Cars are piled up as flooding affects the area after heavy rains in Ensival, Verviers, Belgium, 15 July 2021. Heavy rains have caused widespread damage and flooding in parts of Belgium. (Photo by Stephanie Lecocq/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

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.

A Buddhist nun walks along a path as a stupa is seen at a temple in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka October 16, 2016. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

Rick Sorenson, owner of the Rio Ramaza Marina, wades in the Sacramento River after securing an old paddlewheel boat on his property as the river makes its way up the levee on Garden Highway in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, January 9, 2017. (Photo by Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee via AP Photo)

A baby elephant eats in a swamp in Amboseli national park, Kenya, March 19, 2017. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A keeper feeds a four-week-old jaguar while presenting it to the media, at a zoo in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, October 14, 2015. (Photo by Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

Free for Editorial Use Ballerinas from The Royal Ballet School perform on December 2, 2025 under Covent Garden's first festive snowfall to launch the destination's daily December snow flurries. (Photo by Paul Grover/Covent Garden)

A new type of tandem at Alexandra Palace, London. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images). June 1936