Photos that shook the world

In every photographs, there always lies a story behind it. Whether it is a story of success, glory, anger or grief; photos have a way to influence its viewer. People will cheer and smile together when they see photo of their favourite winning football team lifting the cup; as well as crying and weeping when they see people suffering somewhere in distant land. It is a powerful medium that able to mesmerize us from a single look and captivates the human soul, or even leaving us in a state of shock.

These are several photographs taken from photojournalists around the globe that revealed some of the most shocking moment that happened in our world. Some of the images be disturbing and cause discomfort.

Burning Monk by Malcolm Browne, 1963

 Hoa Thuong Thich Quang Duc, born Lam Van Tuc (1897 – 11 June 1963) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Thich Quang Duc was protesting against the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem administration. Photos of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diem regime.

Execution of Viet Cong Guerilla by Eddie Adams, 1968

With North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive beginning, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam’s national police chief, was doing all he could to keep Viet Cong guerrillas from Saigon. As Loan executed a prisoner who was said to be a Viet Cong captain, AP photographer Eddie Adams opened the shutter. Adams won a Pulitzer Prize for a picture that, as much as any, turned public opinion against the war. Adams felt that many misinterpreted the scene, and when told in 1998 that the immigrant Loan had died of cancer at his home in Burke,  he said, “The guy was a hero. America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him.”

Napalm Girl by Nick Ut, 1972

Phan Thi Kim Phuc, O.Ont (born 1963) is a Vietnamese-Canadian best known as the child subject of a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972. The iconic photo taken in Trang Bang by AP photographer Nick Ut shows her at about age nine running naked on a road after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack.

Nagasaki Mushroom Cloud, photographed by U.S. Air Force

Nothing like the mushroom cloud had ever been seen, not by the general public. On August 6 the first atomic bomb killed an estimated 80,000 people in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb exploded 500 meters above the ground in Nagasaki. The blast wind, heat rays reaching several thousand degrees and radiation destroyed anything even remotely nearby, killing or injuring as many as 150,000 at the time, and more later. As opposed to the very personal images of war that had brought the pain home, the ones from Japan that were most shocking were those from a longer perspective, showing the enormity of what had occurred.

Photo by Don McCullin

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. The world community intervened to help Biafra, and learned key lessons about dealing with massive hunger exacerbated by war-a problem that still defies simple solutions.

Omayra Sanchez by frank Fournier, 1985

Omayra Sanchez was a 13-year-old victim of the 1985 eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, which erupted on November 13, 1985, in Armero, Colombia causing massive lahars which killed nearly 25,000. Trapped for three days in water, concrete, and other debris before she died, Omayra captured the attention of the media as volunteer workers told of a girl they were unable to save. Videos of her communicating with workers, smiling and making gestures to video cameras circulated around the media. Her "courage and dignity" touched Frank Fournier and many other relief workers who gathered around her to pray and be with her. After 60 hours of struggling, she succumbed to gangrene and hypothermia. Her tragic death highlighted the failure of officials to respond promptly to the threat of the volcano and also the struggle for volunteer rescue workers to save trapped victims who would otherwise be quickly saved and treated.

 

 

Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry, 1984

A dusty, young face, and those deep penetrating green eyes. The eyes were the most captivating feature of this subject, almost cat like in intensity, framed in pastels, red and green. It became the symbolic picture of the Afghan struggle at the time, and maybe still is.