Pedestrians use their smartphones to capture the newly illuminated Christmas tree at the Syntagma square in Athens on November 23, 2023. (Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP Photo)

It is already one of the world’s most iconic cities, but this incredible collection shows how much Paris has changed over the course of the past century. The collection, by French photographer Julien Knez, shows Paris in the 1940s against a backdrop of how the same places look today. Knez says he put the striking collection together to celebrate the 71st anniversary of the city’s liberation from Nazi control in August 1944. Here: Soldiers outside the Hotel De Ville in the 1940s. (Photo by Julien Knez/Caters News)

A soldier of the French Foreign Legion holding his regiment's banner at Bar Hacheim in Libya, circa 1940. (Photo by Three Lions). P.S. All pictures are presented in high resolution.

Londoners sleep on the platform and on the train tracks at Aldwych Underground station,London, during heavy all night Nazi bombing raids, October 8, 1940. (Photo by AP Photo)

Guests on the terrace of Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, circa 1940. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A dog walks past a mural by street artist Alex Martinez outside a shop which sells bags at Psiri area, central Athens, on Thursday, January 25, 2018. (Photo by Petros Giannakouris/AP Photo)

A Russian prisoner eating bread. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). Finland, circa 1940

Following a large air raid by German bombers, local people, coming out of their air raid shelters found a bus standing on end in a large crater, in Balham, London, October 15, 1940. (Photo by AP Photo)