Photographs everyone should see

I am a firm believer in the power of photographs. I only wish I had the ability to capture moments, emotions, intangibility in a picture.

I recently stumbled upon LIFE Magazine's collection of 100 Photographs the Changed the World and was so moved by them that I wanted to share them with you.

Some are disturbing but I think that's what makes a wonderful photograph: something powerful, something that engenders incredible emotion. That reminds us we are human.

This photo was taken on a beach in Papua New Guinea on September 20, 1943, and prompted many to reconsider why our boys were being sent around the world to die. 1943 was the turning point of World War II, and as President Roosevelt felt that too many Americans were growing complacent about the war, he lifted the ban on images showing the fallen.

These are slave laborers in the Buchenwald concentration camp near Jena; many had died from malnutrition when U.S. troops of the 80th Division entered the camp. The very ill man lying at the back on the lower bunk is Max Hamburger, who had TBC and severe malnutrition. He recovered and became a psychiatrist in the Netherlands. Second row, seventh from left is future author Elie Wiesel. This shot was taken 5 days after rescue.

San Jose State University teammates Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a statement at the Mexico City Olympics by raising up gloved fists during the playing of the National Anthem in protest of racial discrimination. They had won the gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 200m run.

Learn more.

The first atomic bomb hit Hiroshima on August 6 and killed approximately 80,000 people. This image depicts the second bomb that hit Nagasaki three days later. The blasts caused so much damage at the time and also later on from cancer and other conditions caused by radiation. While this image is breathtaking, those of the damage caused on the ground are just as powerful, if not more.

Learn more.

This was the first time people were able to look into the human body without cutting into it. Wilhelm Röntgen took this x-ray of Albert von Kölliker's hand. He received the first Nobel Prize for physics in 1901.