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.

Leslie Jones / AP

This September 1938 photo provided by the Boston Public Library shows a damaged ferry boat sitting in shallow water in Providence, R.I., following the deadly hurricane of 1938 that hit the Northeast. It's been nearly 73 years since the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 — one of the most powerful, destructive storms ever to hit southern New England, as another massive storm bears down.

AP

This Sep. 21, 1938 photo shows the Strandway in South Boston with 100-mile-an-hour hurricane winds which struck New England hard. It's been nearly 73 years since the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 — one of the most powerful, destructive storms ever to hit southern New England, as another massive storm bears down.

AP

This 1938 photo provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Dept. of Commerce shows the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries building on the south side of Main Street in Woods Hole, Mass., during the Hurricane of 1938. It's been nearly 73 years since the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 — one of the most powerful, destructive storms ever to hit southern New England, as another massive storm bears down.

Related contents:

• Hurricane Irene slideshow
• Hurricane Tracker
• Are you in Irene's path? Share photos, if it's safe to do so

On occasion we dig into picture archives to see if any old gems can illuminate current news. Today's prompt is the volatility in global stock markets, and the search term at the Library of Congress photo archive is "New York Stock Exchange." Among the results is a group of 11 pictures of the NYSE floor from 1907:

Pearson's Magazine via Library of Congress file

The floor of the New York Stock Exchange, circa October 1907, secretly shot with a camera hidden in the photographer's sleeve.

The caption attached to one of the prints shows how far a Pearson's Magazine photographer had to go make the images:

"This remarkable photograph, made expressly for Pearson's magazine, represents the first successful attempt to catch in the camera the great gambling scene on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Extraordinary precautions are taken to prevent photographers from giving the American public an idea of the place where stocks involving thirty million dollars have been gambled with in one day. This picture was made through the empty sleeve of a coat used to conceal the camera from the sharp eyes of the stock exchange guards...."

Pearson's Magazine

In 1907 the stock market was in a tumult. We're not economics pros here at PhotoBlog, so we'll leave any comparisons to you to draw, along with two links to related reading:

• In 2007, Robert F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr wrote a book called The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm. There's a long excerpt of the The Panic of 1907 at the financial blog The Big Picture.
• Ron Chernow's excellent The House of Morgan contains a detailed description of the role J.P. Morgan played in countering the crash.

More:

• Pictures from global stock markets earlier this morning
• The scene outside the NYSE today
• Up-to-the-minute business news coverage from msnbc.com
• PhotoBlog posts "From the Archives"

There are some very touching pictures in this collection, and I look forward to seeing what Trevor identifies in the interview below as "Part Two":

The whole exhibition is about childhood in Liverpool in the mid-70s. And it's only Part One because I'm hoping that people who identify themselves or recognize themselves or their friends or their relatives in the pictures get in touch, so I can do new photographs. And that will be Part Two.

Here's the video, via The Guardian, which has links to information about the exhibit and book.

Update 6:47 p.m., May 24:

From the NBC News "HOT" file:

Per Sean Hadley - NBC producer in Joplin, MO:
National Weather Service's Bill Davis said that the Joplin tornado is the 8th deadliest tornado they have on record, giving it an E-5 rating. Joplin City Manager, Mark Rohr, says the death count has increased to 126 dead.

Update 6:06 p.m., May 23:

The death toll stands at 116, larger now than either the Flint, Michigan or Worcester, Massachusetts tornadoes of 1953. The Joplin tornado is now the deadliest in 64 years, after the April 9, 1947 twister in Woodward, Oklahoma, which killed 181.

Update 1:38 p.m., May 23:

The death toll in Missouri has risen to "at least 90," equaling that of the 1953 Worcester tornado. Officials are worrying that the number will rise, according to msnbc.com's main story on the Joplin tornado.

Stokes Young posts: As I write, our main story on the Joplin, Missouri tornado reports that the death toll is at 89, but could grow larger than the 1953 Worcester, Massachusetts tornado:

As the toll currently stands, the Joplin storm is the deadliest single tornado since the Worcester, Mass., tornado of June 9, 1953, which killed 90 people. If Joplin's toll increases further, it would surpass Worcester and start approaching the toll from a deadly storm that hit the previous day in 1953, when 115 died in Flint, Mich.

This prompted us to do a bit of research about that previous storm, the Worcester, Massachusetts tornado of 1953. The Wikipedia page on the Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence details the massive weather system that devastated Flint, Michigan and Worcester, Massachusetts.

The town of Worcester has a slideshow of images from the tornado.

And, in the aftermath of that horrible storm, a young senator named John F. Kennedy toured the devastated town of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts:

AP file

Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, center, accompanied by Dick Mayer, 15, and Melissa Tyler, 14, inspects tornado damage in Shrewsbury, Mass., on June 10, 1953.

Meanwhile, on YouTube, this video is described as "Kathy Lundstrom's father, Henry Ekberg took this rare color film before and after the Worcester tornado tore up the Burncoat area of Worcester,MA in 1953:"

When I saw a new, stunning picture of an 11,000-foot hole being blown in a levee to protect Cairo, Ill., I thought I remembered some depression-era pictures of the river town by the Farm Security Administration's John Vachon. I found those pictures, in low-res scans at the Library of Congress site, but also found two high-res pictures of efforts to fight the effects of a great flood in 1937. One, an uncredited FSA aerial, is very reminiscent of yesterday's events:

Farm Security Administration via loc.gov

Levee being dynamited to save Cairo, Illinois, during the 1937 flood.

The other is credited to Russell Lee:

Russell Lee / Farm Security Administration via loc.gov

Piling sandbags along the levee during the height of the flood. Cairo, Illinois, 1937

And on YouTube, there's this video of the aftermath of the 1937 flood:

Whenever I see pictures of natural disasters that threaten to repeat themselves, as when watching Thomas Edison's panoramic motion picture of the 1900 Galveston hurricane during 2005's Hurricane Ike, I wonder how much we really can learn from history, when it comes to putting people in the path of natural forces.

The Wikipedia entry on the 1937 Ohio River Flood is here.

Our story on the current flood is here.

When we're covering big stories that are likely to be more than footnotes to history, I often go looking for pictures of historical precedents, hoping that they will help us understand and explain what is happening now. So this morning I spent a little time looking for archival images of protests in Egypt, and three stood out for their visual similarity:

IMAGNO / Austrian Archives via Getty Images

EGYPT - CIRCA 1930: Student riots in Egypt. Prime minister Nessim Pasha's car during a demonstration in Cairo. Photograph. 1936.

Tom Fitzsimmons / AP

A huge crowd of Egyptians, protesting United Nations partition of Palestine, gathers in Cairo's Opera Square, Dec. 14, 1947, to listen to Arab leaders speaking from the roof of building at right, foreground.

A. Masraff / Getty Images

Crowds demonstrating, in Cairo's Opera Square, against British involvement in the Suez crisis. Original Publication: Picture Post - 6875 - We Forfeit Respect Abroad - pub. 1954

Unfortunately, I'm having some trouble making sense of exactly what two of the pictures mean, and could use some help.

The first picture's date is unclear, but I'm guessing that the "1936" is right as it's more specific (more likely to be written on the back of a print at the time of creation than "CIRCA 1930") and because 1936 was a momentous year in Egyptian political history: King Fuad died, and Britain and Egypt signed an important treaty.

It's not easy to find out much about Nessim Pasha online, but TIME Magazine's online archive includes dismissive swipe at him in a 1936 piece about political maneuvering in the aftermath of King Fuad's death, calling him a "good safe Fuad stooge," and has this salacious tidbit in a brief 1938 obituary:

Died. Tewfik ("success") Nessim Pasha, 64, three times Egypt's Prime Minister; of heart disease; in Cairo. Leader of Fuad's Cabinet for two short ministries in the 20s, again from 1934-36, taciturn Nessim Pasha was more successful as a business man than as a politician. After his last resignation his life was occupied by making & breaking engagements to marry 17-year-old Maria Huebner, a Viennese hotel keeper's daughter.

If any of you have more information on this image, 1936 protests in Cairo or Nessim Pasha please let us know in comments. Anything we can do to clarify information about historical pictures (we call it "metadata" in the business) is a small contribution to preserving the image itself.

The context of the 1947 picture, and its contemporary echoes, are much more straightforward. Clearly there was a great deal of antipathy in the streets of Cairo for the U.N. partition plan for Palestine, which helped set the stage for civil war and the creation and recognition of the state of Israel. As Michelle Kosinski reported last night on NBC Nightly News, Israelis and Palestinians alike are watching the news in Egypt with great interest, and no small degree of apprehension.

The last picture, dated 1954, we could find out more about with a simple trip to a good U.K. library, or research library in the U.S., to find the relevant copy of The Picture Post, called "the LIFE magazine of the United Kingdom" and memorialized by Getty Images in 2007 with an exhibition of its pictures.

Because I don't have time to go to the library today, and need to get back to work, all I know is that the Suez Crisis took place in 1956, two years after this picture is dated, so we're led to once again guess at the exact context of the picture. What I most want to know: If this is a protest, why is everyone smiling, looking wonderfully happy?

In any case, let us know in comments below if you have a copy of the relevant Picture Post and can tell us more, or if you can recommend your favorite history book about twentieth-century Egyptian history. Hopefully a bit more reading and research can further illuminate these musty old pictures in light of the stream of protest pictures now coming to us from Egypt.

Update 1:28 p.m.:

Courtesy of our friends at Getty Images, via email:

The shot by Masraff/Picture Post has an extended caption on the back. It reads:

“The Egyptian Government unleashed the feelings of the people in the name of nationalism and anti-imperialism and now they are faced with a fierce independence of public opinion and expression which might well prove disastrous to the Wafd regime. King Farouk sees the peril in the new policies of his government and, at this critical phase, he is attempting the role of statesman and mediator. As a result of the abrogation two groups are emerging stronger than ever – the Ikhwan-ul-Musilme?n (Moslem Brotherhood) and the Ishtarakuja (socialists), both of which are especially opposed to the Wafd government. ’Picture Post’ sends cameraman A. Masraff to record events in Egypt.  Youth demonstrations in Opera Square with shouts of “Arm us to fight the British”

Update 1:49 p.m.:

If you've gotten this far, you may well be interested in watching the 1981 NBC Nightly News report on Hosni Mubarak's first day in office following the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

 Update 5:22 p.m., Feb. 1:

More information from Getty, from the 1936 picture:

“Egyptian Riothers (sic) insult premier – 6.1.36.

Nessim Pasha, the Egyptian Prime Minister, was prevented by a mob of students from attending the opening at the Egyptian University in Cairo recently of the International Surgical Congress. The students shouted insults at him as he drove in his car, which was finally compelled to turn back.

O.P.S. Egyptian student demonstrators surrounding Nahas Pasha’s car as he drove to the Egyptian University in Cairo”

The June, 1936 date on the image (If, in fact, it's June 1 instead of January 6-seeing if we can figure that out) makes it far more likely that the student protest was in allegiance with a Palestinian general strike, "the beginning of the Arab revolt in Palestine," which one contemporary Egyptian said "inflamed public opinion like 'an oven.'" (Quotes from "Egypt and the 1936 Arab Revolt in Palestine," by Thomas Mayer in 1984 in The Journal of Contemporary History--because I still don't have time to go to the library I've only read the online fragment from JSTOR).

This likely connects the 1936 protest with the 1947 protest, as both would be in sympathy with Palestinians and, to some degree at least, anti-Zionist.

Actually, it was in January, according to contemporary accounts of when the International Surgical Congress was held. I'll post again only when I'm sure I know something more.

Major Dick Winters passed away Jan. 2 in central Pennsylvania following a battle with Parkinson's Disease. If you've read Stephen Ambrose's book or watched the HBO miniseries, you'll likely already have mental pictures of Winters' acts of heroism during harsh fighting in Europe during the Second World War. This is what he looked like in 1945:

Courtesy of Sgt. Maj. Herman W. Clemens, Ret. / AP file

Easy Company's William Guarnere, 88, told the AP today: "When he said 'Let's go,' he was right in the front [...] He was never in the back. A leader personified."

Winters told his own story in 'Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters,' and begins his first chapter by describing the "quiet peace" he says every soldier wants to find:

I am still haunted by the names and faces of young men, young airborne troopers who never had the opportunity to return home after the war and begin their lives anew. Like most veterans who have shared the hardship of combat, I live with flashbacks--distant memories of an attack on a battery of German artillery on D-Day, an assault on Carentan, a bayonet attack on a dike in Holland, the cold of Bastogne[...] If you had a man who was killed, you looked at him and hoped that he had found peace in death. I'm not sure whether they were fortunate or unfortunate to get out of the war so early. So many men died so that others could live. No one understands why.
To find a quiet peace is the dream of every soldier. For some it takes longer than others. In my own experience I have discovered that it is far easier to find quiet than to find peace. True peace must come from within oneself. As my wartime buddies join their fallen comrades at an alarming rate, distant memories resurface. The hard times fade and the flashbacks go back to friendly times, to buddies with whom I shared a unique bond, to men who are my brothers in every sense of the word. I live with these men every day.

To see and hear Winters describe the heroism of Easy Company in video, click here. To watch Winters describe Easy Company's Brecourt Manor assault on D-Day, click below:

It's a slow day for me today (don't tell my boss), so I took the opportunity to go look for cool pictures at Flickr Commons, searching for the word "dog." Here are four of the most interesting results:

Brooklyn Museum Archives via Flickr Commons

Paris Exposition: ship, Paris, France, 1900. View of a dog on deck of a ship. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection (S03_06_01_015 image 2049).

The George Eastman House via Flickr Commons

Dog Training | Accession Number: 1974:0056:0316 | Maker: William M. Vander Weyde (American 1871–1929) | Title: Dog Training | Date: ca. 1900 | Medium: negative, gelatin on glass | Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.5 inches

Charles O'Rear / National Archives via Flickr Commons

Original Caption: Hitchhiker with His Dog, "Tripper", on U.S. 66. U.S. 66 Crosses The Colorado River At Topock: 05/1972 | U.S. National Archives' Local Identifier: NWDNS-412-DA-6626 | From: Series: DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency's Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern, compiled 1972-1977 (Record Group 412)

Bain News Service / Library of Congress via Flickr Commons

Mrs. J.M. Gray [between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915] 1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.

We've posted from Flickr Commons before, leading off with a sweet mustache, and explaining the site's noble and engaging mission.