Bujang, a 35-year-old male orangutan rescued from a circus in Sumatra, washes his face on a sanctuary island surrounded by a river where non-releasable orangutans are protected for life at the Samboja Lestari Orangutan Rehabilitation Center run by the non-profit Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation in Samboja, East Kalimantan, on July 12, 2024. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

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.

Photographer Mark Tipple captured the underwater pictures with his friend Mike as the surfer. But the rough waves of the coast of the Cook Islands slammed Mike into the sea bed during the shoot, causing him to slice his skin open and badly bruise his body. Photo: Mike diving beneath a shallow wave. (Photo by Mark Tipple/Caters News Agency)

“The World Stands on its Head” (“Die Welt Steht Kopf”) House on the Baltic Sea Island of Usedom stands nearly completed on September 3, 2008 in Trassenheide, Germany. The upside down house, complete with upside down interior furnishings, is the brainchild of Klaudiusz Golos and Sebastian Mikiciuk, and will become a local tourist attraction. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Hotel CasAnus has all the elements of a great weekend getaway. It's just shaped like a giant human colon. On a small island, nestled between Antwerp and Ghent in Flanders, Belgium, this quaint structure is designed like a humongous intestinal tract, complete with an anus replica.
Originally an art sculpture created by the Dutch designer Joep Van Lieshout, CasAnus is now a part of the Verbeke Foundation art park, one of Western Europe’s edgiest art venues.

From the 1940s through the 1960s, the Alfred Mainzer Company of Long Island City, NY published a series of linen and photochrome humorous cat postcards illustrated by Eugen Hartung (or Hurtong) (1897–1973), sometimes referred to as “Mainzer Cats”. These postcards normally illustrate settings that are filled with action, often with a minor disaster just about to occur. While the dressed cats were by far the most popular and most plentiful cards, Hartung also painted other dressed animals – primarily mice, dogs, and hedgehogs.