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.

Women wearing braided straw hats dance as the Owara Kaze-no-Bon dance festival begins on September 1, 2025 in Toyama, Japan. The festival, believed to have more than 300 years history, continues till September 3. (Photo by The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images)

A tiger cub has a short chat with a chimp. (Photo by Ian Tyas/Keystone Features/Getty Images). 27th November 1979

A Leyland lorry during the railway strike, “we supply both milk and baby” is chalked on the bonnet. (Photo by A. R. Coster/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images). 3rd October 1919

Father Christmas reading with three young children. (Photo by Spencer Arnold/Getty Images). Circa 1915

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874–1965), British Statesman and Prime Minister inspecting the boys from a training ship. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1912

General Maurice Gamelin, General Officer commanding the French Armies, is on a four day visit to England. He went to the staff college at Minley and is seen inspecting an anti-tank gun at Aldershot, on June 7, 1939. (Photo by AP Photo)

A pro-Russian rebel guards a captured former Ukrainian Army checkpoint outside Vuhlehirsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, February 5, 2015. The rebels have closed in around the town in a strategy they triumphantly refer to as the Debaltseve cauldron. Separatists recently burst through government lines in the rural settlement of Vuhlehirsk. (Photo by Vadim Braydov/AP Photo)