⚜️History In Art & Photos 🖼

Winston Churchill on a visit to Egypt to meet with brigade and divisional commanders, August 1942

15 August 1620: The Mayflower sets sail from Southampton, England, with 102 Pilgrims bound for the New World

A 15th century depiction of the conquest of Trebizond by the Ottomans. On 15 August 1461, the Empire of Trebizond surrenders to forces of Sultan Mehmed II, becoming the last remnant of the Byzantine Empire to fall. Emperor David is exiled and later executed.

Lakota chief White Bull, 1926

✝️ Saint Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941). A Franciscan and Polish seminary professor, he sheltered 1,500-2,000 Polish Jews in Niepokatanow when the Nazis invaded Poland. Early in 1941, Fr. Kolbe was arrested and sent to Auschwitz where he was killed after volunteering to take the place of another man who had a wife and children. He was killed by lethal injection on August 14th. Overall, between 1939 and 1945, 2,935 members of the Polish clergy (18%) were killed in concentration camps.

On August 14/15 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. The formal surrender documents would be signed not long after on September 2nd. Both days are often recognized as V-J day (victory over Japan day). Pictured above are victory celebrations in New York City, London, and Paris.

A radical pro-Communist demonstration in New York, 1929

🇬🇧 Girls pausing for lunch and tea in a hayfield in Lancashire, England, 1929

Australian soldier Donald Gordon Boyce after his release from a Japanese prison camp in August 1945

Italian painter Raphael (1483-1520). His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of the Renaissance period. Among his most famous works are The School of Athens, Transfiguration, and the Sistine Madonna.

Actress Maude Fealy, c. 1910

August 1480: After a 15 day siege of the Italian city of Otranto, invading Ottoman forces breach the walls and take the city. A total of 12,000 inhabitants are killed and 5,000 enslaved. This number includes 800+ Christians beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam after the city fell.

A tired US sergeant mimics the pose of a statue on a memorial for Italian soldiers of WWI while taking a brief rest during the Allied invasion of Sicily, August 1943

African slaves in Arabia, 1890s. Saudi Arabia would not officially ban chattel slavery until 1962

A lady in traditional Ukrainian dress, c. 1890s