Unusual Photos.

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A group of people watch a complex apparatus demonstrate how the human brain receives stimuli through the eyes and ears and acts on them in Cologne, West Germany, April 11, 1961. The machine illustrates, in 57 steps, the operation of the human brain in hearing and sight, showing how it receives stimuli through the ears and eyes and the reactions on the brain right up to action. The apparatus was built from designs of American scientist, Willy Burtin. (AP Photo/Heinrich Sanden Jr.)

 

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Three people make telephone calls from transparent phone booths in a post office in Mannheim, West Germany, Oct. 8, 1959. It is hoped the booth will make the callers more aware of other people waiting and thus shorten their calls. (AP Photo/Walter Lindlar)

 

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A new type of cigarette lighter for car smokers is this Safe-T-Lite, which was recently announced by its manufacturer in Los Angeles, Calif., Oct. 1, 1950. The driver drops a cigarette into a conventional opening, and pushes a button located on the side. The button pops up to indicate that the cigarette is lit and ready to be smoked. The entire process can be done without taking one's eyes off the road. (AP Photo/Don Brinn)

 

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Robert May, a Chicago advertising writer, places his hand on his creation "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" in front of his home in Skokie, Ill., Dec. 19, 1949. May dreamed up "Rudolph" in 1939, at the request of his boss. The firm used the character as a Christmas promotion. (AP Photo/Ed Maloney)

 

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A young woman demonstrates a new type of loudspeaker, right, shown at the German Radio Exhibition in Frankfurt, West Germany, Aug. 14, 1959. The loudspeaker works on the basis of metal foils oscillating between electrodes. Makers say the tone range is much wider than that of the usual membrane loudspeaker. At left, radio and record player units feed the loudspeaker. The makers is Firma Max Braun. (AP Photo/Walter Lindlar)

 

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Model Gladys McDaniel endows this exhibit of molded plexiglas with a bit of glamor during the third annual meeting of the Society of Plastics Engineers in Chicago, Ill., Feb 2, 1947. The transparent product was made into this dome-shaped object by the Fabri-Form Co. of Byesville, Ohio and is used in the manufacturing of airplanes. (AP Photo/Edward Kitch)

 

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Colleen Townsend, selected "Miss Safety First" by the Southern California Timing Association, poses in a streamlined car, made from an airplane belly tank mounted on a Ford frame in Los Angeles, Calif., Jan. 21, 1948. The car, built by Bill Burke, is powered by an inverted Mercury Motor, mounted in the tail, and has been clocked at better than 139 miles per hour. It will be featured in the First Annual Hot Rod Show here Jan. 23-25. (AP Photo)

 

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Art Arfons of Akron, Ohio, wears a monstrous outfit as he checks on new equipment on his dragster named "Green Monster," in Los Angeles Calif., July 27, 1959. Arfons was in Los Angeles for pre-meet warm-ups for the 1959 National Championship Drag Races in Detroit on Sept. 3-7. His dragster, known as one of the most powerful, is one of 750 hybrid cars entered in the races sponsored by the National Hot Rod Association. (AP Photo)

 

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Pictured is a swooping roof design at a national service station in Retford, England, Sept. 22, 1961. Technically known as a hyperbolic derabold structure, the reinforced concrete roof weighs about 90 tons. There will be a motel, a restaurant and a repair section on the site when the station is completed. (AP Photo)

 

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Model Joan Lockwood selects items from the glass case at a completely automated section of a supermarket at the 30th Annual IGA Food Store Convention at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, July 19, 1956. She puts a large round "key" in a matching slot while she presses buttons to make her selection. The selected items are recorded on a tape inside the key. The amount due on the purchases is tabulated at the same time. This is jut one of the systems to be used in supermarkets to be opened in fall 1956 in key U.S. cities. The three types of automation will be 1) push-button selection in the store, 2) checking of items on special cards at home or in the store, for electronic delivery by conveyor belt to the counter 3) after-hours and Sunday automatic shopping of limited last minute supplies at coin machine units outside stores. (AP Photo/Hans Von Nolde)

 

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This is the new two-wheeled Ford, called the "Gyron", which is on display at the New York Coliseum, with model Patricia Marand standing alongside, April 1, 1961. (AP Photo/Hans Von Nolde)

 

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Model Fay Shott spins one of the new plastic Hula Hoops around her waist in Denver; Colo., on Aug. 24, 1958. The hoops are currently popular with the younger crowd. (AP Photo/John F. Urwiller)

 

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A young Japanese woman in a kimono takes part in the Hula-Hoop craze that has swept America and Japan in this Oct. 30, 1958 picture. (AP Photo/Mitsunori Chigita)

 

A professional “rat catcher” showing off his kill. Rat catchers would scour the sewers of Europe and receive money for each rat they killed (1904)

 

Women painting their legs to make it appear that they were wearing stockings (1942)

 

Members of the Seattle Tubing Society relax on a warm afternoon (1953)

 

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All-terrain car able to descend slopes of up to 65 degrees.​

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Pram provided with a radio, including antenna and loudspeaker, to keep the baby quiet.​

 

Bulletproof glass demonstration by the best rifleman of the New York police, 1931.​

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