A couple throw themselves into an energetic jive at a studio in London.

Esau the ape at the piano. (Photo by Reinhold Thiele/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images). Circa 1900

The attendants of the Sumptha Raja, Agra Durbar. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1873

Lenticular cloud and zebra. (Photo by National Geographic)

The Spanking. (Photo by Vika Valter/Getty Images)

A small series by illustration Alex Solis remembering those things that used to rule the world.

With a presence in nearly every city and town across Iran, the paramilitary Basij volunteer corps has an ever-increasing influence on life in the Islamic Republic. Authorities created the Basij, which means mobilization in Persian, just after the country's 1979 Islamic Republic. It is part of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard. Photo: In this Thursday, August 22, 2013 photo, a female member of the Basij paramilitary militia aims a rifle as a trainer looks over her shoulder in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

Shortlisted: “Two big eyes” by Miao Yong (Zejiang province, China). Damselflies look over the leaves. “I was photographing insects in a park near my home when suddenly I found two damselflies in the grass. They kept flying and it was very difficult to focus until suddenly they parked behind a leaf”. (Photo by Miao Yong/2017 Royal Society of Biology Photographer of the Year)