The first photo of a black hole is the most historically significant “first photo of x” that happened in my life time and that I actually understood its historical significance when it came out. So I’d say that’s probably my favourite.

This is Emir Seyyid Mir Mohammed Alim Khan, the last Emir of Bukhara.

The emirate existed from 1785

This is a pre-WW1 colored photograph (1911) by Prokudin-Gorsky

I have many good ones, but i think my favourite is this one:

It’s from the famous victory parade in Moscow in 24.06.1945, Japan and USSR were not at war yet, so in a truly masterful trolling stroke, Japan was invited to parade to celebrate defeat of their own allies. On the photo you can see Japanese army colonel and a navy officer (hat visible partially) congratulate marshal Zhukov while French, British and American officers are waiting in line.

As of why, it never fail to make me smile.

Buncha queer people having a costume party at the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, which was the world’s first queer clinic and where the foundations of what we today call Gender Affirming Care were developed.

I like this one here because it’s the unedited version. As I’m sure you know, you can see the soldier in the bottom right has two watches. It shows how the soviets covered up the looting that their troops did when they reached Berlin.

Another cool historic photo is all those samurai sitting in the sphinx

It is hard to pick one, but this photo has always stuck with me. That is a picture from the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression.

A hungarian freedom fighter gathers his friends into coffins in next of a defeated communist tank on the 1956 uprising.

I take deep pride and admiration to my freedom fighters that we were badass enough to go against the USSR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Standing_by_the_Crematory

This one. The cost of any war summarized in one picture.

Free Huey is a great one:

Maybe that time a dove landed on Fidel’s shoulder during a speech right after the victory of the Cuban revolution.

President Taft riding a water buffalo. Always gives me a chuckle.

First moon landing. It shows what we are capable of

These are great. Is there a good place to get hi res print ready files for some of these and other historical noteworthy photos for personal use? Or at least sources that aren’t charging 300 dollars for something that is or should be public domain.

All photos are historical photos. That’s a lot to choose from.