When you search for the very first picture of the far side of the Moon on the Internet, only a very low quality version can be found. A few days ago I purchased a book published by the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1959 and I gladly stared at the much better images in it. I hope you are going to enjoy too.
This grainy picture was taken on October 24, 1946, almost 14 months after the end of World War II and almost 11 years before the Sputnik launch. It was taken by American military engineers and scientists, using a Nazi rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico.
Though this photo may look like a prom picture on Facebook that's been blingee'd, it's actually the very first photo that was ever uploaded to the web. The history of the picture—in all its random glory and woeful photoshopping—is amazing.
Take a close look at this photo. It was supposedly taken by Louis Daguerre, the inventor of the daguerreotype, on the streets of Paris in 1838. And it might just be the earliest photo to include a human subject.