Nigerian photographer’s iconic 'Hairstyles' series
J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, who was known as Nigeria’s top photographer, started documenting women’s hairstyles in 1968. He built up a portfolio of around 2,000 negatives revealing the elaborate ways Afric...
20 Touko 202510min
Lunch atop a Skyscraper
In 1932, a photo was taken showing 11 New York ironworkers casually eating their lunch while sitting on a steel beam at the top of a skyscraper. No safety harnesses, no helmets. Their legs dangled fre...
19 Touko 202510min
Sweden’s shocking sugar experiment
In the 1940s, some vulnerable Swedish hospital patients were fed large amounts of sugary sweets as part of an experiment to see what it would do to their teeth. Researchers considered the study a succ...
16 Touko 20259min
Mexico’s soda tax: Confronting soft drink giants
In 2013, Mexico’s government approved a tax on sugary soft drinks. The country has one of the highest rates of fizzy drink consumption in the world. Some rural homes do not have access to safe drinkin...
15 Touko 202510min
The founding of the Warsaw Pact
On 14 May 1955, the leader of the Soviet Union and leaders from seven European countries met to sign the Warsaw Pact. In the years following World War Two, the Soviet Union and the United States start...
14 Touko 202510min
Tesla and Edison: Electricity rivals
By 1915, the two great rivals, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, had brought electricity to the world. It was reported that they were set to share the Nobel Prize for Physics, but it never happened. In ...
13 Touko 202510min
Intervision Song Contest
In 1980, Finnish singer Marion Rung won the Intervision Song Contest. Born in the 1960s, Intervision was the Eastern Bloc’s answer to Eurovision. It ran until 1980, although in 2025 Russia’s President...
12 Touko 202510min
Rescuing Palmyra’s treasures from the Islamic State group
In May 2015, when the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria was about to fall to jihadist fighters, a group of men risked their lives to load centuries-old artefacts from the city’s museum onto trucks and ...
9 Touko 202510min
