1. North Carolina December 17, 1903
The Wright brothers’ first flight. Wilbur was running alongside the plane; Orville was flying it. No one would have believed their achievement if it hadn’t been photographed.
2. Tiananmen Square protest by Jeff Widener, 1989
The government sent tanks to brutally kill hundreds of workers, students and children in a crackdown on the protest at Tiananmen Square. A small, unknown, unexceptional figure stood bravely in protest in front of the tanks. As TIME magazine reported it, he “revived the world’s image of courage”. It is when history disguises itself as allegory that the camera writes it best.
3. Vietnam February 1, 1968
Eddie Adams snapped Nguyen Ngoc
Loan executing Viet Cong Captain Nguyen
Van Lem. The picture turned the public
against the war.
4. Nagasaki August 9, 1945
The US Air Force took this photo of a mushroom cloud caused by its atomic bomb, Fat Man. It, along with another bomb dropped on Hiroshima, caused 150,000 deaths. The public had never seen an atomic bomb’s destruction before, and this picture made the world fearful of another World War.
5. Sudan 1994
Kevin Carter shot this Pulitzer Prize-winner of a child crawling to a UN food camp half a mile away in Sedan. Depressed, Carter committed suicide three months after taking this picture. The image brought the Sudan tragedy to the world.
6. Abu Gharib Prison 2004
Horrific pictures taken by the US Army were unveiled in The New Yorker and in a 60 Minutes episode. They showed American soldiers torturing Iraq prisoners. After the images were made public, 17 American soldiers were removed from duty; 11 were convicted and dishonorably discharged. The pictures showed Americas’ hypocrisy; their soldiers were as inhumane as those they were fighting in the War on Terror.
