Aerial Torpedoes, Buzz Bombs, and Predators: The Long Cultural History of Drones

Frederick T.W. Cook's depiction of a flying bomb over the Tower Bridge in London, 1944. 

Drawing of an "aerial torpedo-boat in action" from the San Francisco Call, November 1896

An American JB-2 buzz bomb on display to the public during a war bond drive in New York City in 1944

Wilfred Stanley Haines painted this image of a bomb raid in 1944.

This 1944 advertisement for the Captain Marvel Buzz Bomb states: "It flies! It soars! It bombs!"

Workers assemble "Kettering Bug" or "Liberty Eagle" flying bombs at a factory in 1918. 

Newspapers published this illustration of Samuel Pierpont Langley's Aerodrome in 1899. 

The New York World likened the flight of Samuel Pierpont Langley's steam-powered machine to an act of magic.

A young factory worker who would later change her name to Marilyn Monroe posed with an airplane propeller for Yank Magazine in 1945.

The New York Police Department arrested New York artist Essam Attia for placing this poster, satirizing a domestic drone program, around the city in 2012.

A poster depicting Nazi drones during World War II

This 1960s post card depicts one of the first jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicles. 

Workers assemble a Firebee drone. 

A 1944 painting entitled Tempests Attacking Flying-bombs by Walter Thomas Monnington

Poster for the 1950 film "The Flying Missile" starring Glenn Ford as an impetuous U.S. Naval commander

This German propaganda poster depicts the United Kingdom in flames under an onerous V-1, the most widely used unmanned aerial vehicle during World War II.

Illustration of a V-1 flying bomb, circa 1944.

Nazi soldiers roll out a flying bomb known as the V-1, a World War II drone whose cultural cachet is difficult to overestimate.

An armed Predator drone launches a Hellfire missile in 2010.

An array of drones during the 2005 Naval Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Air Demo

Samuel Pierpont Langley, whose steam-powered Aerodrome drones created a media sensation at the turn of the century

General William Mitchell advocated the use of unmanned aerial vehicles against enemy civilians even while painting grim scenarios of such use in the popular press. 

Actor and radio-controlled plane enthusiast Reginald Denny at his hobby shop in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of the Righter Family Archives.