Merry Christmas!

Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge in the classic 1951 version of "A Christmas Carol".


Original B&W photo.

Christmas in Lebanon

Lebanon gained independence from France in 1943, during the second World War, but the Allies kept the region under control until the end of the war. The French withdrew the last of their troops in 1946, when this photo was taken. These children, however, are American, possibly the children of diplomats.


Original B&W photo.

David Nixon

David Nixon was, in his time, the most famous magician in Britain, though he wasn't limited to magic, and his big break, in 1954, was as a panelist on the British version of the highly successful television quiz show "What's My Line?".
In 1966, he had a television show called "David Nixon's Comedy Bandbox", and a supporting act by the name of Basil Brush, who made such a good impression that he got his own show.


Original B&W photo.

Tommy Trinder

Tommy Trinder, date unknown, but the height of his fame was from shortly before the second world war to the late 1950s. Though he carried on working until 1986, this photo looks as if it was quite early in his career.


Original B&W photo.

Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst, political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement, was named as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century by Time Magazine in 1999.
This photo is by British photographer Olive Edis, so was probably taken between 1925, when Pankhurst returned from Canada where she had been living for a few years until she "tired of long Canadian winters", and her death in 1928.


Original sepia-toned platinotype.

 

Glenn Miller

Alton Glenn Miller made a decent living prior to his great success in 1938. In 1942, he joined the US Army Air Force and, two years later, disappeared forever after his aircraft encountered bad weather over the English Channel, on December 15th 1944.
I'm not sure when this photo was taken, but I suspect it was after he found success, but before he joined the USAAF.


Original B&W photo.

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Eric Hitchens, who died two years ago today (15th December), seen here around 1970, when he was a student at Balliol College, Oxford.


Original B&|W photo.

Albert DeSalvo

Albert Henry DeSalvo is widely regarded as the infamous "Boston Strangler", though he was never convicted of the 13 murders in the early 1960s attributed to the Strangler, but of a series of rapes for which he was given a life sentence, cut short by his own murder in 1973. He did confess, initially to a fellow inmate, George Nassar, who some think may be the Strangler.

This year, DNA testing proved that DeSalvo was the source of seminal fluid recovered at the scene of the last Boston Strangler murder, in 1964. Some people, however, insist that the Strangler murders couldn't have been committed by one person, as the modi operandi were so different.


Original B&W photo.

Clara Louise Kellogg

Clara Louise Kellogg was an American opera singer, the first U.S.-born prima donna and the first American singer to achieve success in Europe.
This photo is from the Mathew Brady collection, and dates from sometime during the American Civil War. Kellogg wasn't directly involved in the war, but gave an account from the point of view of a civilian in New York, in her "Memoirs of an American Prima Donna", in 1913.


Original B&W photo.

George W. Melville

Rear Admiral George Wallace Melville, US Navy, probably in 1904 or shortly before. (See painting below), entered the U.S. Navy in 1861 and became an officer of the Engineer Corps, and took part in the capture of CSS Florida in 1864.

As well as being an engineer, Arctic exploration and author, Melville reformed the Navy, making it more efficient and more professional.


Original B&W photo.


The 1904 painting by Thomas Eakins from which I took the colours.

Martin Van Buren

The eighth President of the United States, from 1833 to 1837, Martin Van Buren. This photo is from around 1857, give or take a couple of tears.

Although he was the first president to have been born a United States citizen, his first language was Dutch, and he is the only U.S. President with English as a second language.


Original B&W photo from the Mathew Brady studio.

Amy Johnson

Amy Johnson, probably in 1930, the year she found fame when she became the first woman pilot, or "aviatrix", to fly solo from England to Australia.


Original B&W photo.

Dr. Crippen

Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American homeopathic physician and salesman hanged for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen, in Pentonville Prison, London. He was the first suspect in a criminal case to be captured with the aid of wireless communication.

In recent years, doubt has been cast on his guilt but, persuasive as some of the arguments are, his innocence cannot be proved. In one scenario, the remains found at his house which led to his conviction are said not to be of his wife Cora, but of another woman, which leads to the suspicion that he was found guilty of the wrong murder.

 


B&W photo, originally published in 1910.

George S. Patton

A young George Smith Patton, Jr. According to the caption accompanying this photo, it was taken in 1903 or 1904, while Patton was attending the Virginia Military Institute. That would make him about 18 years old, but I think he looks much younger here.

Original B&W photo.

Anita Page

Anita Page, who reached stardom in the last years of the silent film era, seen here in a promotional photo for the Ziegfeld Follies, probably in the late 1920s.


Original B&W photo.

Dorothy Lamour

Dorothy Lamour in 1936, in a promotional photo for "The Jungle Princess".



Original B&W photo.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, who died yesterday aged 95, seen here in 1952 during the Defiance Campaign, a joint venture with the ANC and Indian and communist groups. This campaign was one of non-violence which Mandela supported, considering it pragmatic at that time. The woman next to him is Ruth First, a prominent anti-apartheid activist and scholar.


Original B&W photo.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt, in the 1840s or '50s. One of the richest Americans in history, and the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family, who provided the initial gift to found Vanderbilt University, which is named in his honour.


Original daguerreotype.

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass, around 1874. Born a slave, he first escaped to the north then, while on a lecture tour of Britain and Ireland, he was able to buy his freedom in America, using donations from British supporters. He was also given money for several abolitionist publications back in America. In one, he published a scathing letter to his former owner, Thomas Auld. A few years after this photo was taken, in 1877, Douglass visited Thomas Auld on his deathbed, and the two men were reconciled.

As important as he was in the story of the abolition of slavery, he was also a staunch campaigner for women's rights.


Copy of the original daguerreotype.

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams, the sixth US president, pictured later in his career in 1843, while he was a member of the House of Representatives, using his position there to fight against slavery. Two years before this photo, Adams represented, pro bono, the defendants in United States v. The Amistad Africans in the Supreme Court.


A cropped copy of the original 1843 daguerreotype.