Historidex / Historical photos

Historical photos from public archives, with the story behind each

Historidex collects historical photos that are free to use because they are in the public domain, and adds a short sourced caption to each one. Here is a selection, and you can browse the rest by collection.

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Where these historical photos come from

The photos come from public collections including the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NASA and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Each story links back to the archive record, so you can look at the original yourself.

Public domain, checked three times

A photo is only used if it is a US government work, was published before 1931, or is marked public domain or CC0 by the institution that holds it. The rights are checked against the Wikimedia Commons tag, the holding institution's own statement, and a separate public-domain reasoning for each image.

Browse historical photos by collection

Firsts: The first time anyone did it, or saw it.
Disasters: Floods, fires, quakes and storms, the day they happened.
Building the famous: Landmarks before they were finished.
In color: The past in real color: early color plates, hand-colored prints and the first Kodachromes.
Vanished worlds: Courts, cities and ways of life that are gone.
Faces: Ordinary and extraordinary people, looking back at you.
Forgotten jobs: Work that no longer exists, and daily life around it.
Strange inventions: Machines and ideas that almost caught on.
Famous, but not like this: Well-known people and places, from an angle few have seen.
Sky and space: Balloons, planes, rockets and the view from up there.
Leaders: What made them matter, and what you can learn from it.

Selected historical photos

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