32 of the most haunting photos from history

History is more than just innovations and triumphs. In truth, much of it involves numerous instances of brutality, warfare, genocide, and other unsettling, regrettable realities.

Take a look below at some of the most haunting moments from history.

A starving Sudanese child crawls towards a United Nations feeding center while a vulture patiently waits for its next meal. This photo won a Pulitzer Prize, but the photographer, Kevin Carter, took his own life three months later.

The two siblings shown here are experiencing the thrill of an electrical storm at Sequoia National Park in California around 1975. Shortly after this picture was taken, they were struck by lightning. Both survived.

A councilman in the Philippines took this photo of his family on New Year’s Day in 2011, inadvertently capturing the image of his assassin. The councilman later succumbed to a gunshot wound to the head.

A photographer accidentally captures the moment a person jumped off a bridge in China.

American free diver Nicholas Mevoli moments before he passed away after a botched dive.

Found this hidden behind a cabinet in our new home. What is it used for?

A family found a secret chest full of personal mementos, old photos, and letters in the living room of their new house when they lifted a heavy cabinet. They set out to learn more about the past of the people who had occupied the property for many years after making this surprising discovery.

Through investigation and conversations with neighbors, the family assembled the stories of the lives entwined within the walls of their house. Their understanding of the history of the house was strengthened by the tales of love, grief, and joy that each object in the chest held.

In order to commemorate and preserve the memory of the home’s previous occupants, they made the decision to preserve these treasures by compiling a scrapbook. Their lives were enhanced by a stronger sense of continuity and belonging as a result of this fortunate discovery, which also linked them to the past of their new house.