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The 50 Most Powerful Pictures In American History

Since its invention, photography has provided a window into the events that have changed the course of our nation. Here are the images that have shocked, inspired, and moved us as a country.

July 1863 — Battlefield at Gettysburg

April 1906 — Destruction after the San Francisco earthquake

Nov. 19, 1863 — Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address

1870 — Bison skulls used as fertilizer

Dec. 17, 1903 — Flight at Kitty Hawk

March 1936 — "Migrant Mother"

May 6, 1937 — Hindenburg disaster

June 6, 1944 — Allies invade Normandy

Feb. 23, 1945 — Raising the American flag on Iwo Jima

August 1945 — The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

1945 — V-J Day in Times Square

1955 — Rosa Parks mugshot

1957 — Little Rock Nine

Aug. 28, 1963 — Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech

Nov. 22, 1963 — Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Nov. 22, 1963 — Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as president of the United States

Nov. 25, 1963 — Burial of John F. Kennedy

May 25, 1965 — Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston

June 1965 — "War Is Hell"

June 6, 1966 — James Meredith and his March Against Fear

Oct. 26, 1967 — "Flower Power"

April 4, 1968 — Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Oct. 16, 1968 — "Black Power" salute

June 6, 1968 — Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

Dec. 24, 1968 — "Earthrise"

July 20, 1969 — Astronaut Neil Armstrong

March 17, 1973 — "Burst of Joy"

July 22, 1975 — "Fire on Marlborough Street"

Dec. 8, 1980 — John Lennon's murder in New York City

Feb. 22, 1980 — "Miracle on Ice"

March 30, 1981 — Assassination attempt on President Reagan

Jan. 28, 1986 — Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

Fall 1992 — Bill Clinton runs for president

June 1995 — O.J. Simpson trials

April 2000 — The Elián González affair

Sept. 11, 2001 — President Bush is notified of the terror attacks

Sept. 11, 2001 — Attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City

Sept. 11, 2001 — Workers carry FDNY chaplain Mychal Judge

September 11, 2001 — Raising the Flag at Ground Zero

Sept. 11, 2001 — "Dust Lady"

April 9, 2003 — Fall of Saddam Hussein

Sept. 4, 2005 — Hurricane Katrina

Sept. 11, 2007 — Returning home from war

May 19, 2005 — Sunset on Mars

May 1, 2011 — Situation Room

Dec. 14, 2012 — Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting

April 15, 2013 — Boston Marathon bombing

June 26, 2015 — Legalization of same-sex marriage

April 2015 — Baltimore protests

CORRECTION

The battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, resulted in 50,000 Union and Confederate troops killed, injured, or captured during the Civil War. The original version of this post mistakenly stated that these were all KIAs.

Marcy Borders died in August 2015, a year after being diagnosed with stomach cancer. An original version of this post suggested that her illness was the result of exposure from 9/11 events, a fact we could not confirm. Likewise, a line was also cut from an original version that suggested exposure as the cause of hundreds of more deaths in the years following 9/11, a fact we could not confirm.

UPDATE

Terri Gurrola's name has been changed to her full title, "Maj. Terri Gurrola, U.S. Army, PA-C."