Celebrating cultures around the world and vivid moments of our past, the project National Geographic Found curates historical images and breathes new life into them. Started in 2013 to celebrate National Geographic's 125th anniversary, the project retrieves images from the Nat Geo archives, and showcases moments that have been lost and are just now being rediscovered
Some of these photos were never published, and others were run in the magazine many years ago and then forgotten. Each carefully selected photograph represents an ageless story of a moment in history, frozen in time. We have chosen some of our favourites, but if you want to see more amazing, forgotten shots, check out the National Geographic Found Tumblr page.
Above: Boys dressed up in school uniforms pose with king penguins at the London Zoo, 1953.
PHOTOGRAPH BY B. ANTHONY STEWART AND DAVID S. BOYER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Flamingos standing and feeding in a pool near salt beds, Netherlands Antilles.
PHOTOGRAPH BY VOLKMAR K. WENTZEL, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
With claws bared, a kitten attacks its own mirrored reflection, 1964.
PHOTOGRAPH BY WALTER CHANDOHA, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
The first successful aerial color photograph–which depicted the Statue of Liberty–used the Finlay process, 1931.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MELVILLE B. GROSVENOR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Pope John Paul II carries Holy Communion before Mass on Holy Thursday in Rome, 1985.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES L. STANFIELD, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Riders cross park land created by landfill that was dumped into Jamaica Bay, New York, 1979.
PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID ALAN HARVEY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A man herds sheep with the help of his collies in Scotland, 1919.
PHOTOGRAPH BY WILLIAM REED, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A hippopotamus and his mate line up at tank's edge at feeding time, March 1957.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT F. SISSON AND DONALD MCBAIN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
The first explorers to descend to the deepest part of the ocean were Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in the bathyscaphe Trieste, January 23, 1960. 52 years later, James Cameron's DEEPSEA CHALLENGER journeyed to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly 7 miles below sea level.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY U.S NAVY
A boy sells lemonade from his front yard stand on Main Street in Aspen, Colorado, 1973.
PHOTOGRAPH BY DICK DURRANCE II, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A man examines the teeth of a 10-month-old Alaskan Malamute puppy near the South Pole, 1957.
PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID BOYER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A Native American sends smoke signals in Montana, June 1909.
PHOTOGRAPH BY DR. JOSEPH K. DIXON, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A view of Saint Basil's Cathedral in Red Square, Russia, shot through a store window.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JODI COBB, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A sled dog, tied to a whale rib, howls under the midnight sun in Alaska, 1969.
PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS J. ABERCROMBIE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Women dance to send off a friend on an airplane trip in Mopti, Mali, 1966.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES P. BLAIR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A white fallow stag stands in a forest in Switzerland, 1973.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES P. BLAIR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Welts, scars of beauty, pattern the entire back of a Nuba woman in Sudan, 1966.
PHOTOGRAPH BY HORST LUZ, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Young lovers embrace beside the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, 1960.
PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS NEBBIA, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Arizona cowboys play sports to pass the time in Phoenix, 1955.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY BLACK STAR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Locals relax by the tulip fields along the canal in Haarlem, The Netherlands, 1931.
PHOTOGRAPH BY WILHELM TOBIEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Dozens of visitors frolic in the water as seen through a palm frond in Acapulco, Mexico, 1964.
PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS NEBBIA, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A balloon from Anchorage, Alaska, flies over Cook Inlet, 1986.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS JOHNS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A shadow of a man holding a bicycle is cast on a wall near the Zambezi River, 1996.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS JOHNS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Woman adorned like a Chinese goddess poses in a garden in California, 1915.
PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANKLIN PRICE KNOTT, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Women in bright dress walk by a fountain with the Taj Mahal in the background, 1959.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MELVILLE B. GROSVENOR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
The wind sculpts the dunes of the Sahara Desert in the Erg Bourarhet, Algeria, 1973.
PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS J. ABERCROMBIE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A passageway in Algeria.
PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS J. ABERCROMBIE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A woodman notches a felled tree's trunk for sectioning in Western Australia, 1962.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT B. GOODMAN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
A man stands dwarfed under the Ape-Ape leaves of Puohokamoa Gulch in Maui, Hawaii, 1924.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GILBERT H. GROSVENOR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
Children read a Sylvan Drew Circus billboard, 1931.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JACOB J. GAYER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
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