Random Historical Photos With Unsettling Backstories That We Saw In 2021 (15 items)

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  (#1) 1955: 'Tragedy By The Sea'

  Described as "poignant and profoundly moving" by the Pulitzer Prize Board in 1955, "Tragedy by the Sea" captures the emotions of two parents on April 2, 1954, as they realize their child is gone.

  As Los Angeles Times photographer John L. Gaunt stood in his front yard near Hermosa Beach, his neighbor alerted him to some "excitement" on the beach. Gaunt grabbed his nearby camera. He didn't have to go far to see a young couple, the McDonalds, just moments after their infant son, Michael, disappeared in the surf. The McDonalds had been walking along the waves as 19-month-old Michael played nearby, apparently crawling into the sea while they weren't looking.

  Gaunt took four pictures that day, a series of images the Pulitzer Prize jury initially ranked No. 4 out of their Top 5. The board overrode their decision and awarded the prize to Gaunt.
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  (#6) 1910: A Whale's Remains In Alaska

  The whale in this photo is not beached, but tied up at the Tyee Company whaling station, which processed whales from 1907 to 1913. The area is actually known as Murder Cove, not because of the whales butchered there but because of the slaying of two prospectors in 1869.

  The Tyee Company ceased operations in 1913 due to a decline in the whale population.
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  (#11) 1980: David A. Johnston Hours Before The Eruption Of Mount St. Helens

  Volcanologist David Alexander Johnston was a principal scientist studying Mount St. Helens just before it erupted in May 1980. This photo shows him 13 hours before he perished in the eruption. Johnston was the first person to alert the US Geological Survey of the eruption. His last words were "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!"
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  (#5) 1974: 'Burst Of Joy'

  Click here to view the photo.

  Photographer Slava "Sal" Veder immortalized Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm's reunion with his family in March 1973. An Air Force fighter pilot, Stirm was imprisoned after being taken down over North Vietnam in 1967. When the former POW landed at Travis Air Force Base in California, his daughter Lorrie was the first to embrace him, quickly followed by her three siblings (Robert Jr., Roger, and Cynthia) and mother (Loretta).

  Lorrie recalled, "I just wanted to get to Dad as fast as I could... We didn't know if he would ever come home... That moment was all our prayers answered, all our wishes come true." 

  Veder was among numerous journalists awaiting Stirm, all of whom "could feel the energy and the raw emotion in the air." Veder caught that energy on film with an image that came to represent hope and healing in the aftermath of an unwinnable conflict. He received the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 1974.

  The truth behind the photo was much more complex, however. Stirm had received a letter from his wife days earlier indicating their marriage was over. After an attempted reconciliation, Robert and Loretta divorced a few months later. 

  Stirm later acknowledged his mixed feelings about the photo:

  I have several copies of the photo but I don’t display it in the house... I was very pleased to see my children - I loved them all and still do, and I know they had a difficult time - but there was a lot to deal with... In some ways, it’s hypocritical, because my former wife had abandoned the marriage within a year or so... 
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  (#7) 1947: Evelyn McHale After Jumping From The Empire State Building

  Click here to see the photograph.

  It seems almost flippant to refer to Evelyn McHale as the "Most Beautiful Suicide," but that is what she became known as after photographer Robert Wiles snapped this picture. 

  Twenty-three years old and newly engaged, McHale's reason for jumping is not fully known. On May 1, 1947, after taking a trip to see her fiancé Barry Rhodes, she left the train station and bought a ticket to reach the 86th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building. Rhodes attested that she seemed happy and in no way out of sorts when he last saw her. 

  McHale's final note, however, suggests she was struggling with internal doubts and emotional turmoil. "My fiance asked me to marry him in June. I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody," she wrote. "He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.”
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  (#13) 1976: Nurse Mayinga N'Seka, Who Treated Ebola Cases Before Also Succumbing To The Disease

  A nurse in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) during the Ebola virus epidemic of 1976, Mayinga N'seka was once believed to be patient zero of the outbreak. This has since been disproven by the World Health Organization.

  N'Seka appears here in the hospital bed after succumbing to the virus. Her illness occurred following contact with a patient in Yambuku before the deadly nature of Ebola was fully understood, and N'Seka would be one of several to perish.

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