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.

The battleship USS Iowa fires its 16-inch guns during duty in the Persian Gulf on December 16, 1987. In 1943, the Iowa ferried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran Conference, where post-WW II leaders divided up the world. The ship fought battles from the South Pacific to Korea and escorted convoys through the Persian Gulf. Forty-seven sailors died atop its deck when an explosion ripped through a gun turret. Now, the new port for the retired USS Iowa just might be the home of California's annual asparagus festival, the gritty agriculture port town of Stockton on the San Joaquin River, about 80 miles inland from San Francisco. (Photo by Eric Risberg/AP Photo)

A girl cools off from the heat in water from an open fire hydrant in the Washington Heights section of upper Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., July 19, 2019. (Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters)

Gypsies gather at Appleby in Cumbria, United Kingdom on August 12, 2021, for the biggest horse fair of its kind in Europe, which lasts till Sunday. Typically the fair takes place in June, although COVID has pushed it back to August in 2021. In the region of 30,000 people are expected to attend. (Photo by Chris Strickland/Alamy Live News)

A man sleeps in a subway train in New York city on August 1, 2024. (Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP Photo)

Police officers arrest a protester during an anti-lockdown march in Liverpool, United Kingdom on November 21, 2020. The StandUpX movement organised a protest under the banner March for Freedom, Save Our City. (Photo by Mercury Press)

The Forth Bridge is engulfed by mist on one of the coldest days of the year, on December 12, 2022, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo by Ken Jack/Getty Images)