Bathing beauties emerge from a solarium, a tanning booth.
In 1922, the Tidal Basin bathing beach in Washington, D.C., was open only to whites. Three years later, Congress banned swimming there due to concerns about pollution and pressure from African Americans to open a beach for their use.
Women pose at a beach in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1929.
Girls relax under the sun in their bathing suits and wraps in England in 1929.
Local fishermen have dragged their boats away from the shore to make room for vacationers in Positano, Italy. The photo of sunbathers ran in a 1959 issue of National Geographic.
Beachgoers stake out their territory in a 1975 aerial view of Ocean City, Maryland.
Students catch some rays during spring break in Daytona Beach, Florida. The photo appeared in a 1973 issue of National Geographic.
A man sunbathes in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1973.
Women relax beside oil pumps on Padre Island, Texas. The photo appeared in a 1980 issue of National Geographic.
People sunbathe in Yalta, Crimea, in the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, U.S.S.R.
A family sunbathes near railroad tracks in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1991.
A woman relaxes on a beach in Trujillo, Peru.
Goggles afford sunbathers eye protection on a beach by Narragansett Bay in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1995.
Sunbathers relax on deck chairs.
A woman covers herself with pebbles and scraps of paper while tanning by the Black Sea in Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine.
Families relax and play at a water park in Tiberias, Israel. This photo appeared in a 2010 issue of National Geographic.