Two elderly men smoking pipes of opium on a terrace in Korea. (Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Getty Images). August 1950

Participants dance during the West Indian Day Parade in the Brooklyn borough of New York September 5, 2016. The Labor Day Carnival (or West Indian Carnival) is an annual celebration held on American Labor Day (the first Monday in September) in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in New York City. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Reuters)

With temperatures soaring and summer well underway, countless Americans will be spending their Independence Day weekend at the beach. Here we revisit some classic images from the turn-of-the-century to the 1930's of vacations by the sea, from Coney Island to Santa Monica.

Samurai commiting seppuku (hara-kiri) in Japan, circa 1880. (Photo by adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images)

A spotless GWR (Great Western Railway) locomotive, the “Royal Sovereign” waiting to carry Queen Victoria's coffin. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 28th January 1901

Two Inuit children at Point Barrow, Alaska, holding the tusks of a large walrus, probably killed for food, circa 1930. (Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

An armoured vehicle surrounded by Chicago cops at the time of the American depression, 1933. (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

A participant tries to stay warm during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan,New York, U.S., November 22, 2018. (Photo by Brendan McDermid/Reuters)