, the Postmaster General quickly issued a
regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail, after hearing of those examples.
In this 1941 photo, Adolf Hitler and other SS commanders inspect the Schwerer Gustav,
the world's largest gun ever built. Despite how frightening it may have looked, this cannon
had a number of major drawbacks: it required a 2,000-strong staff to operate, it could only be
moved by specialised railway, only fire 14 rounds a day, and was a prime target for Allied bombers.
The guy with the biggest gun in the world nevertheless lost the fight in the end.
Juliane Koepcke, a Peruvian of German descent, was the only survivor of the
LANSA Flight 508 plane crash in December 1971. She was only 17 years old at the time.
The airplane was struck by lightning and it disintegrated in midair.
Miraculously, she survived a fall of roughly 10,000 feet while still attached to her seat.
She then lasted on her own for a further 11 days in the Amazon rainforests until she was rescued.
This shot portrays the epic traffic jam near the Brandeburg Gate in Berlin,
after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Cars can be seen driving in both directions,
and this is probably the only traffic jam where people had only one thing to say "Thank God!".