50 Extremely Rare And Fascinating Pictures Of People Throughout History I Can Pretty Much Guarantee You've Never Heard Of

Yahoo

08-02-2025

1.The very first iteration of Ronald McDonald was created by Willard Scott in 1963:
2.The two people depicted in Grant Wood's "American Gothic" actually exist. This is what they looked like:
3.This is Margaret Gorman, the woman who won the very first Miss America competition in 1921:
4.This is Stephan Bibrowski, otherwise known as Lionel the Lion-faced Man. Stephan had a condition known as hypertrichosis that caused hair to grow up to eight inches long all over his body including, obviously, his face:
5.This is George Hackenschmidt, the man credited with inventing the bench press:
6.This is Conrad Veidt, the man whose performance in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs inspired the look of the iconic villain the Joker:
7.This is Daniel Lambert, a British man who was known as the world's heaviest person in the 18th century:
8.This is Maud Wagner, who is widely believed to be the first female professional tattoo artist in the US:
9.This is Selma Burke, the woman who designed the portrait of Franklin Roosevelt that's still on the dime to this day:
10.This is John Smith, a Chippewa man who was reported to be 137 years old at the time of his death:
11.This is Ralph Lincoln, the 11th-generation cousin of Abraham Lincoln:
12.This is Franz Reichelt sporting a homemade parachute suit that he was confident would save him if he jumped off the Eiffel Tower:
13.This is Jacques Plante, who in 1959 became the first goalie to ever wear a protective face mask:
14.In 1964, Randy Gardner, pictured here, set the world record for the longest time without sleeping after staying awake 264 hours:
15.This is Maurice Tillet, a wrestler who some say the beloved character Shrek was based on:
16.This man, Gay Jewel, was declared the "world's heaviest man" in 1899:
17.In 1907, world-class swimmer Annette Kellerman was arrested for indecency after she wore a bathing suit like this one to Revere Beach in Massachusetts:
18.This is Rumeysa Gelgi, the world's tallest woman:
19.This is Valentine Tapley, a man who, in 1860, vowed never to cut his beard again if Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Here's him in 1896:
20.This is Albert Woolson, the last surviving Civil War veteran:
21.This is Ham the chimpanzee, the first ape launched into space:
22.This is Charlotte and Marjorie Collyer, a mother and daughter who survived the wreck of the Titanic in 1912:
23.In 1903, Edward Llewellen (left) made history by breaking the world record and catching the biggest sea bass ever caught off the coast of Catalina Island:
24.Here's Hannes de Jong, the 1970 Pole Sitting World Champion, well, sitting on a pole:
25.This is Chandra Bahadur, the shortest man in recorded history:
26.This is Ahmet Ali Çelikten, a man who is generally considered to be one of the first Black pilots — and perhaps the very first:
27.This is a wax sculpture of Thomas Wedders, the man whose 7.5-inch nose was apparently the largest nose in history:
28.This is Emma Lilian Todd, the first woman to design an airplane:
29.This is Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls while inside a barrel:
30.This is William Hutchings, one of the last surviving American Revolutionary War veterans:
31.This is Apo Whang-Od, a 106-year-old woman who is quite possibly the oldest tattoo artist on the planet:
32.This is Lonnie Johnson, inventor of the Super Soaker, enjoying his invention:
33.This is Mary Ann Bevan, a widow who was given the title of "World's Ugliest Woman" in 1920:
34.This is 455 pound Piet van der Zwaard AKA the "fattest man in Europe" in 1955:
35.This man, Paul Karason, had his skin turn permanently blue after spending years ingesting colloidal silver:
36.This is Robert Wadlow, the tallest man who ever lived:
37.This is Charles Ponzi, the infamous scammer ponzi schemes got their name from:
38.This picture, taken by Robert Cornelius in 1839, is generally accepted as the first "selfie":
39.In 1909, pigs finally flew. Icarus the pig (right) went on a short flight with John Moore-Brabazon and finally did the impossible:
40.This is Civil War veteran Jacob Miller, a man who was shot right between the eyes and lived for 17 more years:
41.This is Herman the Cat, a cat who was given the title of expert mouser aboard a US Coast Guard ship during World War II:
42.This is Jack the baboon, a South African baboon who worked as a signalman at a railway station in the 1800s. During his almost decade of railway work, Jack never made a single mistake:
43.This is a picture of 107-year-old Civil War veteran Bill Lundy posing with a fighter jet in 1955:
44.This is what a French beach looked like in 1925:
45.This is the Dynasphere, a giant wheel vehicle invented by Dr. J. A. Purves that could go as a fast as 30 MPH:
46.This is Anna M. Jarvis, the inventor of Mother's Day:
47.This is the Peel P50, designed by Cyril Cannell, the smallest car ever produced:
48.This is astronaut Joseph P. Allen IV doing maintenance on a satellite in the middle of the cold, dark void of space:
49.This is a picture of a meeting of the New York chapter of the "Fat Men's Club" circa 1930:
50.This is beautician Max Factor with his invention, the beauty calibrator, a device designed to show which parts of a woman's face needed more or less make-up: