I am obligated, any time these very high historical tax rates are mentioned, to point out that these were very special, very specific actions taken to discourage war profiteering during world war two.

The extremely high marginal rates that did indeed exist were not implemented as part of a tax regime nor were they enacted to redistribute wealth - they were a patriotic wartime measure enacted to ensure nobody got rich on war contracts.

They have almost no relation to our current discussion of tax rates and taxation.