Photochromes are vibrant and nuanced prints hand-coloured from black-and-white negatives. Created using a process pioneered in the 1880s, these images offer a fascinating insight into the world when colour photography was still in its infancy. A Tour of the World in Photochromes is at the Swiss Camera Museum, Vevey, until 21 August. Here: Street food in the Strada del Porto in Naples, Italy, 1899. (Photo by Swiss Camera Museum/The Guardian)

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

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

Liusba Grajales, left, puts makeup on her daughter Ainhoa as her partner Lisset Diaz Vallejo gets ready as they prepare to get married in Santa Clara, Cuba, Friday, October 21, 2022. The couple, which has been together for seven years, is one of the first to make the decision to get legally married in Cuba following the new Family Code, which opened up everything from equal marriage to surrogate mothers. (Photo by Ismael Francisco/AP Photo)

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 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)

Fisherwomen laying barrels with salt in preparation for herring curing, 1937. (Photo by Topical Press Agency)