Marilyn Monroe

Matthew Zimmermann’s above photo was the most iconic image of the event, but several versions of the scene existed, including those by Elliot Erwitt and Gary Winogrand.

September 9, 1954. During a publicity shot for The Seven Year Itch, Marilyn Monroe stepped onto a New York subway grille. Like that of Botticelli’s Venus rising from the ocean, Marilyn’s pose is both virginal and seductive. The undulating skirt, floating around the figure, emphasizes the dual seduction of movie star and spectator: Marilyn is seduced by the camera, and in the same moment, the photographer and spectators are seduced by her beauty.

In the actual movie, Monroe’s dress didn’t fly up quite as high; the scene, with Tom Ewell admiring his dream girl’s pleasure at a blast of air through the subway grate (below), was originally shot near Grand Central Terminal, then reshot on a soundstage.

Designed by the 20th Century Fox costume designer, William Travilla, the dress is a prop as well as a symbol. Light as butterfly’s wings, it expresses a lightness of being that was tragically absent in the drama of her personal life. The above scene infuriated her husband, Joe DiMaggio, who felt it was exhibitionist, who promptly divorced Monroe. Only moderately successful in Hollywood, Monroe later married playwright Arthur Miller, her third husband. After many personal crises, her suicide in 1962 was nonetheless unexpected and shocking. It contributed to the mythic status that has surrounded her ever since.

After her death, the dress was retained by Travilla. When Travilla died in 1990, his partner Bill Sarris decided to sell the dress for Alzheimer charities, and the dress was valued at $3,000,000.

When Lindbergh landed

At 10:22 pm on May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget airfield in Paris and entered the history books as the first man to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He had taken off from Roosevelt Field near New York City 33 1/2 hours earlier. Flying northeast along the coast, he flew over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and from there on, he relied only on his magnetic compass, his airspeed indicator, and luck to navigate toward Ireland. The flight captured the imagination of the American public like few events in history; citizens waited nervously by their radios, listening for news of the flight.

When Lindbergh was seen crossing the Irish coast, the world cheered and eagerly anticipated his arrival in Paris. A frenzied crowd of more than 150,000 people gathered to greet him. But the 3,610-mile flight tired and confused the aviator so much that when Lindbergh reached Paris, he circled the Eiffel Tower in order to get his bearings. Meanwhile, the police lines broke down in the airfield as 20,000 French people surged forward.

However, he had arrived late at night and the press was unable to photograph him in the darkness. The photo above, frequented noted in the textbooks as the moment the great aviator landed, was actually taken a week later, on May 29th at London’s Croydon Aerodrome. The photo was taken aerially from one of the planes used to escort Lindbergh. Here, too, the plane was mobbed, and literally crushed — its stabilizer was damaged — by the spectators. Lindbergh later quipped that the enthusiastic reception was the most dangerous part of the flight.

His photogenic look, boyish pluck, and modesty made him an instant hero. He was shown in some of the earliest talking newsreels. For years, the press hounded him relentlessly. The first media superstar, he was to pay dearly for his fame and wealth.

Lindbergh’s plane, The Spirit of St. Louis was named for the St. Louis businessman who financed its purchase for about $10,000. The name on the nose of the plane is hard to see in above photo, but its license number, N-X 211 is legible. The letter N was the international designation for the United States; the X meant the plane — a Ryan monoplane — was experimental. On May 31st, Lindbergh flew to Gosport on the Channel where the plan was dismantled by the Royal Air Force, crated, and loaded onto the U.S.S. Memphis, with which Lindbergh himself went home. It was reassembled at Bolling Field in Washington, D.C. and now in the National Air and Space Museum there.

Normandy Landings

This photograph was taken three days after the Normandy beachhead was established, on June 9th, 1944, and shows the colossal scale of the operation to transport men and material for the liberation of Europe. The largest single-day amphibious invasion of all time, with 160,000 troops, 195,700 naval and merchant navy personnel and 5,000 ships being transplanted from the other side of the English Channel. Large concrete blocks, nicknamed Mulberry harbors, were sailed across the channel and used as portable docks. The landings took place along a 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast between Caen and Valognes, divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

The picture tells a different story about the last phase of the Second World War. It conveys not the heroism of individual–as Capa was busy reporting in Omaha–but the efficacy of the vast military machine that backed them up. It is the picture of the collective effort that won the war. “The history of war does not show any such undertaking so broad in concept, so grandiose in scale, so masterly in execution,” Stalin congratulated Churchill.

Lincoln at Antietam

Three cigars changed the course of American history at Antietam, the site of the bloodiest one-day battle in American history.  On September 17, 1862 some 24,000 soldiers perished at Antietam Creek, where the decisive victory on the Union side was achieved by Union General McClellan’s ability to predict the Confederate Army’s movements. McClellan was able to do so with the help of three lost cigars being discovered in a field. A Union solider discovered Confederate Special Order 191–which noted Lee’s army’s movements–wrapped around three cigars and passed on to their commander.

Antietam became the first battle in which Lee’s army had been denied its main objective. Yet, McClellan waited long enough to lose the opportunity to crush Lee decisively; in the days immediately after the battle, Lincoln became distressed at McClellan’s failure to pursue Lee’s retreating army. In early October, Lincoln visited McClellan at his headquarters at Antietam to urge him personally to attack, when the above picture by Alexander Gardner was taken. From left to right, Lincoln’s intelligence service chief Allan Pinkerton, Lincoln, and General McClellan.

Lincoln was deeply disappointed in McClellan, on whom he rested his high hopes at the beginning of the Civil war. McClellan was removed from command immediately after; he ran against Lincoln in 1864 election. Lincoln won the election handily, with 212-12 Electoral College votes, and he won 70% of troops’ votes.

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln decided to release the Emancipation Proclamation because of the Union victory at Antietam. A string of disastrous Union defeats before had prevented Lincoln from issuing the proclamation for fear of appearing desperate. In the proclamation’s wake, the war not only gained a higher moral purpose, but also record numbers of now-emancipated slaves joined the Union Army, thereby increasing its military strength. Indeed, the outcome of the American Civil War was decided on the fields on Antietam, not by the marching armies but by a carelessly lost parcel of three cigars.

Lincoln with military officers at Antietam.

Lincoln and McClellan in the latter’s tents at Antietam.

Dresden Destroyed

It was one of the most controversial actions of the Second World War: the fire-bombing of Dresden that city to ash and rubble. Between 13 February and 15 February 1945 (twelve weeks before the final capitulation of Germany), 3,900 tons of high-explosives and incendiary devices were delivered in four air raids carried out by 1,300 bombers. Thirteen square miles of the city and the estimates of civilian dead vary from 100,000 to 130,000 — twice the amount that perished during the entire London Blitz. Nearly a thousand invaluable masterpieces (mainly from Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister) were lost or destroyed.

The photographer contrasted its devastation with a statue of not an angel (as commonly assumed) but more powerfully, a personification of Kindness. August Schreitmüller’s sandstone sculpture “Die Gute” on Dresden’s Rathaustrum once overlooked a magnificent city, so-called ‘Florence-on-the-Elbe’, the former seat of the Electors of Saxony. Now beyond its outstretched arms lies a sea of ruins.  The photo from the tower looking south was by Richard Peter, who made a name for himself recording ruins and desolation that was Europe at the end of WWII. His photo inspired many others to find their way up the tower of the city hall and take similar photos.

The decision to bomb the city brimming with refuges fleeing from the advancing Red Army was approved by the very top brass and was keep so secret that the airmen were under the impression that they were bombing the army headquarters, barracks, and poison gas plants. In fact, Dresden had no war industry. The strategy too was cynical and iniquitous: since bomb shelters could provide protection for only three hours in a burning city (due to overheated grounds and walls), the second attack was launched precisely at the moment when everyone had to go back outside.

Many newspapers toed the official line that Dresden was a major military target; when the AP reported, “Allied air chiefs have made the long-awaited decision to adopt deliberate terror bombings of German population centers as a ruthless expedient of hastening Hitler’s doom”, the British government banned its report. It was three more weeks before the Manchester Guardian published an account revealing many civilians died in a horrifying manner.

In a twisted irony, two hideous atrocities of the Second World War met in this ‘Balcony of Europe’: the cremation of those perished in Dresden was supervised by SS Sturmbahnfuhrer Karl Streibel, the man who made his name burning bodies at the Treblinka death camp. A funeral pyre at Dresden burnt for five whole weeks.

It took until the mid-90s for the British and American governments to formally apologize to Germany for the unnecessary attack.

Bismarck on his deathbed

11 p.m. 30 July 1898. Otto von Bismarck had died. Only family members, house servants and a selected group of neighbors were allowed to see the body. No deathmask nor death portrait were made. Not even his sovereign, Kaiser Wilhelm II, saw his mortal remains. By the time the kaiser, who was not told about Bismarck’s condition, finally arrived, the coffin had already been sealed.

But this sacred privacy that the Iron Chancellor demanded was breached by two photographers, Max Priester and Court Photographer Willy Wilcke, who took the above picture secretly. They bribed Bismarck’s forester Louis Sporcke to inform them about Bismarck’s true condition and to let them in when family members had paid their last respects and gone to bed. So around four in the morning, the pair made their way into the house and exposed several plates with the help of the magnesium flashes. The following morning, they were on their way back too Hamburg with their ‘scoop’. Their only mistake was advertising their scoop. “For the sole existing picture of Bismarck on his deathbed, photographs taken a few hours after his death, original images, a buyer or suitable publisher is sought,” read their ad in the Tagliche Rundschau of 2 August 1898. Prince Bismarck’s family promptly sent police to confiscate their plates and a civil and criminal court case ensued. Sporcke and Priester got five months each and Wilcke, eight.

In the photo, the deceased chancellor sunk into an unmade bed–totally different the imposing Bismarck of Lenbach’s portraits–was surrounded by a veritably shabby ambiance, with the chamber pot adding an almost vulgar note to the scene. This realism was what shocked the prince’s family. The confiscated picture was finally published in the Fronkfurter Illustrierte in 1952.

For a more lengthy, more detailed account of Priester-Wilcke scoop, see here.

1971 | Deaths in Dacca

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During Bangladesh’s War for Independence from Pakistan, the Mukti Bahini was the guerrilla resistance movement consisting of the Bangladeshi military, paramilitary and civilians. It was both an effective guerrilla force and a symbolic rallying point for the Bengalis.

On 16 December 1971, the Pakistani army finally surrendered, at the end of 9-month long bitter and brutal war, where the independence of Bangladesh was secured primarily with the help of the Indian soldiers aiding the liberation movement. (India’s motive was to prevent 1 million refugees emigrating from East Bengal).

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Reprisals and revenge killings began almost immediately. Monaem Khan, a loyalist, anti-Bengal ex-governor of East Pakistan was shot in the capital Dacca, with his assassin later honored with a national chivalric order, and on December 18th, two days after the independence, the Mukti Bahini staged a victory rally in a Dacca racetrack and used the gathering to seek revenge against those who they felt had sided with Pakistan during the fight for independence.

The international press was invited to the racetrack for a “photo opportunity.” Many chose not to take pictures of the scene for fear it would incite violence. Some — including Magnum’s Marc Riboud, UPI’s Peter Skingley, ITN’s Richard Linley, and Panos’ Penny Tweedie — left immediately, fearing that their very presence would incite violence. Some others like Observer’s Tony McGrath and Daily Express’s William Lovelace stayed, noting they had a duty to remain and tell the story.

Among the photographers who remained were Associated Press photographers Horst Faas and Michel Laurent, who would witness a series of actions that led to torture and death. Faas later recalled that his “hands were trembling so much I couldn’t change the film. . . . The crowd cheered and took no notice of us. I hoped the men would die quickly, but it took almost an hour.”

With burning cigarettes, the Mukti Bahini tortured the prisoners for the crowd. One of the leaders, Faas remembered, “took a bayonet from one of the soldiers and stabbed a prisoner. This was a signal for other soldiers to do this, but slowly.” After hours of torture, the Mukti Bahini executed the four men, who were suspected of collaborating with Pakistani militiamen and had been accused of murder, rape and looting. Another picture (above) showed a relative of one of these four men being stomped to death.

Many photographers deemed that the massacre would never have occurred if they (the press) were not there. Faas for his part maintained that other reporters left not because of some moral objection but because the rally was dragging on without anything much happening and it was getting dark.

Faas and Laurent decided to pool their photos and would later share the 1972 Pulitzer for their coverage. Along with Rashid Talukder’s photo of a mutilated head, the photos above became enduring images of the East Bengal War.

In India, the racetrack murderers were received with shock. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian soldiers aiding the Bengal liberation to rein their counterparts in to prevent further incidents. Citing “national interests,” the Indian government refused AP the permission to be transmitted through Calcutta. The result was that the story lingered in the international media for a longer period. The written story was published first and the pictures that were transmitted [through London] were printed a day later.

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Oscar Wilde no. 18

Above photo of Oscar Wilde is perhaps the celebrated playwright’s most famous photo. Little, however, is known about the famous controversy that surrounded the photo and its photographer Napoleon Sarony. Sarony was a famous New York photographer who took the photos of many celebrities of the day; in the days when photographers paid their famous subjects, and then retain full rights to sell the pictures, Sarony paid Sarah Bernhardt $1,500 (equivalent to $20,000) to pose for his camera.

Understandably, Sarony was mad when the Burrow-Giles Lithographic Company had marketed unauthorized lithographs of above photo in 1884. Titled ‘Oscar Wilde No. 18’, it was just one of a series of portrait Sarony took of Wilde two years before. (Inspired and not to be outdone by Sarony’s portrait, Wilde tried his hand at portraiture of another sort The Picture of Dorian Grey in 1890). The constitutionality of the extension of copyright laws to photographs was highly debated; finally, Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony reached all the way to the Supreme Court, which unanimously upheld the power of Congress to extend copyright protection to photography.

Noire et Blanche

American Dadaist and Surrealist Man Ray was one of the world’s most original photographers.  His experimental ‘Rayographs’ and photographs exemplified ‘the instability and centrality of race-changing iconography in the modern period,’ one critic remarked. By comparing and meditating the relationship between the situation and the mystique of woman and those of a ‘Negro’, Man Ray redefined that relationship all together.

Ray’s inspiration for the above photo was the two-faced Roman god Janus, a deity who stood at (and for) portals. A modernist interpretation of the Tarquinian urn, his ‘Noire et Blanche’ series of images (1926)–with its juxtaposition of Anglo and Africa, light and dark forms of beauty–simultaneously postulates and traverses a gulf between two races and cultures. From the model’s closed eye lids to the idol’s obdurate existence, every single detail in the photo was accounted for this abstract take on ‘compare-and-contrast’, which becomes more apparently when the photo itself was compared with its negative.

The model was Kiki de Montparnasse (real name Alice Prin) who was Ray’s primary muse. Noire et Blanche fetched a record $354,500 at Christie’s in New York in 2005.

Nuremberg Prison

Above is the photo of the main call block in the Nuremberg prison where the defendants before the International Military Tribunal were incarcerated. It was one of the few photos of the Nuremberg Proceedings that Life Magazine had printed. Accompanying the photo was a short description Life editors wrote: “In the rickety old jail in Nurnberg, Germany last month, 20 of the war’s top Nazi criminals passed their gloomiest Christmas. They got no special Christmans foods, no special Christmas favors from anyone during the trial’s holiday recess. In each six-by-eight cell was a small wodden table and chair, a sprindling iron bunk with straw-filled mattress and an ancient toilet without a seat. Three times a day, they ate plain food out of dented GI mess kits and twice a day, spaced 30 feeet apart, went for 20 minute walts in the tiny prison courtyard spattered with dirth snow. They spent their time reading, smoking and just staring at the bare walls of their dingy cells. At night, they slept without sheets under rough GI blankets. Still they were better off for food and shelter than most of the Europeans out of jail.”

A month earlier, on November 20, 1945, the Nuremberg trials had began. At 6 a.m. the defendants are awakened, fed oatmeal and coffee, shaved, and issued court clothing — uniforms without insignias for soldiers and suits and ties for civilians. At 9 a.m. they are brought through a covered walkway from the prison to an elevator that opens onto the prisoners’ dock in the courtroom, where they take their places on wooden benches in the order listed on the indictment. At 9:30 a.m. the courtroom doors open to 250 journalists. A half hour later, the eight judges enter and the I.M.T. convenes for the first time.

To prevent more suicides like that of Dr. Robert Ley, Germany’s ex-masters were inspected every 30 seconds. Plexiglas repleaced ordinary window glass and cells are searched daily. On entering cells, prisoners are stripped of ties, belts and shoelaces.

Sen. John McClellan

Democratic Senator from Arkansas from 1943-1977, John McClellan was an oversized personality in the Senate history. Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the Committee on Government Operations, McClellan also was the Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (1955 – 1973) and heard the case of subversive activities at U.S. Army Signal Corps Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where Soviet spies Julius Rosenberg, Al Sarant and Joel Barr worked in the 1940s. He was a participant of the famous Army-McCarthy Hearings and led a Democratic walkout of that subcommittee in protest of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s conduct in those hearings.

The above photo, uncharacteristic of usually stern and frowning senator was taken in 1949 by LIFE photographer Martha Holmes as McClellan prepares his papers for a filibuster.

Storming of the Winter Palace

The Tsarist government had fallen in March and the provisional government under Kerensky, supported by the middle-class deputies of the Duma, was barely tethering on. This was the general atmosphere when the Bolsheviks, a minority party in the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, staged a putsch now glorified as the Great October Revolution.

On the night of 25/26 October 1917 (Julian), spurred by a blank shot from the cruiser Aurora, the Bolsheviks captured Winter Palace (the seat of the Kerensky government). Since the actual siege took place at night, there were no cameras present. Yet, in the subsequent years, the storming of the Winter Palace became the centerpiece of an artificial historicizing.

To preserve the memory of this historic event, theatrical re-enactments were staged annually in the streets, and stills from these ‘ritual theaters’ were widely distributed. (Images from Bloody Sunday of 1905 were among those equally fabricated.) The above photo, one of the most well-publicized ones, was from Sergei Eisenstein’s film October, which was made from the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution in 1917. The photo was darkened and the windows of the palace “were painted white to give the illusion of a building seen at night and lighted from within”, and distributed abroad as the real thing.

Despite fire and carnage that occupies Eisenstein’s image, the storming itself as almost a bloodless affair–the Palace was guarded only by a small unit of military cadets, and they offered no resistance worth mentioning to 300-400 revolutionary soldiers who ‘storm’ the palace. The soldiers simply crossed the square and entered the palace by a side entrance. When just before two o’clock in the morning they entered the malachite hall, the ministers of Kerensky government were willing to surrender. The action was over at 3:10 am, and the Bolsheviks took power. Compared to the intensity of the later battles of the civil war, this ‘storming’ was unspectacular.

But it was not so in the eyes of many Soviet artisans. Memoirs, films and paintings embellished the episode in vivid colors. For the West, the storming marked the birth pang of that great propaganda machine that Soviets would later wield.