Flashback
Each month, National Geographic features a photograph from our archives in Flashback. Browse through the galleries of historical images for a view into our past.
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SHOW HORNS
Centuries-old vessels made of narwhal tusk (from left), rhinoceros horn, and a stony stomach accretion called a bezoar were among Austria's treasures—part of Nazi caches stashed across that country—touring world museums after World War II. Notes from Washington, D.C.'s National Gallery of Art, where 875,173 people viewed the exhibit in the winter of 1949, say the works "were lent by the Austrian Government in gratitude to the American people for the rescue of works of art from the salt mines in Upper Austria." Today these vessels reside in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, where they’re slated to go on display this December. Margaret G. Zackowitz ]]>
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THE HOLE THING
Pointers named Tyree and Skeeter poke through portholes in a Plymouth. Notes accompanying the photograph—which was published in a 1958 National Geographic book about dogs—say the animals’ owner, E. D. Todd of Victoria, British Columbia, installed the openings in the trunk "to give dogs light and air when he went driving." Though probably not the safest arrangement for the pets in case of accident, it likely did cut down on the dog hairs in the car’s back seat. Their coats may be short and slick, but pointers can be prodigious shedders. Margaret G. Zackowitz ]]>
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BYRD DOGS
Puppies pull a play sledge for the amusement of supply officer George Black during Richard E. Byrd’s first Antarctic expedition. They were the offspring of the 94 dogs originally brought along for transport on the journey—and would soon be the youngest residents of a part of the camp called Dog Town. “Oh Lord, all the perfumes in France couldn’t have rid Dog Town of its gamy aroma,” wrote Byrd in a book about his travels, Exploring With Byrd. (This photograph ran in his August 1930 account of the 1928-30 Antarctic trip for National Geographic.) “The air in the tunnels was thick enough not only to be cut with a knife; spiced with a dash of garlic from the bulbs that hung over Noville’s door, it could have been served as pemmican.”Margaret G. Zackowitz ]]>
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