In Photos: Historical Figures in Their Youth
From Abraham Lincoln to Albert Einstein to Queen Elizabeth II, some of modern history’s most famous faces exist in our minds solely as they appeared in old age. Just try to picture Lincoln, or, say, Mahatma Gandhi as a young man and you’ll probably come up blank.
Whether it’s because these people didn’t truly make their mark on history until late in life or because they didn’t assume their now iconic appearance until at least middle age, they’ll live on in our minds, not to mention the history books, looking old.
But if you’ve ever been curious about what some of modern history’s most important leaders, thinkers, and artists looked like in their youth, take a look at the rarely-seen photos below.
Theodore Roosevelt
1880. Age 21-22.
Library of Congress
Bill Gates
1977. Age 22.
Public Domain
Bill Clinton
1963. Age 16. (Left, shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy.)
Arnold Sachs/Getty Images
Pope Francis
Date unspecified.
Jesuit General Curia via Getty Images
Barack Obama
1990. Age 28.
Joe Wrinn/Harvard University/Corbis via Getty Images
Mark Twain
Circa 1859. Age 24.
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
Sigmund Freud
1872. Age 15-16. (With his mother.)
Wikimedia Commons
John McCain
1965. Age 28-29.
Library of Congress
Winston Churchill
1895. Age 20-21.
Imperial War Museums/Wikimedia Commons
Pablo Picasso
1908. Age 26-27.
Wikimedia Commons
Maya Angelou
1957. Age 28-29.
Library of Congress
Nikola Tesla
1879. Age 23.
Wikimedia
Fidel Castro
1955. Age 28-29.
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
Gerald Ford
1933. Age 20.
Gerald R. Ford Library
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1904. Age 22.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
Ernest Hemingway
Circa 1918. Age 18-19.
National Archives
Frederick Douglass
Circa 1847-1852. Age 28-32.
Samuel J. Miller/Art Institute of Chicago/Wikimedia Commons
Calvin Coolidge
Circa 1891-1895. Age 19-22.
Wikimedia Commons
Eleanor Roosevelt
1908. Age 23-24. (With husband Franklin Roosevelt and two of their children.)
Wikimedia Commons
Dwight Eisenhower
1912. Age 21-22.
National Archives
Benito Mussolini
1903. Age 20.
Wikimedia Commons
Thomas Edison
Circa 1878. Age 30.
Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons
Vladimir Lenin
1887. Age 17.
Culture Club/Getty Images
Harry Truman
1912. Age 27-28.
National Archives
Marie Curie
Circa 1886. Age 18-19. (Left, with her sister.)
Wikimedia Commons
Mao Zedong
1927. Age 33-34.
Wikimedia Commons
Herbert Hoover
1898. Age 23.
State Library of Western Australia/Wikimedia Commons
Susan B. Anthony
Circa 1848-1849. Age 28.
Wikimedia Commons
Pope John Paul II
1945. Age 24-25.
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
Muammar Gaddafi
Date unspecified.
Stevan Kragujević/Wikimedia Commons
Nelson Mandela
1937. Age 19.
Wikimedia Commons
Abraham Lincoln
Circa 1846-1847. Age 36-38. (His first known photographic image.)
Nicholas H. Shepherd/Library of Congress
Mahatma Gandhi
1906. Age 36-37.
Wikimedia Commons
Albert Einstein
Circa 1904-1905. Age 24-26.
Wikimedia Commons
Adolf Hitler
Circa 1914. Age 24-25.
National Archives
Saddam Hussein
1963. Age 25-26.
Laurent VAN DER STOCKT/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Richard Nixon
Circa 1930. Age 17.
Fox Photos/Getty Images
Hillary Clinton
1969. Age 21.
Wellesley College/Sygma via Getty Images
Stephen Hawking
1965. Age 23.
Hawking.org
Vincent van Gogh
1873. Age 19.
Wikimedia Commons
Vladimir Putin
1971. Age 18-19.
Laski Diffusion/Getty Images
Queen Elizabeth II
1952. Age 26.
Douglas Miller/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images