Astonishing moments of history

As the Titanic was sinking into the North Atlantic, 24-year-old stewardess Violet Jessop helped passengers into the lifeboats and rescued a baby whose parents were nowhere to be found. She soon made it into a lifeboat and survived the tragic ordeal. Four years later, Jessop was working for the Red Cross aboard the Britannic, the Titanic's sister ship, when it sank in the Aegean Sea. She had to jump out of her lifeboat as it was being sucked into the ship's massive propeller in order to survive.

1880- Newcastle, UK, Black Gate, close-up of the gateway with a woman leaning against a shop doorway.

Angela Luff could not attend the local 1953 Coronation party in Hortensia Road, Chelsea, London because she had measles. The organisers relented and said she could attend providing she sat a certain distance from the other partygoers.

 Rush Hour in Chicago, 1909.

Early car at the gas station.

1931 - Thomas Edison (asleep), Harvey Firestone and President Warren Harding. From 1916 to 1924 Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, naturalist John Burroughs and Harvey Firestone went on regular camping trips. They called themselves “The Vagabonds”. On this particular occasion Harding tagged along.  My thanks to Mark Everhart for providing this information.

 Édouard Boubat was born in 1923. He spent his childhood in Paris and studied typography and graphic arts at the École Estienne and worked for a printing company before becoming a photographer. He took his first photograph after the war in 1946 and was awarded the Kodak Prize the following year. From 1952 to 1967, he traveled around the world taking pictures, then worked freelance with the Rapho agency. His friend, the poet Jacques Prévert, called him the “correspondent of peace.” Boubat died on June 30th, 1999, at the age of 75. Below are some of his amazing photographs that capture everyday life around the world from between the 1940s and 1960s.