The idea of taking a selfie has kind of exploded in recent years to such an extent that it seems nobody takes a photograph of anything other than themselves. However, how old do you think the idea of taking a selfie actually is?

Well, you are going to be surprised to discover that it is an older act than you would have initially thought. Not only did Buzz Aldrin take a selfie when he was in space, but it goes back further than the 1960’s.

The answer, as far as we know at this point, is that one of the first selfies to appear in the public domain was taken in 1913, and it was done so by a teenager in Russia. However, this was no ordinary teenager, as most of them would not have had access to photography equipment. Instead, this was the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

In the photograph, she is holding the popular camera called the Kodak Brownie and she is pointing the camera towards a mirror which she is looking at. The image then shows her taking the selfie, even though she does seem slightly confused as to whether it is going to work, and also what it is going to look like.

OK, so it might not be using a selfie stick and she is certainly not pouting through it, but it still counts. Nobody had any idea that she was doing something for the first time that would pretty much take over the world decades later.