33 Images That Changed The World

Execution of a Viet Cong Guerrilla 1968

Nguyen Ngoc Loan (L), South Vietnam's national police chief executes a prisoner who was said to be a Viet Cong captain. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

The lynching of young blacks 1930

2 young black men accused of raping a Caucasian woman and killing her boyfriend, were hanged by a mob of 10,000 white men. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Soweto Uprising 1976

13-year-old Hector Peterson dying after being struck down by a policeman's bullet. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Hazel Bryant 1957

4 years since segregation had been outlawed by the Supreme Court, things were not going well, and some southerners accused the national press of distorting matters. This picture, however, gave irrefutable testimony, as Elizabeth Eckford strides through a gantlet of white students, including Hazel Bryant (mouth open the widest), on her way to Little Rock's Central High. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company 1911

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company always kept its doors locked to ensure that the young immigrant women stayed stooped over their machines and didn't steal anything. When a fire broke out on Saturday, March 25, 1911, on the eighth floor of the New York City factory, the locks sealed the workers' fate. In just 30 minutes, 146 were killed. Witnesses thought the owners were tossing their best fabric out the windows to save it, then realized workers were jumping. The Triangle disaster spurred a national crusade for workplace safety. source www. pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Phan Thi Kim Phúc 1972

Phan Thi Kim Phúc known as Kim Phuc (born 1963) was the subject of a famous photo from the Vietnam war. The picture shows her aged approx 9, running naked after being severely burned on her back by a napalm attack. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Kent State 1970

14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio kneels over the body of Jeffrey Miller who had been shot by the Ohio National Guard moments earlier, after news that Richard Nixon was sending troops to Cambodia caused a chain of protests in the U.S. colleges. At Kent State the protest seemed more violent, some students even throwing rocks. The Ohio National Guard was called to calm things down, but the events got out of hand and they started shooting. Some of the victims were simply walking to school. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Tiananmen Square 1989

In the days leading up to this event, thousands of protesters and innocent by standers were killed by their own government because the Chinese people wanted more rights. This protester tries to stop the tanks in Tiananmen Square by standing in front of them and by climbing on the tank and hitting the hatch and yelling, the tank driver didn't crush the man with the bags as a group of unknown people came and dragged him away, we still don't know if the man is alive or dead as the Chinese government executed many of the protesters involved. (There are two well know photos taken of the protester by two different photojournalist) Picture: Stuart Franklin source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Tiananmen Square 1989

In the days leading up to this event, thousands of protesters and innocent by standers were killed by their own government because the Chinese people wanted more rights. This protester tries to stop the tanks in Tiananmen Square by standing in front of them and by climbing on the tank and hitting the hatch and yelling, the tank driver didn't crush the man with the bags as a group of unknown people came and dragged him away, we still don't know if the man is alive or dead as the Chinese government executed many of the protesters involved. (There are two well know photos taken of the protester by two different photojournalist) Picture: Jeff Widener source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Thích Quang Ðuc 1963

Thích Quang Ðuc was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon intersection on June 11, 1963. Read his story here: The Heart That Refused To Burn. His act of self-immolation, which was repeated by others, was witnessed by David Halberstam, a New York Times reporter. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Portrait of Winston Churchill 1941

This photograph was taken by Yousuf Karsh, a Canadian photographer, when Winston Churchill came to Ottawa. The portrait of Churchill brought Karsh international fame. It is claimed to be the most reproduced photographic portrait in history. It also appeared on the cover of Life magazine. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Albert Einstein 1951

Arguably one of the most popular figures of all times. Albert is considered a genius because he created the Theory of Relativity, and so, challenged Newton's laws, that were the basis of everything known in physics until the beginning of the 20th century. As a person he was considered a beatnik, and this picture, taken on March 14, 1951 proves that. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Nagasaki 1945

The first atomic bomb was released on August 6 in Hiroshima (Japan) and killed about 80,000 people. On August 9 another bomb was released above Nagasaki. The effects of the second bomb were even more devastating - 150,000 people were killed or injured. But the powerful wind, the extremely high temperature and radiation caused enormous long term damage. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Hiroshima, Three Weeks After the Bomb 1945

Everyone had heard of the bomb that "leveled" Hiroshima, but what did that mean? When this aerial photograph was published, that question was answered. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

... here is a ground view of the destruction. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Dead on the Beach 1943

Haunting photograph of a beach in Papua New Guinea on September 20, 1943, the magazine felt compelled to ask in an adjacent full-page editorial, "Why print this picture, anyway, of three American boys dead upon an alien shore?" Among the reasons: "words are never enough" . . . source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Buchenwald 1945

George Patton's troops when they liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp. Forty-three thousand people had been murdered there. Patton was so outraged he ordered his men to march German civilians through the camp so they could see with their own eyes what their nation had wrought. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Anne Frank 1941

Six million Jews died in the Holocaust. One teenage girl, Anne Frank, gave them a story and a face. She was the adolescent who, according to her diary, retained her hope and humanity as she hid with her family in an Amsterdam attic. In 1944 the Nazis, acting on a tip, arrested the Franks; Anne and her sister died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen only a month before the camp was liberated. The world came to know her through her words and through this ordinary portrait of a girl of 14. She stares with big eyes, wearing an enigmatic expression, gazing at a future that the viewer knows will never come. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

V-J Day, Times Square, 1945

"The Kiss", at the end of World War II, in US cities everybody went to the streets to salute the end of combat. Friendship and unity were everywhere. This picture shows a sailor kissing a young nurse in Times Square. The fact is he was kissing every girl he encountered and for that kiss, this particular nurse slapped him. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Casualties of War 1991

Image of a young US sergeant at the moment he learns that the body bag next to him contains the body of his friend, killed by "friendly fire". The widely published photo became an iconic image of the 1991 Gulf war - a war in which media access was limited by Pentagon restrictions. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

The Falling Man 2001

The powerful and controversial photograph provoked feelings of anger, in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The photo ran only once in many American newspapers because they received critical and angry letters from readers who felt the photo was exploitative, voyeuristic, and disrespectful of the dead. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

U.S. Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima 1945

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Lunch atop a Skyscraper 1932

11 men eat lunch seated on a girder with their feet dangling hundreds of feet above the New York City streets. Charles C. Ebbets took the photo on September 29, 1932, and it appeared in the New York Herald Tribune in its Sunday photo supplement on October 2. Taken on the 69th floor of the GE Building during the last several months of construction. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Here's a rare image by the same photographer showing the workers sleeping on the crossbeam. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Migrant Mother 1936

This picture of Florence Owens Thompson (age 32) represents the Great Depression. She was the mother of 7 and she struggled to survive with her kids catching birds and picking fruits. Dorothea Lange took the picture after Florence sold her tent to buy food for her children. She made the first page of major newspapers all over the country and changed people's conception about migrants. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Omayra Sánchez 1985

Red Cross rescue workers repeatedly appealed to the government for a pump to lower the water level and for help to free the girl. Finally rescuers gave up and spent their remaining time comforting her and praying with her. She died of exposure after about 60 hours. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

A vulture watches a starving child 1993

A vulture watches a starving child in southern Sudan, March 1, 1993. This award winning photo shows a heart-breaking scene of a starving child collapsed on the ground, struggling to get to a food center during a famine in the Sudan in 1993. In the background, a vulture stalks the emaciated child. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Biafra 1969

When the Igbos of eastern Nigeria declared themselves independent in 1967, Nigeria blockaded their fledgling country-Biafra. In three years of war, more than one million people died, mainly of hunger. In famine, children who lack protein often get the disease kwashiorkor, which causes their muscles to waste away and their bellies to protrude. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Misery in Darfur 2004

An image which depicts a depressed, shoulders-down figure of a child in a cluster of what remains of her family. The very weather-beaten arm of her mother goes over her left shoulder and there are the very small weather-beaten hands of the child, clinging on to this one piece of security that she has, which is the weather-beaten hand of her mother. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Tragedy in Oklahoma 1995

This fireman has taken the time to remove his gloves before receiving the infant from the policeman which shows that this firefighter knows that his gloves are very rough and abrasive and to remove these is like saying I want to make sure that I am as gentle and as compassionate as I can be with this infant that I don't know is dead or alive. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

How Life Begins 1965

In 1957 he began taking pictures with an endoscope, an instrument that can see inside a body cavity, but when Lennart Nilsson presented the rewards of his work to LIFE's editors several years later, they demanded that witnesses confirm that they were seeing what they thought they were seeing. Finally convinced, they published a cover story in 1965 that went on for 16 pages, and it created a sensation. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

First Flight 1903

December 17, 1903 was the day humanity spread its wings and rose above the ground - for 12 seconds at first and by the end of the day for almost a minute - but it was a major breakthrough. Orville and Wilbur Wright, two bicycle mechanics from Ohio, are the pioneers of aviations, and although this first flight occurred so late in history, the ulterior development was exponential. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Earthrise 1968

The late adventure photographer Galen Rowell called it "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken." Captured on Christmas Eve, 1968, near the end of one of the most tumultuous years the U.S. had ever known, the Earthrise photograph inspired contemplation of our fragile existence and our place in the cosmos. For years, Frank Borman and Bill Anders of the Apollo 8 mission each thought that he was the one who took the picture. An investigation of two rolls of film seemed to prove Borman had taken an earlier, black-and-white frame, and the iconic color photograph, which later graced a U.S. postage stamp and several book covers, was by Anders. source www.pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

Originally posted on: Daily Telegraph