A car stands destroyed by debris, one day after a magnitude 5.1 quake killed at least 9 people, on May 12, 2011 in Lorca, Spain. After spending the night outside, residents of the historic Spanish town are awaiting the safety assessment of their houses to see wether they can return home or not. (Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

Festival goers celebrate during the Chupinazo, marking the beginning of the San Fermin festival on July 6, 2011 in Pamplona, Spain. Pamplona's famous Fiesta de San Fermin, which involves the running of the bulls through the historic heart of Pamplona for eight days starting July 7th, was made famous by the 1926 novel of U.S. writer Ernest Hemmingway called “The Sun Also Rises”. (Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images)

Christopher Tubbs embraces his wife Sarah after arriving home during the homecoming of the USS Enterprise at the Norfolk Naval Station July 15, 2011 in Norfolk, Virginia. In its 184 days away from Norfolk, the USS Enterprise cruised nearly 60,000 miles while supporting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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.

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be around 6.5 million in 2012. A third (33%) of the country's population lives below the international poverty line which means living on less than U.S. $1.25 per day.

The Kingdom of Pagan (also commonly known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire) was the first kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-day Burma (Myanmar). Pagan's 250-year rule over the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery laid the foundation for the ascent of Burmese language and culture, the spread of Burman ethnicity in Upper Burma, and the growth of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and in mainland Southeast Asia.

Is it strange to party in a cemetery, do you think? Thousands, many elaborately dressed and made up, thronged the Hollywood Forever cemetery on October 30th to celebrate the Day of the Dead with music, dancing, food and artistic renditions of family altars, all among the graves of Rudolph Valentino, Marion Davies, Tyrone Power, Douglas Fairbanks and Johnny Ramone.

Water gushes out from the Xiaolangdi Reservoir on the Yellow River during a sand-washing operation on June 20, 2012 in Luoyang, China. The sand-washing operation, which started on June 19 and will last for about 20 days, is conducted to clear out the silt deposits at the dam. (Photo by China Foto Press)