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1. This is what the Rockefeller Christmas tree looked like in 1934 (it was also the third year of the tradition):
2. Here’s a photo of Dr. Seuss sketching the Grinch (for his then-upcoming book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!) in 1957:
3. This is a photo of RuPaul holding Francis Bean Cobain, while standing next to Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain, backstage at the 1993 VMAs:
4. And here’s a screenshot of Francis Bean holding a copy of that photo 26 years later, when she was a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 4 in 2019:
5. Here’s Beyoncé and Solange Knowles during Christmastime in 1990:
6. Here’s the original lineup of the Beatles: Paul McCartney, Pete Best (who was fired from the band just before they made it big in 1962 and was replaced with Ringo Starr), George Harrison, and John Lennon:
7. This is the last known image of JFK Jr. It was taken on July 15, 1999, at a Yankees vs. Braves game at Yankee Stadium. He would die the next day:
8. Here’s a photo of Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy at an exhibition at the Galliera Museum in 1991, held to mark 40 years of the Givenchy fashion house. Givenchy, for whom Audrey was both muse and very close friend, helped define her signature look. Their partnership began in 1953, when she visited his Paris atelier while searching for dresses for Sabrina:
9. This is a photo of Steve Jobs unveiling the Apple II at the first West Coast Computer Faire, in 1977:
10. This is the original opening credits for I Love Lucy. Throughout its entire run, the credits were actually animated. They were changed to the classic satin and heart credits when the show was syndicated (put into reruns), as the animated credits wouldn’t work because they incorporated whichever brand was sponsoring that week’s episode:
11. Here’s Lucille Ball on the set of Three’s Company with John Ritter. In 1982, Lucille, who was a big fan of the sitcom and John Ritter, hosted a two-part retrospective during the show’s sixth season:
12. This is what the set of the Petries’ living room on The Dick Van Dyke Show looked like in color:
13. This is one of the most requested images from the National Archives. It was taken in December 1970, when Elvis met Nixon in the Oval Office and asked for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, saying he wanted to fight drug abuse and support the government’s efforts against it:
14. This is what an editorial shot for perfumes looked like in Vogue in 1954:
15. These SNL promotional photos of Catherine O’Hara were taken in 1981, we she joined the cast of the show. However, she never appeared in an episode because she quit the show after a week, because the TV show she had been on, SCTV, got picked up for another season and decided to go back on it:
16. This is a wax figure of Marie Tussaud, aka Madame Tussauds:
17. Taken in 1926, this is the first photo of the very first broadcast of a human face transmitted on television. The photo was taken when John Logie Baird gave the world’s first public demonstration of television at his laboratory in London:
18. This is a screenshot from the first TV drama, The Queen’s Messenger, which aired in 1928. For context, that was the same year Mickey Mouse was introduced to the world. The production was an experiment between GE and a station in Schenectady, New York:
And yes, television sets existed in the 1920s, but they were extremely rare and had very tiny screens.
19. This is what a television set looked like in the mid-’30s:
Yes, TVs existed back then, but they were expensive and rare. Because of WWII, the development of television was delayed/stopped for years.
20. Here is a photo of the real-life Christopher Robin (yes, his name is Christopher Robin) and Winnie-the-Pooh (named Winnie after a bear Christopher saw in the London Zoo). Winnie-the-Pooh author A. A. Milne, who was Christopher’s father, was inspired by him to write the books:
According to Christopher, it was actually his mother who created the Winnie-the-Pooh world, saying, “‘It was my mother who used to come and play in the nursery with me and tell him about the things I thought and did. It was she who provided most of the material for my father’s books.”
21. NBC’s Meet the Press has had a lot of politicians and world leaders appear on the program over its 77-plus years on air. But you might not know that Fidel Castro was among them. In 1959, Castro appeared on the program while on a visit to the US a few months after taking power during the Cuban Revolution. Below is a screenshot of him on the show, where he claimed he wasn’t a communist:
22. This is a photo of Marilyn Monroe at 2 years old in 1928:
23. This is a photo of Mick Jagger at 9 years old, in 1951:
24. Here are two photos of Britney Spears rehearsing her iconic “I’m a Slave 4 U” performance she did at the 2001 VMAs:
25. This is a photo of Goldie Hawn, William Atherton, and Michael Sacks on the set of his debut film The Sugarland Express:
26. And here’s Steven Spielberg directing Harrison Ford on the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark:
27. Pablo Picasso is so closely associated with early 20th-century art movements that it’s easy to forget he actually created art well into the late 20th century. Here is a photo of him in his art studio in 1971:
Born in 1881, he died at age 91 in 1973.
28. Here is a rare photo of Madonna alongside her then-boyfriend Tupac Shakur, while talking with Raquel Welch at a Versace party in New York in 1994:
29. Jennifer Lopez wasn’t the first person to wear the iconic green Versace dress to a major event. That distinction belongs to Donatella Versace, who wore it to the Met Gala in December 1999:
30. Here’s a photo of actors Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen (dressed up as their Davy Crockett characters) leading a press tour of Disneyland while it was still under construction:
31. This is a photo of Jimmy Stewart riding Mr. Toads Wild Ride at Disneyland in 1955:
32. Here’s a photo of Lady Gaga performing at Lollapalooza in 2007, the year before she broke through as a major star:
33. Here’s a behind-the-scenes photo of the Clueless cast with the movie’s director, Amy Heckerling, taken while they filmed the movie’s final scene:
34. This is what the mainstage of SNL looks like with nobody on it:
35. While Julie Andrews never played Mary Poppins again on the big screen, she did revive the character and play her a few more times in some of her TV specials. Here she is playing Mary alongside Peter Sellers in her 1975 TV special Julie: My Favorite Things:
36. This is what the line looked like when the first McDonald’s opened in Russia in 1990:
37. Here’s a photo of Princess Di meeting Roger Rabbit at the London premiere of Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988:
38. Here are Ke Huy Quan and Drew Barrymore at the Young Artist Awards in 1984:
39. And here are the two, 41 years later, at the Breakthrough Prize ceremony in 2025:
40. And last, this is the last public appearance where Betty White, Bea Arthur, and Rue McClanahan were photographed together. The Golden Girls actors got together in 2008 to receive the Pop Culture at the TV Land Awards:
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