© Dibyangshu Sarkar / Getty Images, Mar. 2012, Kolkata / India
Passengers wait for a train to arrive in a time-lapse image. India’s railway minister recently announced that he aims to reduce deaths on the accident-plagued system to zero. An official report said 25,705 people died on India’s railways in 2009, the latest year for which figures are available.
© Bay Ismoyo / Getty Images, ca. 2012, Multan / Pakistan
A pedestrian walks by a mural of a handgun on Tuesday in the city of Multan, located in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
© J.R. Eyerman / Getty Images, 1959, Extras on the set of Spartacus
Directed by a 32-year-old with only two feature films under his belt, produced by and starring mid-century superstar Kirk Douglas and featuring a galaxy of acting luminaries, the 1960 blockbuster has been exalted, imitated and parodied; honored, derided and dissected; and after all these years, it still achieves what most three-hour, big-budget historical dramas can only dream of: it’s entertaining as hell. (read more)
© Joseph Scherschel / Getty Images, March 1948, Unpublished - Daytona Beach
For years, from its inception in 1937 until the early ’60s, the prestigious Daytona 200 motorcycle race wasn’t merely run at Daytona Beach. Along with other high-speed, high-risk clashes, the 200 was run on Daytona Beach.
In 1948, LIFE magazine covered the races, both amateur and pro, at Daytona (the Road Course opened in 1936) and reported, in its April 19 issue, that “for four days last month the resort city of Daytona Beach could hardly have been noisier — or in more danger — if it had been under bombardment.” (read more)
© Nelson Almeida / Getty Images, 2012, Quero Ser Marilyn Monroe
An exhibition at the Cinemateca Brasileira in Sao Paulo, Brazil, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the death of Marilyn Monroe through 125 works by 50 artists.
© Peter Stackpole / Getty Images, 1952, Frank Higgins underwater
Communications chief Frank Higgins takes a nap in the water during production of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea. The actual undersea footage was shot in the Bahamas in the same location that was used for the silent 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916).
“Think of it. On the surface there is hunger and fear. Men still exercise unjust laws. They fight, tear one another to pieces. A mere few feet beneath the waves their reign ceases, their evil drowns. Here on the ocean floor is the only independence. Here I am free! Imagine what would happen if they controlled machines such as this submarine boat. Far better that they think there’s a monster and hunt me with harpoons.”
(Captain Nemo, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea)
© Myron Davis / Getty Images, ca. 1940s, The pentagon - Unpublished photos
#1: Paper has long been an important part of the Pentagon culture; the Department of Defense Post Office deals with about 1.2 million pieces of mail monthly.
#2: Sending files via the Pentagon’s pneumatic tube system — an old-school delivery mechanism that, as late as the mid-1980s, was still handling more top-secret information than the Defense Department’s computers.
The Pentagon — and, by extension, the U.S. military — has become such a prominent and obvious symbol of American might over the years that it’s easy to forget that the world’s largest office building and home of the Department of Defense is just that, a building, albeit one with some mighty impressive stats, and some sobering history, attached to it.
(more pictures and information here)
© Yale Joel / Getty Images, Nov. 1951, People race from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during an air raid drill
Yale Joel began his career as a professional photographer when he was 19 years old, served as a combat photographer during World War II, and several years later became a member of the famous LIFE magazine photography staff.
© Louisa Gouliamaki / Getty Images, Feb. 13, 2012, Athens / Greece
A man walks past the Bank of Greece headquarters with the plaque altered to read “Bank of Berlin”, in Athens.
“Capitalism is Man Exploiting Man; Communism is just the opposite.” (Eastern European proverb)
© Hulton Archive / Getty Images, Jan. 1, 1915, Battlefield in World War I
At Imperial War Museum North in Greater Manchester, a new exhibition - Once Upon a Wartime - celebrates novels that have helped youngsters engage with the battlefield horrors and domestic hardships at times of conflict.
Dr Geoff Fox is one of the exhibition’s advisers. In this video, with the help of archive images and photos of items on display in Manchester, he looks at three such books - The Machine Gunners, Carrie’s War and War Horse.
Exhibition dates:
Feb. 11 - Sep. 2, 2012 at Imperial War Museum North in Manchester.
© Yasuyoshi Chiba / Getty Images, Feb. 9, 2012, Sao Paulo / Brazil
A resident looks outside from a peephole at the entrance of an illegally occupied building before being evicted in downtown Sao Paulo.
“Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness—how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I’ve got!” (Yann Martel, Life of Pi)
© Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images, Feb. 4, 2011, Anonymous James McPherson
A US Park Police officer uses a limb saw to remove a mask of Guy Fawkes from a statue of James McPherson in McPherson Square in Washington, D.C.
“He cannot be trusted. He should not be in a position of authority. He should stand down. He should not be allowed in politics again and he certainly should not profit from this.” (James McPherson)
© Chris McGrath / Getty Images, Feb. 7, 2012, Thaipusam procession, Singapore
A devotee has his body pierced with hooks before taking part in the Thaipusam procession at Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple.
© Andrey Smirnov / Getty Images, Jan. 24, 2012, Moscow
A detained illegal migrant from Uzbekistan looks from his cell through a dirty glass window with a grate at police station in Kazansky (Kazan) railway station in Moscow. Police detained about 30 illegal migrants during a routine check.
© Sarah Rice / Getty Images, Jan. 20, 2012, Occupy Wall Street West, San Francisco
The amorphous black blob, a group of performers huddled underneath stretched black material, makes its way among the Occupy Wall Street West protests in the financial district. Protestors rallied at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and delivered a proposed 28th amendment to the Constitution to the court that would outlaw “corporate personhood.”
