Human society all over the world never stops changing. Tens of thousands of years ago, early modern humans created makeshift tools to do impressive artworks on caves’ walls.
Fast forward to the 21st century; we now cannot let go of our smartphones to make memes and jokes about the ridiculous sides of ourselves.
There is a long history behind human civilization, and things started to change mind-blowingly fast since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
People welcomed what they often called “modernization” despite not always knowing what the repercussions might be. However, humans learn from their experience and move forward to betterment.
You can almost say this trial-and-error process continues today, although we now have a much better understanding of what society can and cannot accept as appropriate.
When you look back a couple of centuries to the past, you’d be surprised to see all sorts of behaviors people used to regard as usual but now considered bizarre and questionable.
Some photographs below captured in the decades gone-by can be the testaments to that.
10 /10 Candy Cigarettes
In the 1950s, Americans, smoking was primarily considered the epitome of glamour and a relaxed lifestyle.
Like Audrey Hepburn and James Dean, Hollywood big names made smoking as if it was something sophisticated and sensual.
Some confectioneries even agree that they made candies in cigarettes’ shape, presumably because children also wanted to look like celebrities they saw on TV.
Even if the kid in the photo above was only eating candy instead of smoking, the sight of a minor imitating an adult with a cigarette in the mouth is just too much to take in today’s society.
9 /10 Public Executions
Capital punishment still applies in some states in the US. A small number of people are still allowed to attend execution as witnesses.
In the past, capital punishment was often a public spectacle where thousands of people flock around the gallows to see a convicted criminal executed by hanging.
Such events generated negative publicity, leading lawmakers all across the states to ban the practice. The last person to be publicly executed in the United States was Rainey Bethea in 1936.
Capital punishment remains a topic for political debate today, but all executions were carried out privately in recent years.