History in Pictures
May 13, 2026
Time lapse.
Left: An elementary school student shelters under her desk during a ‘duck and cover’ drill during the Cold War of the 1950s.
Right: Elementary students in a New York public school practice lock-down procedures during an active shooter drill, 2019.
Women.
High society wedding, 1921.
Men.
Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, New York Yankees, 1962.
Doing the hard work.
A fisherman works aboard his trawler off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1937.
Words to live by.
New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt, April 10, 1899:
“Above all, let us, as we value our own self-respect, face the [nation’s international] responsibilities with proper seriousness, courage, and high resolve.
We must demand the highest order of integrity and ability in our public men who are to grapple with these new problems.
We must hold to a rigid accountability those public servants who show unfaithfulness to the interests of the nation
or inability to rise to the high level of the new demands upon our strength and our resources.“
Good eats, cheap.
Market Square, Cleburne, Texas, c. 1900.
Tell me a story.
The first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1858 between Ireland and Newfoundland.
Messages between Britain and America no longer traveled for days aboard a ship.
A message and a reply could take place in a single day.
Queen Victoria sent the first cabled message.
It went to President James Buchanan on August 16, 1858.
This technical feat — long the dream of many — was a moment of celebration and New York staged a big parade down Broadway.
Sadly, this undersea cable failed after just three weeks of operations, but a second one, made from better materials, was completed in 1866.
Many more would soon follow.
American art.
Antique tabletop dresser, with mirror and porcelain knobs, made from cigar boxes in tramp art style, early 1900s.
Live TV.
On June 17, 1994, O.J. Simpson led police on a slow-speed chase through Los Angeles in a white Ford Bronco.
He was in the back seat of the Bronco with a gun to his head while his friend, Al Cowlings, was driving.
His former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman had been murdered five days earlier and an arrest warrant for Simpson had been issued.
Local television stations used their traffic helicopters to broadcast the chase live and 95 million people across the country watched.
The two-hour pursuit ended with Simpson’s surrender to police at his Brentwood home.
Today in World War II.
May 13, 1940: Thousands more German paratroopers have landed across the Netherlands and saboteurs have damaged the Amsterdam water supply and air raid siren system.
Twenty thousand British troops have landed in the Netherlands and are headed to the line of contact.
French and British aircraft are striking German armored columns in Belgium in support of a Belgian counterattack.
In the Ardennes, French and British forces are engaged in battle against German divisions arriving through Luxembourg.
In Britain, three thousand German and Austrian adult male aliens in the South and Southeast of England have been rounded up and interned.
All other aliens in this region, including Americans, have been placed under an 8:00 PM curfew.
Sentries have been positioned at vital points throughout the region with orders to shoot anyone who fails to respond to their call, and cars entering or leaving are being stopped, with occupants required to present their identity papers.
Relics.
President Harry Truman authorized a souvenir program to dispose of construction debris generated during the 1948-52 White House renovation.
These were items such as bricks, timbers, facing stones and panels which had little practical value but held sentimental value because of their history.
The souvenirs were free, provided recipients covered shipping and handling costs.
Dog of the day.
Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance and ‘Mut’ in A Dog’s Life, a silent film short, 1918.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda