A sizable number of history's most unforgettable images were photographed in black and white. Now, through the digital process of colorization, we can see how these scenes might have appeared in person.
The picture above was taken by Joe Rosenthal in 1945 during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Hoover Dam Turbine Construction, early 1930s
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Bud Fraker: Audrey Hepburn, 1953
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Jack Delano: Sergeant George Camblair learning how to use a gas mask in practice smokescreen, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 1942
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Seth Kinman, a Californian hunter and trapper, 1865
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Ruth Orkin: Albert Einstein At a Princeton University Luncheon in 1953
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Dorothea Lange: Unemployed lumber worker goes with his wife to the bean harvest. Note Social Security number tattooed on arm, Oregon, August 1939
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Mark Twain relaxing in a garden, c. 1899-1901
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Toni Frissell: A model floating in the water at Weeki Wachee Spring, Florida. Published in Harper's Bazaar in December 1947, colorized by Michael Catanachapodaca in 2012
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Portrait of Dorothea Lange atop a car with her giant camera, February 1936
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Testing a bulletproof vest, Washington, D.C., September 13, 1923
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Che Guevara
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Malcolm Browne: The self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức, 1963
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Charlie Chaplin, 1915
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Operation Crossroads Baker Event in Bikini Atoll, 1946
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(via Imgur)
Roger Higgins: Salvador Dalí with ocelot and cane, 1965
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1927 Solvay Conference Photo
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Yousuf Karsh: Albert Einstein, 1948
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Charles Darwin
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Margaret Bourke-White: African American Flood Victims Lined Up, 1937
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Alexander Gardner: The last living photograph of Abraham Lincoln, 1865
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Dorothea Lange: Country store on dirt road, Gordonton, North Carolina, 1939
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(via Shorpy)
Yousuf Karsh: Winston Churchill, 1941
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George Orwell
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Dorothea Lange: Migrant Mother, 1936
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Yousuf Karsh: Ernest Hemingway, 1957
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Alfred Eisenstadt: Sailor Kiss, VJ Day, 1945
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Eddie Adams: The Execution of a Viet Cong Guerilla, 1968
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Mauretania's first Chief Engineer with other gentlemen in Canada Dock, Liverpool, 1909
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(via Imgur)
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Pictures are colorized by Mads Madsen, except where noted otherwise.