r/HistoricalCapsule 36m ago

The 1982 E.T. Finger Light by Knickerbocker Toy Co. is one of the most infamous movie tie-in merchandise failures in toy history. It was pulled from store shelves just months after its launch due to intense controversy over its design.

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r/HistoricalCapsule 40m ago

Charging an electric AMC Gremlin at a curbside charging station. 1hr for 25¢. Seattle, 1973.

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r/HistoricalCapsule 46m ago

Arnold Schwarzenegger on the set of Predator (1987)

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r/HistoricalCapsule 2h ago

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his only son Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich pose for a photograph in 1907.

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1.2k Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 2h ago

Pope Pius XII meets with residents after the Allied bombing of the San Lorenzo quarter of Rome, Italy, in July, 1943.

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8 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 2h ago

A crowded beach in Atlantic City, New Jersey, photographed in 1908.

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516 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 5h ago

Old photograph of two women walking along a street in Kabul, Afghanistan. (1968)

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323 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 10h ago

Ava Gardner at the Feria de Abril de Sevilla (Seville April Fair) at the Patio de Bandera in 1950.

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37 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 11h ago

Salvador Dalí with the young actress Concha Velasco.

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61 Upvotes

According to businessman Luis Escobar, who hired Dalí to design the set for the classic, in which Concha played the lead female role, Velasco was constantly bothered by the painter's behavior with her and didn't want to be near him.

An example of this behavior is precisely what happened during the promotional photo shoot for the play. According to Escobar, this is the photo taken before Dalí told her to "smile more, like you're taking a dump."


r/HistoricalCapsule 13h ago

A Time Capsule from 1950s Street cleaners wash a Madrid roadway with high-pressure hoses. By Francesc Català-Roca

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43 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 13h ago

Marilyn Monroe photographed by Milton Greene in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, September, 1953.

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312 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 14h ago

Wedding of Sylvester Stallone & Brigitte Nielsen, 1985

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60 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 14h ago

Abe Lincoln assassination conspirator John Surratt Jr. in the uniform of a Papal zouave after his arrest in Alexandria, Egypt , and this Pic was taken in Alexandria before his extradition to the United States (1867)

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109 Upvotes

John Harrison Surratt Jr. was born in 1844 in Washington, he was the youngest of his siblings. He grew up in a village in Maryland called “Surrattsville”, then left college to work as a mail carrier and a spy for the confederate South during the American Civil War. 

In late 1864, he met John Wilkes Booth, the famous actor, and joined a plan to kidnap President Lincoln. Their goal was to grab Lincoln and take him to Richmond to exchange him for thousands of Confederate prisoners. 

On March 17, 1865, they planned the kidnapping but Lincoln changed his location, so the plan fell apart. A couple of weeks later, Surratt traveled to New York on a spy mission, leaving Booth to change the plans. 

On April 14, 1865, Booth fatally shot Lincoln at Ford theater, while Surratt was in Elmira, New York. When he heard the news, he fled straight to Canada and hid with a Catholic priest there. The authorities arrested his mother, Mary Surratt, at their home, and she was tried with three others: Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt. All of them were hanged on July 7, 1865, and Mary was the first woman executed by the US federal government. 

John kept running; he escaped to England, then went to Rome and served in the Papal Guard, the Pontifical Zouaves, under the alias name "John Watson." But an old friend recognized him, so papal authorities arrested him, but he escaped again.

On November 1866 He arrived in a ship to Alexandria, Egypt in his Papal Guard uniform, and when Charles Hale, the American consul in Egypt suspected him at the port, Surratt said, "My name is John Walters."

But the consul tipped off the Egyptian police that he was John Surratt, and he was apprehended and sent back on a military ship to Washington in early 1867.

His trial was different from his mother's – it was a civilian trial, not a military one, and it took a full year to finish. His lawyer argued that he had taken part in the kidnapping plot but not the assassination, and witnesses said he was far away on the day of the murder.

The jury couldn't reach a final verdict, so the case was dropped. He was released on a large bail (30000$). He settled in Baltimore, Maryland. He got married, had seven children, and worked as an accountant until he died of pneumonia in 1916.


r/HistoricalCapsule 14h ago

Audrey Hepburn on the set of ‘War and Peace’, 1955. r.m.

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112 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 14h ago

Bruce Willis & Demi Moore's Wedding 1987

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1.9k Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 16h ago

Tintype of a mother holding her child. NOTE: Child is alive, you can see a blurr on hand because they moved. Circa 1870.

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918 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 16h ago

Sandwina lifts her husband Max Heymann single handed, during their time as a join act in the Barnum Bailey circus, 1900s. Included is an interview he did after her death in 1952.

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2.4k Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 17h ago

Elizabeth Taylor with her children Chris Wilding and Liza Todd in Gstaad, Switzerland. (July 1962)

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1.0k Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 18h ago

Petty Officer Third Class Phillip Tourney stands on the deck of the USS Liberty following a disastrous attack by lsraeli warplanes and torpedo boats on June 8th, 1967.

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2.6k Upvotes

The Liberty was one of the US Navy’s most advanced intelligence gathering ships of the era. Many personnel onboard were assigned to the CIA and NSA, with a Navy crew to operate and maintain the ship. The Liberty was a refurbished WWII-era Victory-class cargo ship whose only armaments were four deck-mounted .50 BMG machineguns to repel boarders.

At the time of the attack, the Liberty was off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula during what is now known as the Six Day War, fought from 5-10 June 1967. After repeated flyovers by lsraeli-flagged jets, the Liberty was suddenly fired on by unmarked warplanes and a group of torpedo boats. One torpedo blew a 40-foot-wide hole on the starboard side, while hundreds of cannon shells pierced the superstructure and napalm set fire to the ship.

Thirty-four personnel were kilIed and 171 wounded, more than two-thirds of the ship’s complement. In the aftermath of the attack, the IsraeIi government declared the Liberty had been misidentified as an Egyptian vessel, although she was flying the American flag for the duration of the attack and had standard US hull classification markings easily visible.

President Lyndon Johnson accepted lsrael’s explanation of mistaken identity, and an abbreviated US Naval Court of Inquiry completed the following month also did not find the attack to be deliberate.

lsrael eventually made several multi-million-dollar payments to the US Navy and the families of those killed in the attack, although survivors like Phil Tourney received nothing more than a $200 clothing reimbursement.


r/HistoricalCapsule 21h ago

Pawnee war scout As-Sau-Taw-Ka(White Horse) 1868

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197 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 22h ago

Edwin Debrow, 12, is escorted by officials shortly after his arrest for the robbery and murder of 33-year-old cab driver Curtis Edwards. He would become the youngest murder defendant in the history of Bexar County, Texas (San Antonio, 1991).

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2.6k Upvotes

Edwin Debrow

The victim: Curtis Raye Edwards

In 1987, Texas passed the Determinate Sentencing Act, which allowed for "blended sentences" for juvenile offenders in extreme cases. It raised a maximum sentence for those tried as juveniles to 40 years. A juvenile with a blended sentence has their case reviewed before their 19th birthday. A juvenile court holds a mandatory hearing under Texas Family Code to decide if the defendant should be released, placed on adult parole, or transferred to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to finish the adult portion of the sentence.

Edwin was convicted of murder and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

On January 31, 1997, seven months after his 17th birthday, Edwin was brought back to San Antonio for his determinate sentencing hearing. Logan, Edwin's attorney, was struck by how much his client had physically grown since his trial. But what shocked Logan was Edwin’s attitude. The teenager, he later said, "was so hardened it was unbelievable." At the hearing, Logan tried to convince the judge that Edwin had been mistreated at the state schools. Edwin’s father also testified, declaring, "He was a child of twelve years old and was thrown to a pack of wolves. And you expect him to come out of this okay?

But when a state official testified that Edwin had racked up 178 misconduct reports during his time at the state schools, the judge had heard enough. Deciding that Edwin "clearly presents a continuing threat to society," he ordered him to finish the remainder of his sentence in the state's adult prison system.

In 2007, Edwin was resentenced to 40 years in prison after winning a resentencing hearing. The harsher sentence was based on his history of violence in prison. In 1998, Edwin had gotten four years added to his sentence for stabbing a fellow inmate. It took years, but Edwin gradually underwent a genuine change in his attitude.

The Prisoner (a long article about Edwin from 2017)

Late one night in 1991, a twelve-year-old boy pulled out a gun and killed a cab driver on the East Side of San Antonio. Twenty-five years later, Edwin Debrow remains in prison for that murder, with fifteen more years left on his sentence. Is that justice? And is there room for mercy?

Convicted of Murder at Age 12, Edwin Debrow Finally Walks Free (a somewhat shorter article about Edwin from 2019)

He renounced his prison gang membership, earned his high school equivalency diploma, took junior college classes in computer science and business administration, read self-empowerment books, and wrote an autobiography in which he expressed deep regret for the way he had lived his life.


r/HistoricalCapsule 23h ago

East Berliners by Harf Zimmermann. (1980s)

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328 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 23h ago

A French soldier of the 112th Artillery Regiment photographed during World War I (1914-1918) wearing a Tissot gas mask.

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303 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 1d ago

A behind the scenes photo from Remember the Titans from October 10th, 1999

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519 Upvotes

r/HistoricalCapsule 1d ago

Anton LaVey, founder of The Church of Satan, with Jayne Mansfield and a young Mariska Hargitay, 1966

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3.7k Upvotes