Aerofilms Collection / EPA

Tower Bridge and the Tower of London in March 1921.

The “Britain from Above” project preserves 95,000 of the oldest and most valuable photographic negatives in the Aerofilms collection, dating from 1919 to 1953. The negatives, which consist of both glass plates and early film negatives, are carefully conserved and scanned into digital format for public view.

According to its curators, English Heritage, this vast, historic collection was created by Aerofilms Ltd, the first commercial aerial photography company in Britain, set up by Frances Lewis Wills and Claude Grahame-White in 1919. The whole Aerofilms oblique collection contains more than 1.2 million negatives and thousands of photograph albums, held in Swindon, Edinburgh and Aberystwyth.

The 95,000 negatives illustrate the dramatically changing face of Britain in the first half of the 20th century. The project launched a new interactive website in June 2012.

Aerofilms Collection / EPA

Houses of Parliament and Parliament Square, Westminster, London in June 1926.

Aerofilms Collection / EPA

Saint Paul's Cathedral, London in March 1921.

Aerofilms Collection / EPA

Purves Road, Kensal Green, London in March 1921.

Aerofilms Collection / EPA

The FA Cup Final between Sheffield Wednesday and Cardiff City, Wembley Park, London in April 1925.

Aerofilms Collection / EPA

Crystal Palace, Penge, London in April 1925.

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Courtesy English Heritage

An aerial view of the Wimbledon Championships in 1921, the final incarnation of the tournament at its original location in Worple Road, London. The following year new grounds were opened in Church Road, where the event continues to this day.

ITV News and msnbc.com's David R. Arnott report

The world's oldest tennis tournament enters its 136th year Monday as stars like Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams join battle at Wimbledon.

But when the picture above was taken, back in 1921, the names to look out for were Suzanne Lenglen of France and Bill Tilden of the U.S., both of whom would go on to retain the championship that year.

The photograph is among more than 15,000 images from one of the earliest and most significant collections of aerial photography of Britain that have been made available online for the first time.

The photos on the Britain from Above website, launched today, have gone through a painstaking process of conservation and cataloguing. See more of the images at ITV News.

-- ITV News is NBC News' U.K. partner

Get full tennis coverage at NBCSports.com

Read more about the history of Wimbledon

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Steve Helber / AP

Private Thomas W. Timberlake of Co. G, 2nd Virginia Infantry found this child's portrait on the battlefield of Port Republic, Virginia, between the bodies of a Confederate soldier and a Federal soldier.

Update, 11.00 a.m. ET — This post has been updated with all eight photographs in a larger size below.

The Museum of the Confederacy is appealing for the public's help in identifying the subjects of eight photographs picked up on the battlefields of the Civil War. 

The Associated Press reports that the images are being publicized in the hope that a descendant might recognize a facial resemblance or make a connection to the sites where they were found: 

Museum officials can only speculate on the children and adults, including soldiers, shown in the photographs. But whether they were sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, or siblings the prospect of identifying each grows dimmer with the passage of time.

Typically they were found by another soldier and handed down through generations. Ultimately an attic would be cleared or a trunk would be emptied and the photo would be given to the museum. Some have been in the museum's possession for 60 years or more.

If you can help identify the people in the photographs, get in touch with the museum or connect via Facebook or Twitter.

Read more about imagery of the conflict at the Center for Civil War Photography.

Related content:

• Hundreds of Civil War photos unearthed
• 150 years on, 3-D Civil War photos unveiled
• How Civil War photography changed war

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The Museum of the Confederacy via AP

A Daguerreotype of a woman and two children found in the effects of a soldier identified as Joseph Warren.

The Museum of the Confederacy via AP

This Ambrotype image of an unidentified woman was found in the effects of a soldier identified as Joseph Warren.

The Museum of the Confederacy via AP

An Ambrotype photo of an unidentified soldier, who left this image of himself with Mrs. L.M.C. Lee of Corinth, Mississippi, on the eve of the battle of Shiloh. The soldier never reclaimed his image and was presumed to have been killed in battle.

The Museum of the Confederacy via AP

An Ambrotype photo of an unidentified soldier, who left this image of himself, a woman and two children with Mrs. L.M.C. Lee of Corinth, Mississippi, on the eve of the battle of Shiloh. The soldier never reclaimed his image and was presumed to have been killed in battle.

The Museum of the Confederacy via AP

A tin-type photograph of an unidentified man. The tintype and a bible with the name of John Brice in it were found in a tent somewhere in North Carolina during the Civil War.

The Museum of the Confederacy via AP

An Ambrotype photo of an unidentified young militia lieutenant, that was found on a battlefield near Richmond, Virginia, and donated to the Museum of the Confederacy in 1936.

The Museum of the Confederacy via AP

An Ambrotype image of an unidentified child found by Pvt. Heartwell Kincaid Adams of the 3rd Virginia Cavalry, in a haversack he took from the body of a dead Federal soldier at High Bridge a few days before Appomattox.

The Museum of the Confederacy via AP

An Ambrotype image of an unidentified child that was found by Confederate Private Thomas W. Timberlake of Co. G, 2nd Virginia Infantry. Timberlake found this child's portrait on the battlefield of Port Republic, Virginia, between the bodies of a Confederate soldier and a Federal Soldier.

Steve Helber / AP

This Gem daguerreotype locket was found by a soldier in Hampton's cavalry brigade on a battlefield in 1863.

Slideshow: Timeless New York street scenes, discovered after nearly 50 years

Amateur photographer Frank Larson captured New York City in the 50s. His thousands of negatives had been stashed away in an attic since his death in 1964. But recently, a grandson discovered them.

Launch slideshow

You have to wonder if the 'naked cowboy' who currently hangs out in Times Square got the idea from this man who was photographed in the 1950s by amateur photographer Frank Larson. See more of his images of New York from that era in the slideshow above.

Eugene de Salignac / Department of Bridges, Plant & Structures -New York City Municipal Archives via AP

July 29, 1908: Workers dig in the street along the sidewalk on the north side of Delancey Street.

New York City Municipal Archives via AP

Circa 1983-1988: 172 Norfolk Street, which is now the Angel Orensanz Foundation.

870,000 images of New York City and its municipal operations are being made available to the public on the Internet for the first time, The Associated Press reports .

The photos, some of which date back to the mid-1800s, come from the city's Municipal Archives collection, and they feature all manner of city oversight - from stately ports and bridges to grisly gangland killings. 

Search the New York City Department of Records online gallery

It also features the results of an ambitious plan to photograph every building in the city in the mid-1980s. An earlier set of pictures of every city building taken between 1939 to 1941 has yet to be digitized.

Video: Take a look at the newest addition to the Manhattan skyline

Taken mostly by anonymous municipal workers, some of the images have appeared in publications but most were accessible only by visiting the archive offices in lower Manhattan over the past few years. Read the full story.

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Eugene de Salignac / Department of Bridges, Plant & Structures - New York City Municipal Archives via AP

October 7, 1914: Painters are suspended from wires on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Works Progress Administration - Federal Writer's Project via New York City Municipal Archives via AP

A man hands a program to baseball legend Babe Ruth, center, as he is joined by his second wife Clare, center left, and singer Kate Smith, front left, in the grandstand during Game 1 of the 1936 World Series at the Polo Grounds in New York on September 30, 1936.

Borough President Manhattan - New York City Municipal Archives via AP

May 18, 1940: A man standing on 6th Ave. and 40th St reads a newspaper with the headline: "Nazi Army Now 75 Miles From Paris."

Detective Charles A. Carlstrom / NYPD Evidence Collection - New York City Municipal Archives via AP

1918: Police work a homicide after children found the body of Gaspare Candella stuffed in a burlap-covered drum out in the middle of a Brooklyn field.

Apic - Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in the Antarctic in 1911.

The Associated Press reports:

Polar adventurers, scientists and the prime minister of Norway gathered at the bottom of the world Wednesday to mark the 100th anniversary of explorer Roald Amundsen becoming the first to reach the South Pole.

Under a crystal blue sky and temperatures of minus 40 F (minus 40 C), the group remembered the Norwegian explorer's achievement on the spot where he placed his flag on Dec. 14, 1911.

"We are here to celebrate one of the greatest feats in human history," Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said as he unveiled an ice sculpture of Amundsen.

AFP - Getty Images

From left: Roald Amundsen and his companions Oscar Wisting, Sverre Hassel and Helmer Hansen, saluting the Norwegian flag at the South Pole on December 16, 1911, two days after they reached their goal with the help of 52 dogs and four sledges.

Ole Mathismoen / AP

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg joins three polar adventurers heading to the South Pole on Dec, 14, 2011 to mark the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen's feat. Several expeditions skied across Antarctica to attend the ceremony though many were delayed and had to be flown the last stretch.

Stoltenberg also honored British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who lost the race against Amundsen and arrived at the South Pole more than month later, only to find Amundsen's tent, a Norwegian flag and a letter from Amundsen. Scott and four companions died on the way out.

Amundsen and his team spent almost two months skiing across the frozen Ross Sea, climbing steep hills to the Antarctic plateau at about 9,800 feet (3,000 meters) and crossing vast ice fields to reach the pole. Read the full story.

Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Roald Amundsen and members of his Antarctic expedition team. Date unspecified.

Nasjonalbiblioteket via AFP - Getty Images

Roald Amundsen posing in Nome, Alaska in 1925.

Previously on PhotoBlog: Cambridge exhibit tells the story of Captain Scott's final Terra Nova polar expedition

Related: New York Times Amazing race to the bottom of the world

Lieutenant Henry Bowers / AFP - Getty Images

Captain Robert Falcon Scott (L) with members of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910-13, also known as Terra Nova at the South Pole next the tent of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who beat Scott to the Pole by 33 days. Laying bare their dejection and determination, the story of Robert Scott's bid to become the first to reach the South Pole is being told by the men themselves, 100 years on from the ill-fated expedition.

From the Scott Polar Research Institute website:

"These rough notes: Capt. Scott's last expedition" (7th December – 5th May) puts on show papers from the British Antarctic Expedition 1910–13 held in the Polar Museum's archive collection, much of which has never been on public display before.

The exhibition tells the full story of the fateful Terra Nova expedition, not just through the famous journals and letters of Scott, Bowers, Evans, Oates and Wilson, who perished on their way back from the Pole, but through other members of the ship's crew and shore party.

The title of the exhibition comes directly from Captain Scott's message to the public written at the end of his journal, just prior to his death. Dated March 29, 1912, it reads: "Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for."

Herbert Ponting/AFP - Getty Images

Taken sometime between 1910 and 1913, this photo shows members of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910-13, also known as Terra Nova at the "Ice Cave".

Herbert Ponting/AFP - Getty Images)

Taken on Dec. 9, 1910, this photo shows members of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910-13, on the forecastle of the Terra Nova, as they enter the Antarctic ice pack.

George Murray Levick / AFP - Getty Images

A picture released by the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge on Dec, 7, 2011 as part of the exhibition at Cambridge university about Captain Scott's polar expedition entitled "These rough notes and our dead bodies . . ." and taken in 1912 shows members of the northern party after winter in a snow cave during the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910-13, also known as Terra Nova.

The exhibition runs at The Polar Museum in Cambridge, England, until May 5, 2012.

The University of California at Berkeley has a rich history of student protest, so it is fascinating to look through archive photos (bottom photo)  to see how much the demonstrations at Sproul Plaza today look like those 44 years ago. Back in 1967, it was opposition to the draft that brought out the protesters.

Previous PhotoBlog images from the Occupy movement.

Max Whittaker / Getty Images

University of California, Berkeley students crowd into Sproul Plaza to listen to Professor Robert Reich speaks as part of an "open university" strike in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement on Nov. 15, 2011 in Berkeley, California. Teach-outs, workshops, public readings, and marches will culminate in an attempt to re-establish an Occupy Cal encampment that was shut down by police last week.

AP

More than 5,000 anti-draft demonstrators jam the Sproul Hall Plaza at the University of California at Berkeley early today on Oct. 17, 1967 at the height of a teach-in. The demonstrators staged the teach in defiance of a court injunction. University officials and police took no action against the crowd which listened to speeches and songs and watched draft card burnings. University officials in implementing the injunction locked Pauley ballroom and the ASUG.

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Getty Images moved a series of archive pictures today to mark the 90th anniversary of Britain's remembrance poppy appeal, which falls on Veterans Day this Friday.

William Vanderson / Fox Photos via Getty Images, file

Bus driver John Robert Fraser buys a Remembrance Day poppy from twins Pamela and Pauline Chamberlain at Leytonstone in London, England, on November 7, 1953.

Topical Press Agency via Getty Images, file

A group of volunteers packing artificial poppies for Armistice Day in an undated photo.

The wearing of poppies in honor of the war dead is common in Canada and the United Kingdom, though the practice was initiated by an American, Moina Michael, who was inspired by the 1915 poem 'In Flanders' Fields' by John McCrae. In the United States poppies are traditionally worn on Memorial Day, not Veterans Day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Royal British Legion, a veterans' welfare charity, says that last year's poppy appeal raised over £36 million ($57 million) for British veterans and their families.

Topical Press Agency via Getty Images, file

Earl Haig (1861 - 1928) watches the stamping of poppies by ex-servicemen during a visit to the British Legion poppy factory on October 22, 1926 in Richmond, Surrey, England. Haig, who commanded British forces during the Battle of the Somme, was a leading light in the spread of the poppy day appeal.

Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

A woman views crosses in Scotland's first Field of Remembrance in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh on November 7, 2011. Volunteers helped plant approximately 11,000 remembrance crosses as a temporary memorial to mark the 90th anniversary of the Scottish Poppy Appeal.

The power of the poppy to fire emotions is illustrated by a couple of minor recent storms in the British press. The English and Welsh soccer teams' request to wear a poppy on their shirts this weekend was refused by Fifa, the sport's governing body, sparking outrage in some quarters. A compromise was later reached allowing the players to wear poppies on black armbands.

Meanwhile, others complain of 'poppy fascism' in which public figures are condemned if they do not wear the symbol. "Heaven be thanked that the soldiers of the Great War cannot return today to discover how their sacrifice has been turned into a fashion appendage," Robert Fisk writes in The Independent.

Mike Bush via Reuters

Mitt Romney, left, stands with fellow Mormon missionaries in this handout photograph taken in front of the police station in Limoges, central France, in autumn 1968. The fresh-faced Latter-Day Saints who came to France in the late 1960s to preach the message of Jesus Christ -- of which Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is the most well-known -- discovered a secular and skeptical populace, and few willing converts. On bad days, the young Americans were greeted with guns, or barking dogs chased at their heels.

Alexandria Sage of Reuters reports on Mitt Romney's French education:

Alan Eastman, also a missionary at the time, remembers Romney as "an adaptable personality, kind of a born leader, and his mission positions reflected that. He was also one who was kind of gung-ho, 'this is what the rules are, we will abide by the rules 100 percent.'"

Those rules involved arising at 6:30 am and lights out by 10:30 pm; in between came a full day of prayer and proselytizing, a grueling schedule that has not changed much today.

Missionaries pay for their time abroad themselves, live in modest apartments, and travel in pairs with a same-sex companion — a strategy that provides moral support but also, say cynics, keeps the potential for waywardness, theological or moral, in check. Male missionaries are instantly recognizable in their white shirts, ties and black trousers, women in their modest skirts.

Most time is taken up going door to door, following up on leads, or teaching potential converts. Missionaries study their Bibles, do charity work, and have one "free" day per week for laundry, letters home, or occasional sight-seeing. Missionaries do not go to parties. Sunday is church. Read the full story.

Slideshow: Mitt Romney's life in politics

Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed today in Kabul, reportedly by a suicide attacker who hid a bomb in his turban. As the pictures below only partially illustrate, Rabbani had a storied history in Afghanistan's labyrinthine political scene. Most recently, he was leading the Kabul government's efforts to strike a peace deal with the Taliban--the same folks who overthrew his government in 1996. That, and previous points in his career, demonstrate exactly how unstable political relations in (and with) Afghanistan can be.

Here's a picture-within-a-picture of Rabbani in 1980:

Jacques Langevin / AP

Mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan are shown pasting together a poster of Dr. Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of Jamiat-e-Islami, (Islamic Society of Afghanistan) in Herat, Afghanistan, Feb. 11, 1980.

As a mujahideen leader during the war with the Soviets, Rabbani led some factions of anti-Soviet fighters, with military and financial aid from the United States. Before that, as a teacher at Kabul University and leader of the Muslim Youth Organization, he was a key figure in bringing strains of militant Islam into Afghanistan, according to Steve Coll's excellent Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.

Rabbani was also a guest of President Ronald Reagan at the White House:

Doug Mills / AP

President Ronald Reagan meets with the current chairman of the Afghanistan Resistance Alliance, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in the Oval Office, Nov. 9, 1988.

According to a brief item in the next day's edition of The Los Angeles Times, Reagan asked Rabbani not to do anything that would give the Soviet Union an excuse to stay in Afghanistan past their withdrawal deadline. Rabbani would not agree:

The leader of the Afghan resistance, maintaining that the Soviets "do not want peace," rejected the Reagan Administration's counsel of restraint and vowed to keep fighting as long as Soviet forces remain in Afghanistan.

The Soviets did, of course, pull out on deadline, on Feb. 15, 1989.

Jump to 1996, and Rabbani isn't meeting with Reagan. He's meeting instead with militia leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: 

Abdullah / AP

Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, left, greets his former enemy and new prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar at Hekmatyar's swearing-in ceremony in Kabul Wednesday, June 26, 1996. The new Rabbani-Hekmatyar alliance ended four years of feuding that destroyed much of the Afghan capital of Kabul and killed more than 25,000 people.

Hekmatyar is no Taliban, but he is currently leading one of the factions fighting against American, coalition, and Afghan National forces. The BBC has called him "one of the most controversial figures in modern Afghan history." It's a testament to the complexities of Afghan politics that Hekmatyar, a guy who reportedly sprayed acid on female university students in Western dress, can be called "controversial" by the BBC. As opposed to just "evil." (Hekmatyar also once took a shot at Rabbani, according to a 1988 report from the NBC News archives).

It wasn't much later in 1996 that the Taliban captured Kabul, and Rabbani was in exile--until the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance took the capital after 9/11. Rabbani, still widely recognized as the legitimate Afghan president, was quickly back in the frame:

Brennan Linsley / AP file

Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani emerges from the Pul-e-Khishti mosque after Friday prayers, surrounded by United Front bodyguards and supporters, in the capital Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 23, 2001. The Taliban forced him into exile when they came to power in 1996. Rabbani, whose party is effectively running Kabul, said Sunday, Nov. 25, 2001, that he was prepared to hand over power as soon the leading Afghan factions agree on an interim government.

Rabbani ultimately did support the new government of Hamid Karzai, who ended up having his own photo op with an American president today, after Rabbani was killed:

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai during a bilateral meeting September 20, 2011 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Karzai is cutting short his visit to the United States following the killing of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani who was leading Taliban peace efforts, officials said.

Here's what President Obama said, according to our story from Reuters:

"It is a tragic loss," Obama said with Karzai at his side. "We both believe that despite this incident, we will not be deterred from creating a path whereby Afghans can live in freedom, safety and security and prosperity ....

"It is going to be important to continue the efforts to bring all of the elements in Afghanistan society together to end the senseless cycle of violence," he said.

We also have the full video of Obama and Karzai's joint remarks about Rabbani's death. And NBC's Jim Maceda, who has reported extensively from Afghanistan, has this post over at WorldBlog: Taliban flex muscles with Afghan assassination

Also available: More PhotoBlog posts about Afghanistan, and more posts From the Archive. For historical NBC News video from Afghanistan, see the WorldBlog post Deja vu in the Afghanistan tape archives.