Chilling Photographs That'll Change Your Perspective

 

 Child soldier Hans-Georg Henke of Germany was only 16 years old when he was captured by American soldiers. She reacted by crying like any child would.

Things are not always what they seem. This collection of photographs will give you a view of history – its people, places and events – that provides a different perspective from what we see in our history books. You'll see famous people before they became stars, the final moments of some people's lives, fads and trends of the past, and some interesting parts of life from days gone by. History is full of fascinating little tidbits that make wonderful stories. To find them we just have to change our perspective.

Hans-Georg Henke of Germany had a difficult time as a teenager in the 1940s. His father died in 1938 and his mother died in 1944. The 15-year-old was forced to join the Luftwaffe to support his younger siblings. A member of the Hitler Youth and an anti-aircraft soldier, Henke was doing his best to cope with the war and help his family. As Soviet soldiers advanced toward his unit and eventually overtook them, young Henke burst into tears. He may have been concerned about how he would support his family as a prisoner of war, but his tear-filled face became a symbol of the German Army's desperation to allow children to join up.

A soldier's farewell to his wife in Penn. Station, New York City, before returning to the war. 1943.

While leaving for war, every soldier removes from his mind the thought that he will never return. World War II was one of the deadliest wars of the 20th century, and the fact that there was no way to immediately communicate with friends and loved ones meant that family members left at home would spend months talking to foreign boys. Couldn't do it. At the same time. The Mobile Register's war correspondent Katherine Phillips told PBS:

The only thing that worried us about war was death. We never knew when we would lose someone we loved. Our best friend. The guy who was your best friend's brother. We lived in constant fear of Telegram. Every day we would read the lists in the newspaper to see if we could identify the names in them.

Bob Dylan, singer, New York, February 10, 1965.

1965 was an important year in the life of Bob Dylan. Not only did he go electric, but he also released a video containing cue cards for Subterranean Homesick Blues. That year Dylan headlined the Newport Folk Festival with his first live electric set, where he played only three songs. Supposedly the audience, which was ready for a more folky Dylan, objected to the very existence of the electric guitar.

'65 was the year that Dylan was writing and performing and his artistry was at its peak, and he spent most of his time writing and recording massive amounts of music. By the end of '65 Dylan was tired of the media attention of being the nation's poet and after a mysterious motorcycle incident he dropped from the public eye and did not tour again for eight years.

Famous biologist Alice Eastwood was inspecting the crack left by the 1906 San Andreas Fault earthquake near Olema, California.

The epicenter of the Great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was actually near sparsely populated Olema, California, just north of the city. As this photo from that time shows, the fault crack was clearly visible. It went on for miles. This allowed scientists to study the fault line, even scientists from other disciplines. In this photo, Canadian-born botanist Alice Eastwood is observing the damage. Eastwood, a self-taught botanist, was head of the Botany Department at the California Academy of Sciences at the time of the 1906 earthquake. She held this position until her retirement in 1949. During his tenure, the department experienced tremendous growth.

That's dedication! When a football game was canceled due to dense fog in 1937, no one told goalkeeper Sam Bartram. He remained on the field for 15 minutes after the game ended.

Football goalkeeper Sam Bartham, who played professionally for Charlton Athletic, was playing in a match against rivals Chelsea in 1937 when a thick layer of fog covered the pitch. Bartham later recalled that fog had covered the field, obscuring the opposition goal and all players from view. At first, he saw shadow figures moving in front of him. He kept his eyes open for the incoming soccer ball. After a while, he recalled, he noticed that there was silence on the pitch. Nevertheless he remained in his post. A lot of time passed and then Bartham saw a figure coming towards him. To his surprise, it was not his teammate or a member of the opposing team. This was a police officer. The officer said, “What are you doing here? The game was stopped a quarter of an hour ago!”

Here's a great 1943 color photo of actress Susan Peters.

Aiken in 1943, this photo was taken of Suzanne Peters nine years before her death from chronic kidney infection and pneumonia. At the time of this picture, Peters was appearing in films such as Andy Hardy's Double Life and Assignment in Brittany, but while on a hunting trip with her husband, she grabbed a gun and it hit her in the stomach.

The bullet entered her spinal cord, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair and continued to act in projects that allowed him to work with his paralysis.