Indigenous woven backpacks called guayare are seen in front of a house in Paraitepui village, before a walking excursion to Mount Roraima, near Venezuela's border with Brazil January 13, 2015. A mysterious table-topped mountain on the Venezuela-Brazil border that perplexed 19th century explorers and inspired “The Lost World” novel is attracting ever more modern-day adventurers. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

A woman reacts as rescuers search for survivors through the rubble of collapsed buildings in Adana, on February 6, 2023 after a 7,8 magnitude earthquake struck the country's south-east. The combined death toll has risen to over 1,900 for Turkey and Syria after the region's strongest quake in nearly a century. Turkey's emergency services said at least 1,121 people died in the earthquake, with another 783 confirmed fatalities in Syria. (Photo by Can Erok/AFP Photo)

Belarussian villagers perform during a celebration of the “Tsary” rite in the village of Semezhevo, Belarus January 13, 2016. This unique rite originated from the 18th century, and now takes place only in this village marking the New Year, according to the Julian calendar, on January 13. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Castel Meur, also known as La Maison du Gouffre or “the house between the rocks”, is a charming cottage wedged between two huge jagged rocks that has been drawing tourists to the otherwise quiet little village of Plougrescant, located in the department of Côtes-d’Armor in the region of Brittany, in France, since the 19th century.

Fishermen slaughter a 9.61m Baird's Beaked whale at Wada Port on June 28, 2008 in Minami Boso, Chiba, Japan. Only five ports are allowed whaling under the coastal whaling program which tries to keep whaling tradition that dates back to the seventeenth century. Japan is only allowed to hunt a limited number of whales every year. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

Dried and shrivelled corpses, some fully clothed and some in coffins, line the wall of a vault of the Pantheon Cemetery on the summit of Cerro del Trozado in Mexico. They were removed from the crypts because of non-payment of cemetery fees. The hot dry air stopped the bodies from rotting. Most of them were placed here between the turn of the century and WW I. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images). Circa 1955

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.

Mortsafes were contraptions designed to protect graves from disturbance. Resurrectionists had supplied the schools of anatomy in Scotland since the early 18th century. This was due to the necessity for medical students to learn anatomy by attending dissections of human subjects, which was frustrated by the very limited allowance of dead bodies – for example the corpses of executed criminals – granted by the government, which controlled the supply.