5 of the Most Famous Photographs in History
Photographs allow us to witness history with our very own eyes, immortalizing brief moments in time that are worth preserving — be it a mother struggling during the Great Depression or a handshake between Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon. Each image has a story behind it that helps explain why those moments maintain their appeal all these decades later. Here are some of the most famous photographs in recent history, and why they matter.
“Migrant Mother” (1936)
In March 1936, photographer Dorothea Lange captured what many consider to be the most recognizable photo from the Great Depression. The image, titled “Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California,” features a 32-year-old farmworker and mother of seven who was later identified as Florence Owens Thompson. The photograph depicts Thompson with a forlorn look on her face as she gazes past the camera. Three of her children are also present in the photo: an infant in her lap, and two older children burying their faces in Thompson’s shoulders. When the photo was first published, however, her identity remained anonymous.
At the time, Lange was working for the Farm Security Administration, a federal agency meant to help farm workers who were displaced during the Dust Bowl. In 1960, Lange recalled how she came across a woman huddled underneath a tent inside a camp of migrant pea pickers, and chose to approach her, “as if drawn by a magnet.” The woman — Thompson — told Lange that her family had been surviving on frozen veggies and dead birds, but it was only decades later that more information was finally uncovered.
In 1978, a reporter at the Modesto Bee tracked down Thompson and confirmed she was the subject of “Migrant Mother.” With her identity revealed, Thompson admitted that she viewed the photograph as something of a curse, as she never received royalties for the use of her likeness. It also became clear that Thompson wasn’t your typical Dust Bowl refugee as initially thought, but rather a woman of Native American heritage who was displaced from tribal Cherokee lands in Oklahoma. She also noted that the camp she set up in the migrant community was only temporary, as she was just waiting there while the family car was being fixed nearby. Toward the end of Thompson’s life, people sent donations to her family to help cover the cost of the matriarch’s medical bills, and many wrote letters saying how much the image of Thompson inspired them. These gestures allowed the family to reconsider the legacy of the photograph, which they began to view with a sense of pride.
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“Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” (1945)
Joe Rosenthal was a photographer for the Associated Press during World War II whose legacy was defined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.” Rosenthal captured the iconic event on February 23, 1945, on the small Japanese island of Iwo Jima, roughly 750 miles south of Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean. The picture depicts six men triumphantly raising an American flag, and commemorates an important military victory — though there’s a good deal more to the story.
The island of Iwo Jima was a strategic stronghold occupied by the Japanese. On February 19, three U.S. Marine divisions landed on Iwo Jima and began a harrowing multiday battle with Japanese forces. On February 23, Americans took control of Mount Suribachi, a geographic landmark on the southern end of the island. In celebration of their conquest, troops raised up an American flag, though not the flag seen in the famous image. It was actually a smaller flag, captured by Sergeant Louis R. Lowery in a lesser-known photograph.
Hours later, troops were ordered to replace the first flag with a larger American flag that could be seen more easily from a far distance. This caught the attention of Rosenthal, who heard the plan from a nearby radioman. Rosenthal brought his camera to the mountain, where he photographed six men (five Marines and one Navy Corpsman) raising the larger flag in what has since become an iconic image. Tragically, it took another month for American forces to take the entire island of Iwo Jima, during which three of those men were killed: Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal Harlon Block, and Private First Class Franklin Sousley. The three others who survived the battle, and the war, were Corporals Harold Keller, Harold Schultz, and 22-year-old Ira Hayes, a soldier of Pima Indian descent who went on to meet President Harry Truman at the White House.
“Guerrillero Heroico” (1960)
The photograph “Guerrillero Heroico” (“Heroic Guerrilla Fighter”) depicts Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, whose likeness has grown into a symbol used by counterculture groups around the world. The original image was taken by photographer Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960, depicting Guevara gazing stoically off into the distance. While the image may seem posed, it was actually captured by a stroke of luck in a mere matter of seconds.
Guevara became a popular figure throughout Cuba during the 1950s, playing a pivotal role in overthrowing the government alongside Fidel Castro. Shortly after the rebels rose to power, a ship named La Coubre exploded in Havana Harbor on March 4, 1960, killing as many as 100 local workers who were unloading ammunition. Guevara, Castro, and others attended the state funeral the next day, as did Korda, who was working for the Revolución newspaper at the time. While standing by the podium with his eyes focused on Castro, the photographer noticed that Guevara had emerged directly above him. He quickly grabbed his Leica camera and snapped two photos in rapid succession, before Guevara stepped back. He returned home to develop the photos, and cropped the original to remove another man off to the side as well as the fronds of a palm tree.
Korda described Guevara’s look in the photo as having “impressive force in his expression, given the anger concentrated in his gaze after so many deaths.” Oddly, the paper passed on publishing the photo until one year later, using it in an advertisement for an upcoming lecture delivered by the revolutionary. The image didn’t become popular until 1967, the year of Guevara’s execution. At the memorial service, a giant print of the photo was hung up by the Ministry of the Interior. A stylized version of the portrait was later used during the 1968 Paris student riots, and it became a popular symbol co-opted by various groups around the world. The image eventually took on a life of its own, and people began to lose sight of its original meaning, especially after the photo was used by major corporations such as Nike and Taco Bell in various ad campaigns.
Elvis Meets Nixon (1970)
In the year 1970, two of the most recognizable men in the world met face to face for the first time: Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon. The unlikely meeting took place on December 21, 1970, within the Oval Office, resulting in a now-legendary photo of the pair shaking hands. This image and others were taken by Nixon’s personal photographer, Oliver F. Atkins, who chronicled the impromptu and secret encounter that day.
While on a red-eye flight earlier that morning, Presley wrote a lengthy letter to President Nixon on American Airlines stationary. The rock star shared his concerns about the growing drug culture in America, and expressed an interest in becoming a “Federal Agent at Large” so he could help tackle the issue. He ended the letter by saying that he hoped to meet Nixon and “say hello if you’re not too busy.” Upon landing, he asked his limo driver to head straight to the White House, where he handed the letter to security agents at the gate. Initially, Nixon’s staffers assumed that it was just a prank. But after learning that it was indeed Elvis himself who wished to meet the President, they quickly organized an official, impromptu meeting to take place later that day.
At 11:45 a.m., “the King of Rock ’n’ Roll” returned to the White House wearing a purple velvet suit, caped cloak, gilded belt buckle, and amber-tinted sunglasses. He was immediately brought into the Oval Office, where Nixon was waiting, and thus began a 35-minute meeting where the duo discussed communism, the Beatles, Las Vegas, and even Presley’s family photos. While there, the musician requested an official badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in hopes of legitimizing his personal crusade against drug culture. Nixon obliged, and Presley was so overwhelmed with joy that he went in for a hug before the Secret Service could stop him. The pair agreed that the meeting should be kept a secret, as neither side was sure how their supporters would react. It wasn’t until January 1972 that word of this strange event finally broke, though nothing practical ever really came of it.
“Tank Man” (1989)
Associated Press photographer Jeff Widener spent the spring of 1989 in Beijing, China, covering the Tiananmen Square protests. On June 5, he captured an image that’s considered one of the most powerful acts of defiance in the face of authoritarian rule. His photo, titled “Tank Man,” shows an anonymous man in black pants and a white shirt standing in front of a line of tanks, refusing to let them continue patrolling the square.
The story behind the photograph begins months earlier, on April 15, after the death of Hu Yaobang, the former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party who had been forced to resign two years earlier. Hu had attempted to push the country toward democratization, an effort that resonated with many Chinese youth. However, the larger government was far less open to such reforms. After Hu’s death, around 100,000 students descended on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to continue pushing for his reforms and to protest the corrupt Chinese Communist Party that remained in power. A rally on May 19 drew 1.2 million people to the square, though it was only a matter of time before the government cracked down on the protests. This led to a horrible massacre on June 4, when military forces opened fire on demonstrators and killed hundreds of people, or possibly thousands. By the following day, the military had taken control of the square, and tanks and troops patrolled the streets once more.
On June 5, an anonymous lone man stepped into the middle of Chang’an Avenue on the edge of Tiananmen Square while a line of tanks approached him. The striking scene caught the eye of reporters and photographers who were staying at the nearby Beijing Hotel, and many turned their cameras toward the event from the balcony. Widener captured the most recognizable single image of the scene, which shows the man standing in front of four tanks, preventing their forward progress. Other, more zoomed-out photos show the true enormity of the situation, as there were dozens more tanks all in a line heading directly toward this single protester. After halting the parade of tanks, the man climbed on top of one, spoke to someone inside, and then climbed back down to prevent the tanks from continuing on. After several tense moments, two mysterious men emerged and dragged the protester away. Today, nobody truly knows the identity of “Tank Man” or what happened to him. Some say he was arrested and executed, while others claim he simply vanished off the grid — though certainly not from memory, thanks to Widener’s famous photograph.
