People dressed as Santa Claus dance during an event as a part of Christmas celebrations in Chennai on December 22, 2024. (Photo by R.Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

A folk artist shakes iron nets with hot charcoals to create sparks during Huohu (fire pot) performance on December 28, 2024 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

A Ukrainian serviceman hugs his relative after returning from captivity during a POWs exchange between Russia and Ukraine, in Ukraine, Monday December 30, 2024. (Photo by Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo)

People walk on the street before the opening ceremony of the Witches and Wizards Convention, in the Paranapiacaba village, in Santo Andre, Brazil on May 16, 2025. (Photo by Jean Carniel/Reuters)

English actress and model Elizabeth Hurley snuggles up to her beau Billy Ray Cyrus in lingerie on December 9, 2025. (Photo by elizabethhurley1/Instagram)

A colorful sky at sunset over the snowy mountains in Immenstadt, Bavaria, Germany, 20 November 2014. Cloudy weather is forecast in the region on 21 November. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/EPA)

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.

In this third of seven sequential photos, Elian Gonzalez is held in a closet by Donato Dalrymple, one of the two men who rescued the boy from the ocean, right, as government officials search the home of Lazaro Gonzalez for the young boy, early morning, April 22, 2000, in Miami, Florida. Armed federal agents seized Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives before dawn, firing tear gas into an angry crowd as they left the scene with the weeping 6-year-old boy. This photo won the Prize in 2001. (Photo by Alan Diaz/AP Photo)