The sculpture “It Takes Two to Tango” by Scottish sculptor David Mach is seen in front of the headquarters of the CMA-CGM shipping company office tower in the port of Marseille, France, March 15, 2016. (Photo by Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)

Tony the Tiger poses for a photo prior to the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl Game on Tuesday, December 31, 2024 in El Paso, TX. (Photo by Jorge Salgado/AP Content Services for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes)

President Woodrow Wilson speaks on telephone. Woodrow Wilson was the 28th U.S. President serving from 1913 – 1921. (Photo by Corbis)

Health authority workers sanitise the rural community of Teocelo, Veracruz, Mexico on May 12, 2020 – in the hope of preventing the spread of COVID-19 infections. (Photo by Hector Adolfo Quintanar Perez/ZUMA Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

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.

National Guardsmen are put through riot training in Boston's Commonwealth Armory on Friday, October 18, 1974. Massachusetts Gov. Francis W. Sargent called up the guard to quell school violence, but the city has been relatively calm and the guard has remained in the armories. (Photo by JWG/AP Photo)

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi attends the inauguration ceremony of Jacob Zuma on May 9, 2009 in Pretoria, South Africa. Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is South Africa's fourth President since the end of apartheid. (Photo by Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

When a French politician remarked that a monument should be raised in honour of American independence at a dinner party in 1865 he probably didn't imagine that the result would become an international icon of freedom. ...