Take a look at images that will definitely change your perspective of the past.
Chin-Tattooed Celebrity
You can get from NYC to California in less than 6 hours by plane in 2015. In 1850, you had to travel hundreds and thousands of miles in a wagon, and it was freaking dangerous as you may be attacked by Apaches or other Native Americans who would decide to get revenge on irritating the irritating ‘pale-faces’. This is exactly what happened to the family of a 14-year-old Olive Oatman whose parents and four siblings were killed. Her brother was clubbed and left to die while she and her younger sister Mary Ann were abducted and turned into slaves. Later, they were traded to a group of the Mohave people whose leader adopted the girls. It was then that the sisters got their famous chin tattoos that were believed to lead their owners to a good afterlife. Unfortunately, Mary Ann died of starvation during a severe drought just a few years before Olive was returned to the American community after intense negotiations. Eventually, the chin-tattooed beauty became an overnight sensation after a book about her life became a bestseller. It was definitely not easy to become a celebrity in those days.
First Lady’s First Interview
Turbulent and memorable, the summer of 1969 saw the Stonewall riots, the first men landing on the Moon, killings by the Manson Family and Woodstock. Also it was the time when a plump-cheeked girl wearing quirky octagon glasses and taking initial steps in political activism gave an interview to LIFE magazine. Her name was Hillary Diane Rodham, and long before Bill, the White House and her emails, she was a hip college chick everyone would not mind to buy a beer.
Kidnapped Albino Brothers
It was hard to be a black person in the 19th century, and it was even worse to be a black albino. In the late 1800s, racial prejudices resulted in kidnapping of two black albino brothers, George and Willie Muse, who were forced to work as human oddity attractions in a freak show. The promoters made them grow dreadlocks and presented them as Iko and Eko, the Sheapheaded Cannibals from Ecuador. Later, the Muse brothers were sold to another money maker who marketed them as Ambassadors from Mars, aliens whose ship crashed in California’s Mojave Desert.
The First Miss America
Way before the Miss America Pageant contestants turned into over-emotional and unnatural representations of what showbiz expects from a woman, Margaret Gorman, a 16-year-old high school junior from Washington, D.C. was crowned as ‘Inter-City Beauty, Amateur’, ‘The Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in America’ and finally Miss America. The curly cheerful teenager wearing a sequined dress epitomized the fashion of the 20s. It was the time of flappers – women who listened and danced to jazz, wore short skirts and excessive makeup and…OMG…drove automobiles.
