actress Fay Wray standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building
Hasidic men in a Jerusalem market appraising a chicken for a Yom Kippur ritual
flamingos roosting in a shallow, high-altitude lake in the Atacama Desert.
the World Trade Center twin towers, with ducks swimming in a river in the foreground
a Nenets woman hugging her bundled up grandson, as reindeer look on in the background
a Bedouin woman and two girls, with face coverings, participating in a literacy class
Haitian women in purple dresses and carrying candles for a midnight ceremony
a ray of sunshine spotlighting cyclists in Ferrara, Italy
a Hasidic Jewish man bathing in a quarry for a religious ritual
people sunbathing among overturned surfboards on a beach
men in cycling uniforms lining up with their bikes at the start of the Tour de France
visitors and paddleboats on the shores of Lake Urmia, Iran
fog drifting over pink apple trees in an orchard in Pennsylvania
a mother and her children covered in dust and napping in Mali
a northern white rhinoceros walking through a zoo enclosure at dusk
young Buddhist monks in red robes smiling under white prayer flags
a lioness turning away from a large herd of Cape buffalo in Botswana's Okavango Delta
young, Russian students learning in a makeshift classroom in Siberia
two young women registering to vote on a college campus in Massachusetts
children playing in water in a cobblestone plaza in Salvador, Brazil
a dance student doing the splits in a patch of sunshine in a dance studio in New York
a person walking through a tall field of sugarcane in Pakistan
a yellow butterfly and a blue butterfly floating on water in Arizona
two girls riding in the bed of a pickup truck through a dusty wheat field in Australia
a man pulling a rickshaw with two school girls riding atop
a teacher holding a model of an atom while teaching a class in Conakry, Guinea
a camper van driving down a dusty road lined by tall cacti in Baja California, Mexico
plywood on an abandoned building in Atlanta, Georgia, with inspirational graffiti
a Hindu priest reading a large sacred text on a balcony in India
climbers in red outfits sitting atop a mountain peak in Venezuela
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Fay WrayActress Fay Wray of King Kong fame visits the Empire State Building in 1988, more than 50 years since her last visit. Wray died in 2004.
Photograph by Lynn Johnson, Nat Geo Image Collection

30 phenomenal vintage pictures from the Nat Geo archives

Check out this handful of vintage images we discovered while poring through our historic collection.

ByBreann Birkenbuel
October 23, 2020

No matter your society or culture, some aspects of life ring true for all of us.

Take education, for instance. Whether it’s in Ami Vitale’s image of two female students on a rickshaw in Kolkata, India, or in James L. Stanfield’s image of three Bedouin women in an adult literacy class, we recognize the feeling of heading back to school.

Or what about the way sports bring us together? In Justin Locke’s 1950s photo of cyclists awaiting the start of the Tour de France, crowds stopped to watch the famous race.

And as a turbulent election approaches in the United States, some images remind us that politics have weathered change before—such as David Arnold’s picture of two students registering to vote after the 26th Amendment lowered the U.S. national voting age from 21 to 18.

Explore these vintage images to find more common threads in our shared experiences.

Breann Birkenbuel is the editor for Photo of the Day. Melody Rowell writes and researches the captions.

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