Photo of the Day: July 2021

An armed guard in Meru National Park, Kenya, protects endangered white rhinos from poachers. Rhinos have been under threat for decades, with the northern white rhino subspecies going extinct in the wild in 2018.

A pair of orphan chimpanzees pose together at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary in the Republic of the Congo. The sanctuary is part of the Jane Goodall Institute, and focuses on studying and rehabilitating orphaned chimps.

The December 1997 issue featured a profile of Sita, a female tiger who lived in India's Bandhavgarh National Park. Here, Sita moves a cub to keep it safe from prey before setting out to hunt.

Thousands of New York National Guard soldiers marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1917 before shipping off to fight in World War I. Reports say the parade took five hours to pass.

Members of Cambodia's national women's wheelchair basketball team practice in Phnom Penh, getting ready for the 2018 Asian Para Games. 

A story in the February 2001 issue detailed efforts to rehabilitate the swampy marshlands of New Jersey. Here, a woman tends to a butterfly garden she planted on the site of an old metal-plating factory.

A February 1990 story looked at the lives on either side of the Canada-U.S. border. In this picture, Canadians camp out in a parking lot in Washington State before hauling back duty-free goods.

Boats that used to haul in tons of fish every year now sit and rust near the former port of Muynoq, Uzbekistan, since the Aral Sea dried up here in the 1980s.

A February 1993 story documented an archaeological dig for Mayan artifacts in northern Guatemala. One item found is this commemorative stone slab dated to A.D. 731, bearing the likeness of a Mayan warrior.

Brothers hang out on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, Florida, in the early 1990s. A January 1992 magazine story examined how many different cultures combined in Miami to create a unique community.

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon on July 20, 1969. In his helmet reflection you can see his crewmate, Neil Armstrong, and the lunar module Eagle.

In the village of Qalahye Panjah, Afghanistan, children gather early in the morning on the Muslim high holiday of Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice. They look forward to eating the meat of a slaughtered sheep, which will also be shared with friends and the poor.

An ice cream truck parks outside the Castle Green wing of the historic Hotel Green in Los Angeles, California. In 2021, the food truck industry is expected to grow at a faster rate than the traditional restaurant industry.

The sun lights up cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Ancestral Puebloans built the structures in the 12th century, and they wouldn't be rediscovered for more than 700 years.

In the Great Lameshur Bay, Virgin Islands, Dr. Richard Chesher uses a camera housed in a device called an OceanEye, devised by photographer Bates Littlehales—who took this photo. This picture appeared in an August 1971 story about Tektite II, an underwater laboratory.

The December 1995 issue's cover story profiled world-famous primatologist Jane Goodall. In this photo, she writes letters under a mosquito net in her home in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

In Chobe National Park, Botswana, an elephant gives himself a dust bath. The dust will keep him cool as well as keep parasites and insects at bay.

River rafters go tubing down the Ichetucknee River in Florida. This picture appeared in the July 1977 issue's cover story on preserving America's wild rivers.

In Winnemucca, Nevada, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rounds up wild horses using a variety of tools. More than half of all wild horses in America live in Nevada, and the BLM works to keep a balance between the wild herds and the surrounding ecosystem.

Before the desert sand swallowed them up, the walls around this farm in Mauritania measured four feet high. Overgrazing and deforestation, when added to the Sahel's drought, have led the desert to expand quickly, pushing people to more hospitable climes.

An ostrich flock runs across Namibia's Etosha Pan. The fleet-footed land birds can hit speeds of faster than 40 miles per hour.

A story in the March 2018 issue looked at the devastating effects of lakes drying up due to climate change. Here, a cargo boat rests on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, upon which more than 10 million people rely for food, work, water, and transportation.

Two scientists stand next to lava and sparks spewing from Mount Etna, Italy. Mount Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, with documented eruptions dating back to 1500 B.C.

A couple celebrates their wedding at a Fourth of July parade in Atlanta, Georgia. The July 1988 issue, in which this picture originally appeared, featured an in-depth look at Atlanta as the "undisputed capital of the New South."

Badlands National Park in South Dakota is made up of jagged and striped rock formations. Before it was seized by the U.S. government in the 1920s, the land was inhabited and seen as sacred by the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe.