Disasters, wars, and crises have always drawn public attention. Today, we follow news events almost in real time via mobile phones and the internet. More photos and videos are shared than ever before.

The first images in newspapers were woodcuts or steel engravings, created by hand and printed alongside text. With the advent of photomechanical printing, photographs gradually became more common in newspapers in the early 1900s. However, the first steps of photojournalism were taken through picture postcards. Series of photo postcards were published of major news events, allowing recipients to get a sense of what had happened. It was common to print the date—and often the exact time—of the event beneath the images.

St. Michael’s Church in Hamburg was destroyed in a fierce fire on the afternoon of July 3, 1906. By the very next day, photo postcards showing the progress of the destruction were being mailed from Hamburg. The postcards were sold both in colorized and black-and-white versions. Just four days later, on July 7, 1906, the Finnish newspaper Aamulehti reported that a postcard depicting the church fire had arrived in the area.

What major news event do you remember particularly vividly from the media? Have you ever found yourself at the scene of an accident? What do you think about the rise of clickbait headlines or the widespread sharing of images from accidents?