15 Iconic Historical Moments That Were Actually Staged

History is meant to be made of facts, but can we really be sure that everything that is said that happened, happened? Sure, we’re now living in the midst of AI generated elements, where you can’t trust even the most flawless pictures, but the idea of making up a reality that serves your agenda has been a thing since the beginning of time.

This is why we’re bringing you today a compilation of images and pictures that, believe it or not, were completely staged. Perhaps they were never meant to be taken seriously, but as the years go by, it grows harder and harder to know. Could you tell from a glance these images are not what they appear to be?

Not Lincoln

This might seem like a regular portrait of President Lincoln, when in reality it’s a combination of Lincoln’s head (copied from a different image) and the pose of John C. Calhoun, as he models for his own portrait.

Falling Plane

This is one of the earliest pictures that show a plane falling mid combat, but it’s actually a picture of some toys. The grainy effect of the cameras in 1930 helps sell the lie.

Alone with the Queen

The Canadian Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie, had his picture taken with Queen Elizabeth. Nice pic, but next to the Queen was King George VI, who was artificially removed from the image at the behest of Minister Mackenzie.

Deleted By Stalin

Stalin was known for being ruthless with his enemies, although few know to what extent. You might think this is quaint, but Stalin was known to remove people he didn’t like from history: next to him used to be Nikolai Yezhov, whom he had deleted from the records.

Cloudy Day

That’s quite the dramatic picture, right? Well, it’s pure photoshop. There was a real shuttle and it was a cloudy day, but it didn’t look dramatic enough for NASA, apparently.

Tiny Waist

Can someone’s waist be smaller than their head? Trick question, since it can’t. And this image wasn’t satire, we’re supposed to believe that this is what women should aspire to look like.

Baby Adolf

Not only is this a heavily edited image of a baby, it isn’t even an image of Hitler as the tabloids would have you think at the time. No, Hitler didn’t look evil as a baby, he likely just looked like any other baby.

Tourist Guy

Only if you were a kid could you be excused from believing that this picture was real, although the shock at the time was such that people were more vulnerable to such hoaxes. Nowadays, the plane alone looks so fake we barely bat an eye.

Worker’s Lunch

While they did seem to be real construction workers, this image of them eating lunch on a steel beam was staged for the camera. They may have still been brave enough to take a picture on a beam, but we doubt that was their preferred location for eating lunch.

General Grant At City Point

Can you see what’s wrong with this picture? Yes, General Ulysses Grant and his horse weren’t actually at that camp, they were added later. In fact, that isn’t even the General, only his head is: the body and horse belong to Major General Alexander McCook.

Asian Tsunami

Sadly, we’ve seen our fair share of real natural disaster pictures to spot a fake at a glance, but back in 2004, we weren’t as used as we are today.

Mussolini’s Horse

Ok, this image was clearly staged, no doubt about that. But Mussolini couldn’t do that pose while keeping the horse steady, so a handler was needed for that. Said handler was, as expected, removed in post.

World War Edit

It’s hard to spot, but you can likely guess it by now: the planes on the top and the soldiers below, among other things, weren’t really on the same scene. Created by combining negatives, photographer Frank Hurley said that this was a better way to capture the war. Maybe, but it’s still a staged picture.

The Battle Of The Somme

This is a supposed picture of British soldiers advancing on enemy territory. In reality, it’s a still from a film, and those are just actors. You can’t get any more staged than that.

Raising The Flag On Iwo Jima

This image would lead you to believe that this was the first flag planted after taking the island. Well, no, they put up a smaller flag with little fanfare. So they decided to get a bigger flag, make a proper fuzz about it, and now we have one of the most famous military images in history.