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.

Organizers of an exhibition of ancient instruments of torture in Huai'an, Jiangsu province, have suggested that children, heart disease patients and people with high blood pressure stay away because of the vivid depictions of shocking cruelty. The exhibition has more than 200 instruments of torture on display in the 50,000-square-meter exhibition halls of a restored ancient building. Wax figures, along with sound and light techniques, are incorporated for scary effect. The local government said the exhibition is for tourists and historians to research ancient torture practices. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress)

Workers clean the premises of Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, December 16, 2020. The Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal reopened for devotees on Wednesday morning, almost eight months after it was shut due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Dancers from the British theater company Motionhouse perform a show with excavators entitled “Traction” on the Prado beach in Marseille, France, on May 10, 2013. (Photo by Boris Horvat/AFP Photo)

In this photo taken on Sunday, July 5, 2015, police officers walk along a giant poster to give an improved appearance, in downtown Ufa, Russia. Ufa will host SOC (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summits July 7 to July 9, 2015. (Photo by Vadim Braydov/AP Photo)

Kaw-Claa, a Tlingit native woman in full potlatch dancing costume, 1906. (Photo by Case & Draper/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

An armed youth loyal to the Houthi movement takes part in a protest against the Saudi-backed exiled government deciding to cut off the Yemeni central bank from the outside world, in the capital Sanaa, Yemen August 25, 2016. (Photo by Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)

A demonstrator throw a firebomb during clashes with Turkish riot police officers in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, May 1, 2015. The government assigned 30,000 police officers backed by helicopters as workers and demonstrators determined to defy a government ban, tried to march to iconic Taksim Square, where 35 people were killed during May Day celebration in 1977. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)