Photographer Page

Photograph via Bettmann

The British ocean liner Britannic was launched on the eve of World War I and soon converted into a hospital ship. Jessop was serving as a nurse aboard the vessel when it struck a German mine and sank in less than an hour—three times faster than Titanic.

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Polish Jews were forced into ghettos like this one in Warsaw. This image taken by an unknown German photographer was later exhibited at the war crime trials that sought to hold the Nazis and their collaborators accountable after the war.

Bikini Atoll residents are evacuated ahead of the first nuclear test there in 1946. Tests of the U.S.’s biggest thermonuclear bombs were reserved for the Pacific Proving Grounds, located mainly in the Marshall Islands. The U.S. carried out 23 tests at Bikini Atoll.

For the 1953 Annie test, officials built a mock town—complete with homes, cars, and mannequins arranged in everyday activities—to see how they would withstand the blast.

Guests at a hotel pool in Las Vegas, Nevada, watch a mushroom cloud rise from the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles north of the city.

Queen Elizabeth II receives Apollo 11 astronauts Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin at Buckingham Palace as part of their world tour in October 1969, just months after their historic moon landing.

On a New York City street, passersby gather to watch the queen's coronation on a store's display television.

Viewers all over the world were captivated by the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II—the first ever to be televised. In Vancouver, Canada, more than 1,200 people gathered at this community center to watch the festivities.