One of the oldest living life forms on our planet. Credit to Scott Cunningham on FAA.

I recently finished an excellent book by Stephen E. Ambrose titled: Crazy Horse and Custer, The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors.

The opening paragraph of the Introduction to the book reads thus:

“This is the story of two men who died as they lived – violently. They were both war lovers, men of aggression with a deeply rooted instinct to charge the enemy, rout him, kill him. Men of supreme courage, they were natural-born leaders in a combat crisis, the type to whom others instinctively looked for guidance and inspiration. They were always the first to charge the enemy, and the last to retreat.”

This book was a fantastic read for me, following both men through their youth and early adult years until the battle that ended them both, one on the battlefield and the other later killed while in custody.

There is, of course, no photographic documentation of the Battle of Little Bighorn while it was occurring. My family visited the battlefield several years ago. It was a running battle. The tombstones are laid out along the way, marking where the dead fell. Around a small hill are the last ones.

However, this painting (above) is so full of energy and action and battle that you might guess the artist was a witness. You can hear the gunfire, Indian screams and yelps, Calvary horns, horses galloping. The painting shows ponies riding full speed, Indians killing and going for the kill and Calvary holding out and shooting back to the very last man. Titled “The Custer Fight” it was painted in 1903 by the extremely talented Charles Marion Russell.

Two Callas By Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976)

Fishermen at Sea By JMW Turner (1775-1851)

None of them had any idea yet what was coming.

This photograph, titled “Lunch Atop A Skyscraper” or “New York Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam,” was taken 69 floors from the ground atop Rockefeller Center during its construction and was first printed in the New York Herald-Tribune on Oct. 2, 1932.

Le Deluge By Leon Francois Comerre (1850 – 1960)

Hera By Francis Pacibia (1879 – 1953)

Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven (1960)

O. Winston Link (1914-2001) took this photo of a passing steam train, automobiles at a drive-in theater and a plane on the screen. Titled: Hotshot Eastbound (1956)