TDF Historic / Iconic / Amazing pic thread

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Albert Einstein




Jimi Hendrix driving a dune buggy with an unidentified woman. October 6, 1968




The Beatles meet Muhammad Ali.

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Genovese Family underboss Willie Moretti was becoming too chatty - it was believed that his mental state was deteriorating due to syphilis. While other mobsters who were called to testify at the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Organized Crime in 1950 remained staunchly silent, Moretti joked around and told stories. Fearing Moretti, a personable fellow who was buddies with Frank Sinatra, would say something he shouldn't, boss Vito Genovese ordered to have him killed. On October 4, 1951, Moretti was shot in the face and head while having lunch at Joe's Elbow Room in Cliffside Park, NJ.


Abe "Kid Twist" Reles
Feared Murder, Inc. hitman Abe "Kid Twist" Reles killed many of his victims by shoving an icepick through their ear and into their brain. Later, Reles became a government informant, and sent several mob members to the electric chair. On November 12, 1941, Reles was found dead, having fallen to his death from a hotel window. While it remains a possibility that he jumped, evidence and the circumstances surrounding him suggest that Reles was pushed. The newspapers later nicknamed him "the canary who sang, but couldn't fly."


"Machine Gun" Jack McGurn
Born Vincenzo Antonio Gibaldi, McGurn got his start on the Chicago mob scene by ruthlessly murdering the three mobsters who killed his father. He became an integral part of Al Capone's Chicago Outfit; he was implicated in the planning of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, but was never tried. In 1930, McGurn's name appeared fourth on a list of top 28 public enemies, issued by the Chicago Crime Commission. This made McGurn a liability to the Outfit. On February 16, 1936, McGurn, who by then had become estranged from the mob, was killed by three men with machine guns at a bowling alley.


Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel
A poor Jewish boy who later rose to power through his involvement with the Genovese Crime Family, Bugsy Siegel was a brutal killer and a smart businessman. He headed several bootlegging and racketeering operations, and became a key participant in the development of Las Vegas. On June 20, 1947, Siegel was killed while at the Beverly Hills home of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill. He was shot through the window with a .30-caliber military M1 carbine. His killer was never positively identified and no one was charged with the murder

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Carmine "The Cigar" Galante
After rising to power and becoming acting boss of the Bonanno Crime Family, Galante became greedy. He tried to corner to the drug trade and hoarded profits. Still, he believed himself to be invincible, once saying, "No one will ever kill me, they wouldn't dare." On July 12, 1979, Galante and two Bonanno members were gunned down by four men while dining at a restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Galante's hitmen, who were aware of the impending assassination, did not protect their boss. His murder was ordered by Alphonse Indelicato, a Bonanno capo.


Louis Tuzzio
While the mob has respect for a man who gets what he wants, Gambino associate Louis Tuzzio wanted too much, too fast. Bonanno consigliere Anthony Spero marked him for death after Tuzzio demanded that he be "made" in the mob. Tuzzio had also botched a hit -- he wounded a mobster's son during a contracted killing. In January, 1990, Tuzzio was found dead in Brooklyn. Eight bullet wounds in the back of his head, he was slumped over in his Chevy Camaro.


Anthony DiLapi
Lucchese Family soldier Anthony DiLapi knew how to do business. One of the highest earners in the Mafia, DiLapi, a Teamsters union leader, had his hands in several business and racketeering operations. After his release from a ten-year stint in prison, DiLapi fled from the mob, seeking to start a new life in Los Angeles. Determined to track him down, Lucchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso used Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, two corrupt NYPD detectives to find DiLapi. On February 4, 1990, DiLapi was shot to death in his garage by Casso's hitmen. He suffered eight bullets in total; four to the face, and four to the body.


Albert Anastasia
A quintessential mobster, Albert Anastasia headed Murder, Inc. and later became boss of the Gambino Family. Anastasia had a knack for evading the law by making witnesses disappear, and sustained a long an illustrious Mafia career from the 1920s all the way until his death in 1957. On October 25, 1957, Anastasia reclined in a barbershop chair, his face covered in warm towels, while his bodyguard parked the car. Two men, their faces covered, entered the shop and opened fire on Anastasia, who in his confusion tried to shoot back but fired at his assailants' reflections in the mirror. There are several theories on who killed Anastasia, but no one was ever charged.

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Prohibition-Era LA
This photo, taken by the LAPD in 1933, shows the aftermath of a mob-related double-murder in a restaurant.


Valentine's Day Massacre
One of the most famous mob killings, the Valentine's Day Massacre is the name given to the Februuary 14, 1929 killings of seven mob associates in Chicago. Though the exact perpetrators of the massacre are unknown, the attack was orchestrated by Al Capone's South Side Italian gang, who wished to take out the North Side Irish gang led by Bugs Moran.

Though it is believed that Moran was the original intended target of the attack, the massacre claimed the lives of five North Side gang members and two associates. Of the four assassins, two were dressed as police officers. The victims were lined up against a garage wall and executed with a spray of bullets. When police arrived, one of the victims, enforcer Frank Gusenberg was still alive, but refused to answer the police's questions. "Nobody shot me," he told them, before dying with fourteen bullets in his body.


Kidnapped by left-wing terrorist group the Symbionese Liberation Army on February 4, 1974, heiress Patty Hearst, granddaughter of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, shocked the world two months later when she showed up on surveillance cameras barking orders at the tellers of the San Francisco Bank she was holding up for the SLA.


When Bandar Abdulaziz, personal assistant of Saudi prince Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Saud, was found dead in the posh London hotel suite the two men shared, the Saudi prince led investigators to believe that his friend had died of wounds sustained in a recent mugging. The autopsy, however, revealed that he had been punched and kicked to death in the last day. Then this surveillance tape from the hotel elevator surfaced showing a submissive, cowering Abdulaziz, the constant victim of Al-Saud's physical abuse, receiving the beating that led to his death.

[Randall]

got to smile at the frank gusenberg remark.

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Lana Clarkson as she was found and the mansion of former rock music producer Phil Spector after, in his words, "She kissed the gun" and shot herself. At the time he said "I think I just shot her." He hid his hands from police.


Killed by an axe, Andrew Borden, father of the infamous Lizzie Borden, lays dead on the couch in the downstairs sitting room.


Killed by an axe, Abby Borden, mother of the infamous Lizzie Borden, lays slumped over in her bedroom.


Theo Van Gogh, great grandnephew of the famed Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, lies dead for his film Submission, which criticized Islam's treatment of women. The killer shot him off his bike, then pursued the filmmaker, shot him again and slit his throat. He is shown here as the killer left him lying supine in morning rush hour traffic, with a note containing more threats on Van Gogh's chest and a knife plunged through it.

[D & B]

Taken a different twist, I like it a lot.

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Roman Polanski sits outside the house where his pregnant wife actress Sharon Tate and four others were murdered by members of the Manson family. The word "PIG" is seen scrawled on the door.


While the Sharon Tate murder trial is taking place, members of Charles Manson's "family" speak with reporters as police look on.


Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, convicted of 52 murders, uses a dummy to demonstrate his method of killing for police.


This surveillance video still captures Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in the cafeteria at Columbine High School shortly before they committed suicide.

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Federal agents investigating the Lucchese crime family marked this surveillance photo to signify the hierarchy between boss Vic Amuso (1) and underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso (2).


Two macaws perch on a fence in Jonestown, Guyana where over 900 members led by Jim Jones of the People's Temple Cult committed mass suicide.


Military members carry the bodies of Jonestown victims from a helicopter


Anthony Mirra: Knife Man
Like many mobsters who did not want to go through the hassle of being caught by police with illegal firearms, Bonnano family soldier Anthony Mirra always carried a knife. However, when it came to conducting lethal business, most mobsters preferred the brutal, instantaneous effectiveness of guns. Anthony Mirra wasn't like most mobsters. Known as a "knife man," Mirra often used his long-bladed folding knife. Because of his violent temper and unpleasant personality he was feared and disliked by those who associated with him. Mirra was known as a womanizer who treated women badly, once threatening to murder a woman he was courting when he found out she was a lesbian. Mirra is perhaps best known for introducing FBI agent Joseph Pistone, alias "Donnie Brasco," into the Bonnano family. When it came to light that Brasco, whom the Bonnanos had trusted for nearly five years, was an agent, Mirra immediately went into hiding, knowing that no one in the mob liked him enough to take a stand in his defense. In 1982, Mirra was shot in the back of the head by Bonanno member Joseph D'Amico, while seated in his parked Mercedes.

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Carmine Galante
A street-hardened man nicknamed "Cigar" for his habit of always having one between his teeth, Carmine "Lilo" Galante began his life of crime began at a young age — he was involved in street gangs before he was a teenager. He was arrested for the first time at the age of 14 and sent to reform school, only to be arrested again for second-degree assault and robbery and sent to prison at the age of 16. Using his underworld prowess and business sense, Galante quickly moved up the ranks, becoming a Mafia associate during Prohibition. After a nine year stint in prison, Galante began carrying out contract killings for Genovese family boss Vito Genovese, and became involved in a large-scale narcotics smuggling ring headed by Genovese. His participation in the ring eventually cost Galante twelve years in federal prison amongst countless other mafiosi, where he enjoyed special privileges, such as being allowed to keep three cats. While incarcerated, Galante was diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorder. When Galante was released on parole, Bonnano boss Phillip "Rusty" Rastelli was sent to prison, so Galante became the family's acting boss. While in power, he ruthlessly ordered the deaths of many of his rivals, refusing to allow anyone to stand in the way of his money-making ventures. In 1979, Galante himself was murdered, along with his bodyguard and the owner of the restaurant where he was enjoying a lunch of Italian food. The shooting was a coup attempt ordered by Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, Galante's underboss.


Roy DeMeo and the Gemini Method
Gambino family member and feared killer Roy DeMeo is notorious for heading a crew of professional murderers who carried out killings using the "Gemini Method." Named after the Gemini Lounge, DeMeo's bar in Brooklyn, the method was the way in which DeMeo and his crew made, according to the FBI's estimates, between 75 and 200 people "disappear." The intended victim was usually lured into the apartment behind the bar, then shot by DeMeo using a silenced pistol. After the shooting, a towel was immediately wrapped around the victim's head to absorb the blood. Then, the victim was stabbed in the heart and left in the bathroom until enough blood had been drained out to begin dismemberment. The parts of the body, in bags and boxes, would be sent to a local dump, where they were unlikely to ever be found. It remains unclear who is responsible for DeMeo's 1983 shooting death — notorious hit man Richard "Ice Man" Kuklinski, who used to carry out contract killings for DeMeo, claimed to have killed him, while Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso claims that Joseph Testa and Anthony Senter killed DeMeo under Casso's orders, handed down to him by John Gotti.


Albert Anastasia: Murder Inc.
Albert Anastasia was nicknamed the "Lord High Executioner" because of his position as the leader of a fearsome group of contract killers. Named "Murder Inc." by the press, Anastasia'a team systematically carried out an estimated 700 murders. Working under Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Frank Costello, Anastasia eventually became boss of the Gambino family. His ruthlessness and power earned him the respect and simultaneous loathing of mob associates. In a power-play hit, believed to have been ordered by Colombo boss Joe Profaci, Anastasia was gunned down while seated in a barber's chair on Park Avenue.


Abe "Kid Twist" Reles
One of the better-known men who worked for Murder Inc. was Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. Gaining entry into mob dealings by way of racketeering and slot machine monopolies, Reles soon moved on to loan sharking and the brutal enforcement tactics that go along with it. Using an ice pick as his weapon of choice, Reles gained notoriety as a heartless killer. In 1940, Reles became a government informant and testified against many of his associates, including Anastasia. He met his end when he plummeted to his death from a hotel window in 1941. Whether he jumped or was pushed is still subject to debate.

[Justin Credible]

Paul Castellano
The son of a butcher, Paul Castellano was the boss of the Gambino crime family. Business-minded with a no-nonsense attitude, Castellano strategically eliminated mob family members who he thought were out of line. One such example was Nicholas Scibetta, brother-in-law of Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, who had been known to use drugs recreationally and had accrued several strikes against himself by insulting the daughter of a respected Gambino member and by going to police after losing a fight with an associate's son. Castellano ordered him dead, and the hit was carried out without question — the only part of Scibetta that was ever found was one of his hands. Castellano also ordered the killing of Roy DeMeo when he began to suspect that the bloodthirsty Gemini Lounge killing crew leader might become an informant.


Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski
An especially loathsome and creative killer, Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski, nicknamed so because of his method of freezing bodies to throw off forensic scientists trying to determine the time of death, claimed to have murdered over 100 men. In a chilling and controversial jailhouse interview conducted by psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz, Kuklinski described the various methods he used to execute his victims, from poison, to hand grenades, to leaving a tied-up victim in a rat-infested cave. After a 30-year career as a hit man, Kuklinski was arrested in 1986, and in 1988 convicted of five murders and sentenced to life in prison, where he remained, surrounded by publicity, until his 2006 death at the age of 70. Kuklinski's death was regarded as suspicious because he was slated to testify at Gambino underboss Sammy "The Bull" Gravano's trial for the killing of NYPD detective Peter Calabro. Gravano, who Kuklinski claimed ordered him to commit the murder, was imprisoned on another charge at the time, and after Kuklinski's death, prosecutors decided there was not enough evidence to continue the Calabro trial.


Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Brooklyn native Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso prided himself on having corrupt cops "in his pocket" and committing murders for him, namely Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, who were later convicted of racketeering, extortion and murder after a high-profile trial. While hunted by authorities and serving as acting boss of the Lucchese family, a position that the responsibility-shirking Casso never wanted, he went into hiding in New Jersey, and ran the family from afar. Like all mobsters, Casso publicly proclaimed his hatred of informants, or "stool pigeons," but later turned informant himself when prosecutor Charles Rose offered him a deal for his testimony. The deal did not go through, and Casso remains in prison, his mafia reputation marred by his turncoat tactics.


Sammy "The Bull" Gravano
Sammy "The Bull" Gravano committed his first murder in 1970. It was a preemptive strike against Joe Colluci, who planned to kill Gravano, then working for the Colombo family, and his associate Tommy Spero, who was sleeping with Colluci's wife. The killing, the first of nineteen to which he later confessed, helped Gravano get noticed, and he officially became a made member of the Gambino family 1976, shortly after the Mafia's membership books, closed since 1957, were once again opened to allow new men into La Cosa Nostra's elite ranks. Although he did not do the shooting, Gravano was a participant in the 1985 conspiracy to kill Gambino family boss Paul Castellano, under the orders of John Gotti, who wanted to take over the family. When Gotti was imprisoned a year later, Gravano gained more clout as he helped Gotti run the family from inside prison walls. Later, Gravano became a government informant, testifying against Gotti, and was placed in Witness Protection. He then moved to Scottsdale, Ariz., where he began trafficking Ecstasy in conjunction with a white supremacist organization. Currently, Gravano is serving a 19-year prison sentence in Arizona for his involvement in the drug ring.

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A fine selection of weird and wacky ones here

http://www.boredpanda.com/must-see-historic-moments/

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This is believed to be the oldest photo taken in the USA; Central High School in Philadelphia, by Joseph Saxton, 1839



Construction of the Hoover Dam, 1934

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The models for "American Gothic"



The first photograph of lightning, by William Jennings, 1882



Bruce Springsteen pulled over for speeding, 1978



Jesse Owens, in a suit, practices aboard the SS Manhattan on the way to the Olympic Games in Berlin, 1936

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Exhibition of flying machines Paris 1909

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dead bodies on the mountain

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Border patrol service dogs waiting in line to get dinner. Finland, circa 1940




Long-exposure nighttime photograph of US troops firing on a Viet Cong sniper, by J.S. Hensinger, c. 1970

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Beach cop on decency patrol, Washington DC, 1922.


Elvis Presley, high as a kite, deputised as a Federal Agent-At-Large in the war on drugs


"No nigruhs in arr skools!" Arkansas, 1959


Albert, having the craic

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Man riding a pig, 1914


The Clearest Image of a Sunspot Ever Taken, Courtesy of the Big Bear Solar Observatory


External view of Wembley Stadium and the Twin Towers, 1947


James Dean poses in a casket in a funeral parlor seven months before he died. Fairmount, Indiana, 1955

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1868. This is Chief Two Dogs Fucking, looking at the completed Transcontinental Railroad.



Leonid Brezhnev on the phone, in his underwear, 1970s




A Cork Bar in the 1960's, typically flooded
nice snug in the corner