15+ Historical Pics That Don't Make Much Sense Without An Explanation

When Soviet tanks rolled through Bratislava in what was then Czechoslovakia on August 8, 1968, one citizen named Emil Gallo exposed his chest in protest.

According to The Slovak Spectator, this area was also the site where Soviet forces had previously killed a 17-year-old girl.

Of course, that doesn't stop the human body from needing rest, so here we see astronaut Jim Lovell trying to get some shut-eye during the Apollo 13 mission.

As we can see, the head and shoulders of the statue became available for public viewing during the 1878 Paris World's Fair before the rest of it had even been built.

That's because these British sailors held the event to protest the Royal Navy's decision to cancel their daily rum rations.

These rations were issued for 230 years until July 31, 1970, which is now known as Black Tot Day.

Popular Mechanics reported on the electric vehicle's testing back in 1955, but there's little information on how long it lasted after that.

That's because this view from the window of French inventor Nicéphore Niépce's home is the oldest photograph that we're aware of.

Although it was easy to openly support Ruhollah Khomeini once he became Grand Ayatollah of Iran, these masked militia fighters knew that was a much riskier enterprise before he rose to power.

For the rest of us, the outfit and hair probably make it difficult to identify this two-year-old child as 32nd President of The United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Some of you crafty folks might have already figured this out, but he put his helmet on top of his rifle to trick an enemy sniper into shooting at it.

According to Princeton, these students earned the bruises and swelling you see here from a snowball fight back in 1895.

I can only imagine their opponents were packing their snowballs with rocks or pieces of ice.

According to author Arthur J. Miller, he would fill it with blanks and shoot them at any fans who asked about the meanings of his paintings, asked him to explain his theory of aesthetics, or badmouthed the late French artist Paul Cézanne.

As we can see from this photo, they were just as haunting to behold back in 1861.

It's certainly hard to imagine this water was at all clean, but his conditions were obviously desperate enough for this to seem like his only option to stave off dehydration.

Instead this photo was taken before the U.S. Army and Navy simulated a storming operation on a Japanese atoll.

This "war show" was intended to inspire people to buy war bonds and help fund military efforts.

According to Deutsche Welle, these gashes in the painting were the result of a vandal slashing the painting 12 times back in 1975.

Although some of the deeper cuts can still be seen today, restoration efforts have hidden much of the damage.

That's because the uploader's grandfather apparently tied the steering wheel down and jumped out of the car while it was driving in circles to prank their grandma.

People in the 1920s got bored too, I suppose.

These men were training to be Hussars, which are members of a cavalry unit.

While they wouldn't necessarily need to do this in the field, this exercise is supposed to teach them to maintain balance on their future horses. Yeah, definitely important.

Although none of us can likely remember a time when Las Vegas didn't have an infamous reputation, it all began in this neighborhood called Block 16.

It was the original Las Vegas red light district shown sometime after the turn of the century.

Believe it or not, this is what Stan Lee looked like when he was about 32-years-old back in 1954.

I can only imagine how different his voice sounded.

Since this was taken back in 1942, it had to be fortified with bricks and sandbags in case artillery shells got too close to it during World War II.

This photo from 1915 depicts the famous Anastasia playing around with fake teeth. Three years later, her family would be massacred after the Bolshevik uprising.

This is Lt. Lou Zamperini and in this shot, he's seeing how badly a shell from a Japanese cannon damaged his Liberator cargo ship.

So yes, let's talk about that spooky looking statue. The lighting may make it look menacing, but it's simply supposed to depict the Roman messenger god, Mercury.

That's a pretty good figure for a car company.

If you're stumped on what we're looking at, the answer is that the 1840 photo was the first picture of the Moon.

But it might clear up some confusion to learn that the weird decoration on top of it is actually a model of the early Russian satellite Sputnik.

This vehicle was adorned this way for the 1958 General Election in Italy.

While most of us are probably used to the effects of the 1974 Maximum Speed Law by now, this way to save fuel during the oil shortage of the '70s would have taken a lot of adjustment.

At least, that's what then-general Irwin Rommel wanted people back in Germany to see when he engineered this publicity shot.

Instead, this still was taken from a road safety ad West shot back in 1967.

Instead, this guy is simply testing a helmet. Apparently, he's also showing a lot of confidence that it works if this is how he chose to do it.

Based on the number of attendees, it also seemed like they weren't accepting many candidates at once.

As the photographer in the second photo likely became all too aware of, brandishing this weapon was her way of fending off the paparazzi.

As boxing legend Muhammad Ali is demonstrating here, it wasn't unheard of for some cars to have mini record players installed.

Instead, they were actually covering up the Tiananmen Square portrait up on May 23, 1989 because protesters were lobbing paint at it.

That's because this photo was taken in Washington D.C. the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

That's why you can see members of the National Guard in the background.