Though we may think of the olden days in black and white, the past was just as vivid as the present, full of vivid hues including blue skies, green grass and, well, people that don’t look as though they were ripped from an I Love Lucy rerun.
Contrary to their popular depiction — one largely informed by the popularity of color photography, which wasn’t commonly used until the mid-20th century — famous events and famous figures all existed on a spectrum of ROY G. BIV.
From Winston Churchill to James Dean behind the scenes, here are 20 colorized photos proving the past was just as bright as the future.
1
"General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower 1947"
2
"Albert Einstein sailing on the Saranac Lake, in the Adirondack Park, New York, 1936."
3
"Swedish high jumper Gunhild Larking from the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, from archives of LIFE Magazine"
4
"Rocky Marciano - The only heavyweight champion to have finished his career undefeated - 1953"
5
"Woman in white bathing suit on beach wearing big straw hat. 03 August, 1938. Photo by H. Armstrong Roberts"
7
"St. Petersburg, Russia, 1900s"
8
"Actor James Dean on the set of the movie "Giant" in July 1955 in Marfa, Texas."
9
"1949: "Hagelauer", VW dealership in Heilbronn, Germany"
10
Alexander Fleming, 1929.
12
"Tamara Karsavina and Adolph Bolm in 'The Firebird', London, 1911"
13
"Ham (July 1957 – January 19, 1983), was the first great ape launched into space. On January 31, 1961, Ham flew a suborbital flight on the Mercury-Redstone 2 mission, part of the U.S. space program's Project Mercury."
14
"Soviet Junior Lieutenant Sergey Yefimovich Kazhdan aged 19, had killed 25 Germans and destroyed 4 machine-gun posts in the battle near Rzhev on November 3, 1942."
15
Pyotor Tchaikovsky, 1890.
16
Winston Churchill during the General Election Campaign in 1945
17
"Patty Berg - 1936. 15 Major Titles. Founding Member and 1st President of the LPGA."
19
"Richard Winters and Easy Company at the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's former residence in the Bavarian Alps, 1945."
20
"March 9, 2024 will mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. He became the first person in world history to fly into outer space."
