Faultory

Faultory · Provenance

Image credits.

Every photograph on Faultory: what it shows, who made it, and the licence that allows its use.

Photograph: Police and detectives at New York City Police Department headquarters. George Grantham Bain Collection · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons. Object: A Graflex Speed Graphic press camera from the FBI’s collection. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons.

Faultory uses historical photographs that are in the public domain or released under Creative Commons licences, obtained through Wikimedia Commons. Each image is served from this site; no image request goes to a third party. Licence status was checked against each file’s Commons record when it was added, and the source page is linked below so you can verify it.

Photographs on investigation pages are toned to the site’s ink-and-paper palette and some figures are cut out from their backgrounds. Those are presentation changes; the original files are unaltered on Commons. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike images remain available under the same licence, including the changed versions shown here.

  1. A frame from amateur film of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge on the day its centre span tore apart and fell into the Narrows.

    Author
    Barney Elliot
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  2. A surviving fragment of the original 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, displayed at the Washington State History Museum.

    Author
    Joe Mabel
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  3. Mars Climate Orbiter during acoustic testing that simulated launch conditions, months before its loss at Mars.

    Author
    NASA
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  4. A support strut from the satellite structure, recovered after Ariane flight 501 broke up on 4 June 1996, on display with its label.

    Author
    Deadpan
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  5. Engineers inspect Hubble’s primary mirror at Perkin-Elmer, where it was ground and polished to a precise but wrong shape.

    Author
    NASA
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  6. Investigation photograph (Figure 5.7) of a box-beam section from one of the collapsed Hyatt Regency walkways, now held by the US National Archives.

    Author
    Unknown photographer, US National Archives
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  7. A full-scale test at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center reproducing a fire inside an Apollo service module oxygen tank.

    Author
    NASA
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  8. Apollo 13’s crew, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell, the day before launch.

    Author
    NASA
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  9. Night lights across the US Northeast and Ontario on the night of the blackout, in a US Air Force DMSP satellite image processed by NOAA.

    Author
    NOAA (US Air Force DMSP data)
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  10. The same satellite view the night before the blackout, for comparison.

    Author
    NOAA (US Air Force DMSP data)
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  11. During the accident investigation’s impact tests, a foam block fired at about 850 km/h opened this hole in a reinforced carbon-carbon wing panel.

    Author
    Rick Stiles
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  12. Neptune photographed by Voyager 2 in 1989. In 1846 it was found because Uranus kept drifting from its predicted path.

    Author
    NASA
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  13. John Couch Adams, about 1870.

    Author
    Unknown photographer
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  14. The Holmdel Horn Antenna in New Jersey, the receiver in which Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson met a noise they could not remove.

    Author
    NASA
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  15. Robert W. Wilson in 1981.

    Author
    Woodruff T. Sullivan III, NRAO/AUI/NSF
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  16. The chart Jocelyn Bell Burnell examined in August 1967, with the trace of the first identified pulsar.

    Author
    Billthom
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  17. Jocelyn Bell in 1967.

    Author
    Roger W Haworth
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  18. The Antarctic ozone hole in September 2000, the largest area of thinning recorded up to then, mapped by NASA’s Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer.

    Author
    NASA
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  19. Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp working with a fathometer record, the echo-sounding profiles they turned into maps of the ocean floor.

    Author
    AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  20. Heezen and Tharp’s map of the world ocean floor, painted by Heinrich Berann, with the mid-ocean ridges running through every ocean basin.

    Author
    Heinrich Berann, Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  21. The thin clay layer at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, exposed in the Raton Formation of southern Colorado.

    Author
    James St. John
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  22. Luis Alvarez in 1962.

    Author
    Donald Cooksey / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  23. Shuttle radar topography of the Yucatán Peninsula, where a subtle arc in the terrain follows the edge of the buried Chicxulub crater.

    Author
    Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  24. Alexander Fleming at work in his laboratory at St Mary’s Hospital, London, during the Second World War.

    Author
    Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  25. Alexander Fleming in academic dress in 1945.

    Author
    Unknown photographer, Anefo / Nationaal Archief
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  26. LIGO Hanford in Washington State, one of the two detectors that recorded GW150914. Each of its arms is 4 kilometres long.

    Author
    NOIRLab/LIGO/NSF/AURA/T. Matsopoulos
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  27. The GW150914 signal as recorded at LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston, with the waveforms predicted for each detector.

    Author
    Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  28. The New York Stock Exchange trading floor in 2011, a year after the Flash Crash. The crash itself unfolded across electronic markets in minutes.

    Author
    Carol M. Highsmith
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  29. Display panels on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor in 2001. Knight’s 2012 orders were sent by software, not by people on a floor.

    Author
    Asy arch (English Wikipedia)
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  30. Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, barely visible during the Great Smog.

    Author
    N T Stobbs
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  31. Daily deaths, smoke and sulphur dioxide in London across the smog, as charted in a 1953 government report.

    Author
    Great Britain Committee on Air Pollution
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  32. John Snow’s map of Soho. Each bar marks a cholera death at an address, and they cluster around the Broad Street pump.

    Author
    John Snow
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  33. John Snow in 1856.

    Author
    Unknown photographer
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  34. A replica of the Broad Street pump on today’s Broadwick Street in Soho.

    Author
    Jamzze
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  35. A working reconstruction of the Turing–Welchman Bombe at Bletchley Park.

    Author
    Vintage Fan 5678
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  36. Alan Turing in 1951.

    Author
    Elliott & Fry
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  37. An M4 Enigma machine captured with U-505, on display at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.

    Author
    Daderot
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  38. The Endurance held in the Weddell Sea pack ice, photographed by the expedition’s photographer, Frank Hurley.

    Author
    Hurley, F.
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  39. Ernest Shackleton, photographed by Frank Hurley in 1916.

    Author
    Frank Hurley
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.

  40. Launching the James Caird from Elephant Island at the start of the open-boat voyage to South Georgia.

    Author
    Probably Frank Hurley, the expedition's photographer
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  41. Early NAVSTAR GPS hardware under test in a space-simulation chamber at the Arnold Engineering Development Center.

    Author
    US Air Force
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  42. Steven Sasson, who built Kodak’s 1975 digital camera prototype, at Photokina in 2010.

    Author
    Aljawad
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.

  43. Captain Charles E. Tennant and the detectives of the Seattle Police Department in 1919.

    Author
    Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.
    Used in
    Home

  44. William J. Burns, private detective and former director of the US Bureau of Investigation, in 1927.

    Author
    George Grantham Bain Collection
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.
    Used in
    Home

  45. Police and detectives at New York City Police Department headquarters.

    Author
    George Grantham Bain Collection
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.
    Used in
    Investigations

  46. FBI fingerprint examiners at work in a National Guard armory in Washington, DC, during the Second World War.

    Author
    Federal Bureau of Investigation
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.
    Used in
    How it works

  47. William A. Pinkerton of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, seated at the desk in his office.

    Author
    Library of Congress
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.
    Used in
    About

  48. The Information Bureau at New York City Police Department headquarters.

    Author
    George Grantham Bain Collection
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.
    Used in
    Your notebook

  49. Alphonse Bertillon, pioneer of police identification, photographed in profile and full face by his own method.

    Author
    Wellcome Collection
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.
    Used in
    Editorial standards

  50. William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes, with Bruce McRae as Dr Watson, in Gillette’s stage play. Photograph by Napoleon Sarony.

    Author
    Napoleon Sarony
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.
    Used in
    Page not found

  51. J. P. Carney, chief detective of Louisville.

    Author
    Bain News Service
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.
    Used in
    Investigations

  52. A Tiffany & Co. magnifying glass in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    Author
    Metropolitan Museum of Art (object by Tiffany Studios)
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.
    Used in
    Home

  53. Al Capone’s FBI fingerprint card.

    Author
    FBI
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette.
    Used in
    How it works

  54. A Graflex Speed Graphic press camera from the FBI’s collection.

    Author
    Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
    Licence
    Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.
    Used in
    Image credits

  55. A Remington Streamliner portable typewriter, about 1935.

    Author
    Daderot
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.
    Used in
    Your notebook

  56. An early twentieth-century Omega pocket watch.

    Author
    Mart61
    Changes
    Cropped, resized and toned to the site palette; background removed for a cut-out figure.
    Used in
    Investigations

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