In 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer Was Arrested After Ki**ing Two People

This picture preserves a moment few cameras ever caught — In 1979, 16-Year-Old Brenda Ann Spencer Was Arrested After Ki**ing Two People In San Diego, California. When Asked Why She Did It, She Replied, "I Just Don't Like Mondays". It was taken in 1979, and like the best archival images it needs almost no explanation — the frame tells its own story.

The 1970s had a grittier texture than the decades before it — economic shocks, urban decline, and political distrust, but also bold fashion, muscle cars, and the first stirrings of the digital age. Color film had become cheap and ubiquitous, so the decade survives in vivid Kodachrome hues.

Pictures of ordinary life are some of the most valuable historical documents we have. Grand events were always going to be recorded, but a normal day — how people worked, dressed, shopped, and passed the time — survives only when someone happened to point a camera at it.