‘The sight of it is still shocking’: 46 pictures that inform the story of the century thus far | Photography

At the flip of the century there was a modest debate, primarily carried out on the letters pages of the newspapers – again then, nonetheless the prime discussion board for public dialogue – as to when, precisely, the brand new millennium and the Twenty first century started. Most assumed the beginning date was 1 January 2000, however dissenters, swiftly branded pedants, insisted the right date got here a yr later. As it turned out, each have been flawed.

The Twenty first century started in earnest, a minimum of within the western thoughts, on a day that nobody had circled of their diaries. Out of a transparent blue sky, two passenger jets flew into the dual towers of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 and so inaugurated a brand new age of hysteria – a interval during which we now have lived ever since.

The historian Eric Hobsbawm had already spoken of the brief twentieth century, which ran from the beginning of the primary world conflict in 1914 to the autumn of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It was adopted by the lengthy decade of the 90s, which got here to resemble a contented pause, a holiday from history, till it was rudely terminated on that vivid New York morning.

The sight of it’s nonetheless surprising. Nearly 25 years later, the portrait of an ash-covered sculpture, depicting a businessman and his briefcase, is as unsettling now as when it first appeared. Never thoughts that he was at all times a statue. The frozen Manhattan man, intact whereas all the things round him lies in ruins, could possibly be one of many petrified figures of Pompeii, a completely preserved emissary from a earlier world: the world earlier than 9/11.

For some time, it appeared as if the brand new period could be fully outlined by the 11 September assaults and the response to them. The “war on terror” declared by George W Bush threatened to remake the globe in keeping with the preferences of the nation that, after the expiry of the Soviet Union, was now a solo hegemon: the US. After the invasion of Afghanistan, which might see US troops put in within the nation for 20 years, got here the US-­led conquest of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein – alongside together with his statue – bringing loss of life and devastation there and roiling each the Middle East and politics throughout a lot of the democratic world, together with Britain.

The slogan of the hour was “the clash of civilisations” and many believed that wrestle would dwarf all others within the new century. The reverberations of Iraq have been definitely felt for a few years, whether or not within the Arab spring, the delivery of Islamic State or the persistent menace of violent jihadism. But that wrestle has needed to share house within the Twenty first century with others.

Not that that was apparent straight away. At first, it appeared as if hope would possibly edge out worry, that the brand new millennium would possibly see change for the higher. Barack Obama gained a Nobel peace prize earlier than he’d actually performed something, in recognition of the optimism he stirred by way of his profitable 2008 marketing campaign, captured right here in a picture of the politician who, as he preferred to comment, didn’t appear like some other US president.

Easy because it was to deride that feelgood sentiment as “hopey, changey”, extra vibe than actuality, there was numerous it about. Science and expertise, particularly, have been considered filled with promise. For some, that meant the thrill of the Large Hadron Collider, the largest machine ever constructed. For others, it was the prospect of instantaneous types of social connection, delivered by a brand new breed of younger, nerdy males in a position to flip 1s and 0s into magic. Just have a look at the picture right here of Mark Zuckerberg and fellow Facebook founder Chris Hughes, delightedly unaware that it was not the pc on Zuckerberg’s lap they’d simply opened, however Pandora’s field.

For some time, the optimism held, with tech and its birthing of social media celebrated as a treatment for all method of ills, even the one which had introduced the arrival of the century. The males of violence had introduced 9/11, however a decade later Facebook and Twitter gave the impression to be harbingers of democracy, enabling these Arab spring uprisings, and others, in opposition to hated dictatorships.

It wouldn’t work out that approach, and never solely due to the lengthy shadow forged by the conflict on terror. On one other September day, in one other steel-and-glass citadel of finance, there got here one other collapse, one whose impression remains to be felt. The implosion of Lehman Brothers was on the centre of a worldwide crash that marked the top of an financial vacation from historical past that had endured because the 90s.

The stagnation that adopted, with wages static or falling in actual phrases, created the backdrop for the political upheavals that marked the following 20 years. Yet it was removed from the one shock the world needed to take up.

The local weather disaster was a continuing all through, as it’s on this assortment, making its presence felt in fireplace and flood, whether or not submerging Pakistan or New Orleans. (Bush’s catastrophic mishandling of that catastrophe is another reason why he has been fortunate in his newest successor: if it weren’t for the present occupant of the White House, W’s place as probably the most reviled US president of the early Twenty first century would have been assured.)

In 2020, we have been struck by a worldwide pandemic that may nonetheless appear to be a collective dangerous dream. To have a look at {a photograph} such because the one right here of an aged Spanish couple, separated for 100 days and by sheets of plastic, is to ask: did that actually occur?

There are different footage that look now like early warnings of bother to return. The “separation wall” encircling the West Bank is a reminder that, after the failure of peace talks at Camp David in 2000, there was an additional 25 years of Israeli-Palestinian battle, so as to add to the many years that went earlier than, culminating within the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza that exploded on 7 October 2023 and has solely just lately paused. Similarly, the picture from Ukraine in 2014 seems now like a premonition of the Russian invasion of 2022.

These have been turbulent years, roiled by tradition wars and a long-delayed reckoning over race – how extraordinary now to recall that taking the knee started with a single athlete making a single gesture – and by huge actions of individuals. The agony of immediately’s refugee disaster is distilled within the sight of a two-year-old baby, Alan Kurdi, face down on a seashore. That cauldron of discontents was stirred additional by tech platforms that have been now not about previous associates reconnecting, however about strangers dividing in opposition to one another, their sources of knowledge filtered alongside partisan strains, till they could possibly be persuaded to imagine nearly something, and often the worst.

All of these currents fed into the motion that has outlined the final decade or so, embodied by Boris Johnson and his infamous Brexit bus – a lie on wheels – and, after all, by the person who’s the face of those instances: Donald Trump. That motion is nationalist populism and it feeds on the various plagues of the Twenty first century, from stalled or declining residing requirements to social media, adroitly channelling unease and worry into hostility in the direction of migrants, minorities and one another. Gaze upon the titans of tech come to pay homage to Trump as he returned to the White House in January and also you see we live by way of what the Italian author Giuliano da Empoli calls “the hour of the predator”.

Yet there are sufficient photos of marvel right here to imagine the remainder of the Twenty first century is perhaps totally different: have a look at the selfie taken by the Mars rover to be reminded of what we’re able to. The subsequent 25 years aren’t any extra preordained than the final. Like the cameras that captured these extraordinary moments, they’re in our palms.

Picture captions by Felix Bazalgette and Gabrielle Schwarz

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Liberty Plaza, New York, 2001

By Susan Meiselas

When information got here of the primary airplane crashing into one of many twin towers on 11 September 2001, Susan Meiselas cycled downtown together with her digicam – “moving toward what everyone else was desperately fleeing from”, with “no sense of the scale of what had happened”.

For her, this picture stands out as a uncommon second of “stillness amid the chaos”. It reveals a lifesize statue of a businessman, Double Check (1982) by John Seward Johnson II, surrounded by particles in Liberty Plaza Park, throughout from the World Trade Center. Initially Meiselas couldn’t inform if it was an actual particular person.

Today, she sees the statue as an emblem of the try to make sense of the enormity of 9/11 and its horrible aftermath: George W Bush’s “war on terror”. “A lot has happened as a consequence. Even the endless lines of security at the airport – these are small reminders of our distrust of each other.” GS

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An Iraqi man comforts his son, 2003

By Jean-Marc Bouju

On 31 March 2003, an Iraqi man and his four-­year-­previous baby have been arrested by American forces and brought to a prisoner of conflict camp close to the southern Iraqi metropolis of Najaf. French photojournalist Jean-Marc Bouju snapped the second simply after they’d eliminated the person’s handcuffs, so he may consolation his distressed son.

The picture gained the World Press Photo of the yr award, and captured for a lot of the cruelty of the US’s invasion of Iraq. The hooded determine, making an attempt to protect some humanity in an overwhelmingly hostile scenario, foreshadows the notorious photos of abused prisoners taken by American troopers in Abu Ghraib jail, which might hit the headlines not lengthy after. FB

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Toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue, 2003

By Sean Smith

The picture of Saddam Hussein’s statue being pulled down in Baghdad as American forces entered the town on 9 April 2003 grew to become one of many iconic photos of the conflict. It was promoted by the Pentagon as an emblem of Iraqis joyously greeting the overthrow of their hated dictator.

“I’m happy with the picture,” photographer Sean Smith says, “but not with things that may be ascribed to it – as a defining moment, say, because it wasn’t.” Even on the time, Smith felt “uneasy about becoming part of a false narrative”. He had been in Baghdad for months, as conflict had inched nearer, and bought to know many Iraqis. He knew the scenario was extra complicated: “This wasn’t the liberation of Paris.” Most of the group that day, he remembers, have been journalists staying in an overlooking resort. “It was getting to their deadline time,” he remembers, “and they wanted a headline.”

Looking again, Smith can be saddened by the phantasm of finality the {photograph} represents. When he returned to Iraq for work years later, one dialog in regards to the invasion caught with him. When an American soldier argued that it had been vital for the liberty of the Iraqis, an Iraqi interpreter replied, “All I know is that everyone knows someone who’s died.” FB

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Separation Wall, West Bank, 2004

By Alessandra Sanguinetti

It is an emblem of one of the crucial enduring conflicts of the century. In 2002, in the course of the second intifada, the Israeli authorities began to construct what is named the Separation Wall: a barrier between Israel and the West Bank, which it has occupied illegally since 1967. This picture reveals kids dwarfed by an eight-metre-high part of wall at Abu Dis, a Palestinian village within the suburbs of Jerusalem reduce off from the remainder of the town. The permits Palestinians have to cross the wall are laborious to acquire, so motion is severely restricted.

The barrier, which has been deemed unlawful by the International Court of Justice, was “presented as a security measure”, explains Emma Graham-Harrison, the Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, after a spate of suicide bombings focusing on Israeli civilians. “However, it also functioned as both a land grab and a key step in enforcing separation. In some ways, it was a template for what Israel attempted to do with its fence enclosing Gaza: the idea that you could contain Palestinians physically without having to engage with them as fellow human beings or consider their political aspirations.” GS

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Facebook founders Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Hughes, 2004

By Rick Friedman

“I got a call from an editor,” Boston-based photographer Rick Friedman remembers: “‘I need you to go over to Harvard and photograph these two kids with their computers.’” It was 14 May, just a few months after Zuckerberg and Hughes had based a social media website that, in its earliest iteration, invited college students to price the attractiveness of feminine classmates. Friedman remembers

the younger pair have been “very agreeable”, but additionally remembers pondering, “Is this some kid trying to get a date with his computer?” FB

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Chicken processing plant, 2005

By Edward Burtynsky

It is typically stated we live within the Chinese century. Rapid industrialisation has seen China develop into an financial superpower – the “world’s factory” –accounting for as much as 30% of worldwide manufacturing output. Edward Burtynsky, whose acclaimed pictures doc the consequences of human business across the globe, started working there in 2002. On one go to, struck by the variety of rooster farms, he grew to become inquisitive about China’s meals business.

This picture reveals one of many nation’s largest poultry-processing amenities, the Jilin Deda manufacturing unit in Dehui metropolis, the place merchandise have been being ready for export to Japan. “I’m always trying to find ways to represent in one frame the larger-than-life scale of what’s happening,” Burtynsky says. GS

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Disaster lady, 2005

By Dave Roth

The idea of a meme as a self-replicating nugget of knowledge was first popularised by Richard Dawkins within the Seventies within the context of genetics. But it was on this century that memes took off on-line, and have become family names.

This picture, declared “one of the most famous memes in history”, has humble origins. In 2005, Zoë Roth, AKA “Disaster Girl”, and her beginner photographer father have been watching an area fireplace division coaching train, during which a donated home had been set on fireplace. Her father informed her to smile and snapped the picture. Drawn to the “evil” smile, individuals Photoshopped in different disasters – the Titanic, the Hindenburg. FB

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Man throughout Hurricane Katrina, 2005

By Robert Galbraith

“George Bush does not care about Black people,” a 28-year-old Kanye West introduced throughout a telethon to boost cash for catastrophe reduction within the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Making landfall on the Gulf coast on 29 August 2005, it flooded 80% of New Orleans, killing 1,500 individuals and displacing roughly 1.5 million – nevertheless it was the deeper faultlines in American society, brutally revealed by the catastrophe, that got here to outline it.

As former MP Oona King, who visited the town shortly after the catastrophe, wrote, “The remarkable thing about Hurricane Katrina was that, like a bolt of lightning, it clearly and unavoidably illuminated the chilling impact of race.” FB

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Paris, Lindsay and Britney behind the wheel, 2006

Photographer unknown

“This photo became the moment that defined an era,” wrote Paris Hilton on Instagram in November 2024, marking the 18th anniversary of this well-known paparazzi shot of her with Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears on the peak of their fame, crammed within the entrance seat of Hilton’s automobile exterior the Beverly Hills resort. The picture was splashed throughout the papers; within the New York Post, it ran with the headline “Bimbo Summit”.

At the time, it was the quintessential picture of 2000s superstar glamour. All three ladies have since spoken out about their therapy by the media: the misogynistic scrutiny and judgment that unfold far past superstar circles. “They loved pitting women against each other,” Hilton has stated. “It was so vicious.” GS

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Rangers taking away a mountain gorilla, 2007

By Brent Stirton

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga nationwide park, Africa’s oldest conservation space, is exceptionally biodiverse – and one of the crucial harmful locations to work. Since 1996, greater than 200 rangers have been killed in a sequence of conflicts.

Photographer Brett Stirton took this image after seven uncommon mountain gorillas have been killed by hostile gunmen desirous to warn rangers to not disrupt unlawful charcoal manufacturing within the space. Locals and park staff carried the our bodies to a burial website. “Everyone was silent,” Stirton recalled later. “It was very reverent.”

Not all is misplaced. Last yr, analysis revealed within the journal Science discovered conservation efforts around the globe have been serving to stem the decline of biodiversity. “Our results clearly show there is room for hope,” one co-author stated. FB

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Large Hadron Collider, 2007

By Simon Norfolk

One of this century’s greatest scientific discoveries occurred within the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s strongest particle accelerator, which opened at Cern in Geneva in 2008. This picture was taken when building was below approach.

Still the most important machine ever constructed, it consists of a 27km ring of superconducting magnets in a tunnel 100 metres underground. The magnets, chilled to a temperature decrease than in outer house, are used to propel high-energy particle beams into collisions. By learning the outcomes of those, particle physicists hope to reply questions in regards to the important workings of the universe. In 2012, they made a main breakthrough: the invention of the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle”. GS

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Steve Jobs with the primary iPhone, 2007

By Kimberly White

In January 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the primary iPhone. “We are all born with the ultimate pointing device – our fingers – and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse,” the Apple CEO stated. (For his demo, seen right here, he needed to observe a fastidiously deliberate “golden path” to keep away from glitches; the software program wasn’t but completed.)

The touchscreen smartphone was launched six months later, completely remodeling the way in which we talk. Today greater than 1.4bn iPhones are in use globally. GS

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Lehman Brothers employees, 2008

By Kevin Coombs

This picture of employees on the Lehman Brothers workplaces in London’s Canary Wharf was taken on 11 September 2008. Over the previous yr, the worldwide monetary system had been exhibiting cracks. Now Lehman was in bother, with its share worth plummeting and rumours of a buyout.

“This meeting was called just before lunch,” stated Gwion Moore (again left, minus the grey-suit banker trousers as a result of his work garments have been on the cleaner’s). “A couple of senior bankers made a speech, saying, ‘We’re not going bankrupt, get back to work.’”

Four days later, Lehman did go bankrupt. “Trust evaporated and funds stopped flowing around the world,” says financial historian Catherine Schenk. What adopted was the worst monetary disaster because the Great Depression. “It reminded us that, as in 1930, failures in the richest countries could spark a financial crisis that had repercussions in markets everywhere.” GS

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Construction of the Burj Khalifa Tower, Dubai, 2008

By Philippe Chancel

Shown right here within the final phases of its building – and already towering over all the things that surrounds it – the Burj Khalifa in Dubai has held the document for the world’s tallest constructing since opening its doorways in January 2010. The neofuturist mega-scraper, with its 163 flooring reaching 828 metres excessive, isn’t just a dizzying feat of engineering: it’s a image of the equally dizzying, oil-fuelled rise of the Gulf states within the Twenty first century.

In this period of enlargement, flashy improvement initiatives have change into a significant instrument of sentimental energy: what the critic Rowan Moore has referred to as a “cultural and architectural arms race”. The race remains to be on: the Burj Khalifa is quickly to be eclipsed by the Jeddah Tower in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which is scheduled for completion – with a peak of 1,000 metres – by 2028. GS

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Barack Obama on the marketing campaign path, 2008

By Damon Winter

“It was one of those moments that gets stuck in your head,” Damon Winter remembers. “Part of it was the irony that a memorable photo could come from such a banal setting – a podium in front of an American flag.” Yet all the things lined up, from the shaft of sunshine to Obama’s smile, and immediately the picture captures one thing of the optimism and dynamism of his 2008 marketing campaign – qualities absent from many different campaigns of the century. “It was a very optimistic time,” Winter says. “The country was experiencing this momentous change.”

Unlike different politicians Winter had coated, Obama “seemed like the same person on stage as he was when interacting with people. It seemed to me that he was really interested in people.” FB

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Northern lights over the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, 2010

By Lucas Jackson

In spring 2010, after 187 years of silence, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on the south coast of Iceland started a robust eruption. It spewed nice volcanic ash excessive into the environment, which started blowing in the direction of the UK and western Europe. Almost all flights within the area have been grounded because of fears that the ash would clog and stall jet engines.

Stranded in Iceland, photographer Lucas Jackson was in a position to seize this spectacular picture of the northern lights enjoying over the erupting volcano. “When you’re a photographer,” he informed the Guardian in 2010, “it’s really rare to actually be exactly where you want to be to take the shot. We were laughing about how crazy it all was.” FB

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Pakistan floods, 2010

By Daniel Berehulak

In the summer time of 2010, record-breaking rains led to excessive flooding in Pakistan. At the height, one-fifth of the nation was submerged. Nearly 2,000 individuals died and greater than 20 million have been affected, with houses and crops misplaced. Though unprecedented on the time, such extreme flooding has since change into a recurring occasion, together with this summer time.

As temperatures rise internationally, floods have gotten extra frequent and intense. Unsurprisingly, poorer nations and communities are most affected. But, as UN secretary normal António Guterres warned earlier this yr, “No country is safe.” GS

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Fukushima catastrophe, 2011

Photographer unknown

On 11 March 2011, a huge 9.0 undersea earthquake off the north-­east coast of Japan triggered a tsunami that killed an estimated 20,000 individuals. More than a million buildings have been broken, together with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the place three reactors went into meltdown after flooding of the facility provide disabled the cooling programs. It was the worst nuclear accident in historical past after Chornobyl.

Several staff have been injured in explosions on the facility and greater than 100,000 individuals within the wider area have been evacuated to keep away from radiation publicity. It’s estimated that 2,313 “indirect deaths” resulted from bodily and psychological stress, and that 29,000 individuals stay displaced. GS

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Tahrir Square, 2011

By Moises Saman

The central Cairo roundabout often known as Tahrir Square grew to become the symbolic centre of the Arab spring in early 2011, although the motion itself had started the yr earlier than in Tunisia, after market vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, a goal of presidency harassment and corruption, set himself on fireplace exterior a governor’s workplace.

“The Arab world was ripe with hope,” wrote Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Yet “these expectations were quickly shattered”. The assassination of Khashoggi that yr, on the orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, mirrored the broader slide into violence: Syria, Libya and Yemen have since suffered years of brutal civil conflict, and Egypt stays below the iron-fisted rule of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who got here to energy after the protests. FB

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Boy in Liberia being handled for Ebola, 2014

By Daniel Berehulak

From late 2013 to 2016, the worst Ebola virus outbreak in historical past killed greater than 11,000 individuals within the west African nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The fatality price for recorded circumstances was 40%, attributed to poor requirements of care, distrust of medical authorities and a global response prioritising containment over therapy.

Daniel Berehulak photographed James Dorbor, eight, being carried right into a clinic within the Liberian capital of Monrovia in September 2014; his well being had deteriorated throughout a three-hour wait to be admitted. His father was not allowed to embrace him when medical employees lastly took him in, carrying him, Berehulak stated, “like he was a bag of garbage”. GS

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By José Palazón

In 2014, Melilla – a tiny slice of Spanish territory in Morocco – grew to become emblematic of the rise of “Fortress Europe” insurance policies within the Twenty first century. Human rights activist José Palazón captured the second a gaggle of males making an attempt to cross Melilla’s border grew to become caught on a razor wire fence for hours whereas Spanish golfers continued their sport under. Eight years later, Melilla would change into the positioning of a bloodbath during which a minimum of 37 individuals making an attempt to cross into Spain have been killed by border guards.

Palazón shared his picture on Twitter, with the caption: “Immigrants on the fence, expulsions and a game of golf. Only in Melilla.” The surreal picture of inequality rapidly went viral. “It seemed like a good moment to take a photo that was a bit more symbolic,” he later stated. FB

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Priest at Ukraine’s Maidan protests, 2014

By Jérôme Sessini

Russia’s devastating conflict on Ukraine might be traced again to “Euromaidan” – the anti-government protests, centred in Kyiv, that started in November 2013 after then president Viktor Yanukovych gave in to Russian strain and withdrew from an settlement that may have introduced the nation nearer to the EU. On the rebellion’s bloodiest day, 20 February 2014, Jérôme Sessini, who had arrived only a day earlier than, documented what he noticed – “not even thinking about the danger” – together with this Orthodox priest blessing protesters at a barricade. More than 50 of them have been shot lifeless that day. GS

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Oscars selfie, 2014

By Ellen DeGeneres

The origins of the time period “selfie” are humble: an Australian man posting a substandard image of his bruised lip to a web based discussion board in 2002. “Sorry about the focus,” he wrote. “It was a selfie.” The subsequent yr, gross sales of telephones with front-facing cameras started to extend and by 2013 “selfie” was Oxford Dictionaries’ phrase of the yr.

Organised by Ellen DeGeneres on the Oscars, this selfie broke the web. Eleven years on, it’d be cursed: Kevin Spacey would face damning sexual abuse allegations, Brangelina broke up. FB

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Italian rescue, 2014

By Massimo Sestini

The variety of individuals risking crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, fleeing wars and persecution within the Middle East and Africa, rose dramatically within the mid-2010s. In 2013, the Italian authorities launched its search-and-rescue operation Mare Nostrum, after a whole lot died in two shipwrecks off Lampedusa.

Shot from a helicopter, Massimo Sestini’s picture reveals 500 individuals on a boat 25km from Libya’s coast, earlier than they have been rescued by Italy’s navy as a part of an operation controversially halted that yr. At least 20,000 have died or disappeared within the Med since. GS

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The loss of life of Alan Kurdi, 2015

By Nilüfer Demir

On 2 September 2015, photojournalist Nilüfer Demir noticed the physique of a toddler, Alan Kurdi, on a seashore close to Bodrum, Turkey. “There was nothing left to do for him,” she stated later, “except take his photograph. And that’s exactly what I did.”

Alan was born in Syria in 2012. His household had been making an attempt to achieve Greece, however quickly after their boat launched, it overturned and Alan and his mom drowned. “I was holding my wife’s hand,” his grief-stricken father later informed the media, “but my children slipped through my hands. It was dark and everyone was screaming.”

Demir’s surprising picture rapidly unfold. But, regardless of protests, a spike in donations to charities and western governments promising to do extra, the Med stays the world’s deadliest border. FB

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Caitlyn Jenner, 2015

By Annie Leibovitz

It was a excessive level in the motion for trans visibility. In June 2015, Caitlyn Jenner made her public debut in a portrait by Annie Leibovitz on the quilt of Vanity Fair. It immediately had constructive assist and Jenner grew to become the quickest particular person to hit 1 million Twitter followers, earlier than dealing with a backlash when she got here out as a Trump voter.

Since then, trans rights have been rolled again within the US and UK, however assist stays robust. Earlier this yr, the world’s largest trans satisfaction march took place in London, with a 100,000-strong crowd. GS

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Usain Bolt’s Olympics “triple triple”, 2016

By Cameron Spencer

“There you go, I’m the greatest,” stated Usain Bolt when he achieved an unprecedented three consecutive Olympic golds (in 2008, 2012, 2016) in three races. Here, within the Rio 100m semi-final, “Lightning Bolt” appears to have discovered time to flash the digicam a smile. He was the truth is checking whether or not the runner to his left was catching up: “I saw I had him covered, and I smiled.” GS

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By Jack Taylor

Brexit is, for a lot of, the bottom zero of what Marina Hyde referred to as “an age of gathering chaos and rising disbelief” within the UK.

The “Brexit bus”, reportedly masterminded by Dominic Cummings however intently related to Boris Johnson, grew to become the topic of bitter arguments and an emblem of the chaos that has engulfed the UK since. Its slogan, claiming the UK despatched £350m every week to the EU, was disputed, with the UK Statistics Authority deeming it “a clear misuse of official statistics”. Research by the Nuffield Trust has proven Brexit has the truth is put unprecedented pressure on the NHS. FB

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Colin Kaepernick taking the knee, 2016

By Marcio José Sánchez

On 1 September 2016, throughout a San Francisco 49ers pre-season sport, the quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled whereas America’s nationwide anthem was performed, in protest at police violence in opposition to Black individuals. His gesture was adopted by teammates – this picture reveals him with Eli Harold and Eric Reid – then unfold internationally, changing into linked to the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in spring 2020. The gesture was extremely controversial: Kaepernick was ousted from the league a yr later and has by no means once more performed for an NFL workforce. FB

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An assassination in Turkey, 2016

By Burhan Ozbilic

“We die in Aleppo, you die here,” shouted Turkish off-duty riot squad officer Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş after killing the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, at a gallery in Ankara, in protest on the actions of the Russian army in Syria. Soon after photographer Burhan Ozbilic snapped this unsettling picture. Altıntaş was shot and killed by police. FB

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Women’s March, 2017

By Bryan Woolston

In January 2017, the day after Donald Trump’s first inauguration as president, hundreds of thousands of girls gathered internationally – together with 500,000 in Washington – mobilised by his misogyny and sexual assault allegations. It was one of many largest single-day protests in US historical past, and 9 months later its vitality fed into the #MeToo motion, which started as a disquieting story of 1 Hollywood producer’s abuse of girls and shortly become a worldwide reckoning. GS

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Amazone, 2017

By Andreas Gursky

In 2017, the eminent German photographer Andreas Gursky, identified for his huge, detailed, era-defining landscapes, educated his digicam on an Amazon warehouse in Arizona packed full of products destined for purchasers. This century has seen web procuring go from a area of interest experiment – in 2000, the Guardian reported that anxieties about postage time had led to a “collapse” of on-line pre-Christmas e-book gross sales – to one of the crucial frequent methods to make a buy. FB

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Sophia the Robot, 2017

By Giulio Di Sturco

“It was super weird,” remembers Giulio Di Sturco of his go to to a Hong Kong lab to {photograph} Sophia the Robot. “Pieces of robots everywhere, five guys working like mechanics – to think the future might be built in this kind of space.”

The concept that Sophia represented a significant leap in AI was huge information: the following yr, she grew to become a citizen of Saudi Arabia – the primary robotic to be granted authorized personhood wherever. There have been sceptics, nonetheless, and ChatGPT’s arrival in 2022 would possibly counsel the way forward for AI is in chatbots and datacentres as a substitute. But Di Sturco believes the humanoid robotic’s time remains to be to return. “They were on the edge of something interesting,” he says. FB

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Megan Rapinoe, 2019

By Franck Fife

After many years during which their sport was dwarfed by males’s, ladies are profitable followers for his or her enjoying and inclusivity. Megan Rapinoe’s victory pose after scoring for the US within the 2019 World Cup went viral: an emblem of each her athleticism and her advocacy on points together with LGBTQ+ rights and psychological well being. GS

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Stormzy headlining Glastonbury, 2019

By Samir Hussein

“This is the best night of my entire life,” a 25-year-old Stormzy informed the group throughout his historic set at Glastonbury in 2019, as the primary Black British solo act to headline the competition. Wearing a Banksy-designed union jack stab vest, Stormzy crafted a set that each celebrated Black British tradition – with visitor performances from Ballet Black, WAR collective and Dave – and critiqued racism within the UK. Praised by everybody from David Lammy, Zadie Smith and Jeremy Corbyn to Adele and Ghetts, the efficiency went out of its technique to educate its viewers and reference the various acts that had come earlier than to make it doable. “This was about arrival,” Smith wrote within the New Yorker, “of a king and his court and the many, many people who have hoped for this day.” FB

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Covid kiss, 2020

By Emilio Morenatti

This picture reveals the emotional reunion of Agustina Cañamero and Pascual Pérez, a pair of their 80s, in a nursing residence in Barcelona in June 2020. Husband and spouse had been separated for 102 days within the first lockdown – their longest time aside in 59 years of marriage. The picture has come to symbolise how lives worldwide have been upended by Covid.

The international well being emergency was declared over in May 2023, and should really feel like a distant reminiscence. Yet greater than seven million individuals have died so far, and plenty of others are coping with grief or long-term well being points. “Most of my generation have been affected in deep, developmental ways and that’s going to affect us for ever,” 21-year-old pupil Eoin O’Loughlin informed the Guardian, in a 2023 sequence on the “Covid Generation”. GS

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Storming of the Capitol, 2021

By Victor J Blue

On 6 January 2021, within the wake of Joe Biden’s election win, a crowd started to peel off from Trump’s fiery speech during which he accused the Democrats of stealing the election from him. Photographer Victor J Blue adopted them as they broke into the Capitol buildings, and took this image after they’d been expelled – law enforcement officials, working out of pepper spray, have been letting off fireplace extinguishers in an try to discourage protesters from breaking again in, which accounts for the “smoke” on the centre of the picture. FB

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Life on Mars, 2021

By Perseverance

Was there as soon as life on Mars? And may the planet, as Elon Musk believes, provide us a house when Earth turns into uninhabitable? It’s no shock its exploration has been the dominant story of the Twenty first-century house race thus far. Nasa’s Perseverance rover landed in February 2021, trying to find indicators of previous life, so we will higher perceive the planet’s habitability.

This selfie, taken in 2024, is “such a nice encapsulation of what Nasa’s mission is all about”, says undertaking scientist Katie Stack Morgan. Stitched collectively from 62 photos (which is why the rover’s arm is lacking), it reveals Perseverance alongside the helicopter Ingenuity – the primary plane to finish a powered, managed flight on one other planet. As for colonising the Red Planet, Stack Morgan factors out we would first “ask whether we have been good stewards of our own planet”. GS

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Greek wildfire, 2021

By Konstantinos Tsakalidis

“At that moment,” stated 81-year-old Panayiota Kritsiopi, “I was shouting not only for myself, but for the whole village.” She was photographed as an enormous wildfire on the Greek island of Evia compelled hundreds to flee and ultimately burned greater than half the island. Miraculously, Kritsiopi’s residence could be spared; the hearth reportedly stopped a metre from her home.

That yr was rapidly surpassed by 2022, then 2024, as Europe’s hottest on document, whereas this summer time noticed the worst wildfire season in European historical past. FB

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Activists throwing soup at Van Gogh, 2022

Photographer unknown

“It was surreal,” remembers Just Stop Oil activist Anna Holland (proper) of the day they and Phoebe Plummer approached a Van Gogh portray within the National Gallery, London, can in hand. “Almost before I knew it, we were throwing the soup.”

The stunt was a part of a wave of local weather motion that has flourished this century, targeted on symbolic targets reminiscent of this (safely protected behind glass). Though the pair have been sentenced to jail below Britain’s more and more draconian protest legal guidelines, they impressed fellow soup throwers worldwide. FB

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The loss of life of Queen Elizabeth II, 2022

By Ben Stansall

The queen’s loss of life on 8 September 2022, at 96, ended a 70-year reign – the longest of any UK monarch.

Some 250,000 individuals joined the (very British) queue to see her mendacity in state forward of the funeral, itself watched by 29 million TV viewers within the UK.

Here, her son, Charles III – at 73, the oldest particular person to succeed the throne – walks beside her coffin in Westminster Abbey. His grief is palpable, however past loss there’s uncertainty: what subsequent? GS

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IVF rhino foetus, 2023

By Jon A Juárez

In March 2018, tragedy struck: Sudan, the final northern white male rhino, died. With solely two females left, the species was functionally extinct. Then, a flash of hope: a foetus created utilizing sperm taken from males earlier than they died.

Sadly, the mom died of an unrelated an infection. But checks confirmed the tiny foetus would most likely have survived. Said photographer Jon A Juárez, “Though the story is bittersweet, the foetus proves the science works. If we support scientists’ efforts, we can still correct our course and make the planet a better place.” GS

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Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, 2024

By Emma McIntyre

There was a interval when Taylor Swift’s Eras tour – 149 reveals in 51 cities over 21 months – appeared like it might by no means finish. Neither did the urge for food of her international fanbase, who packed out stadium after stadium for 3.5-hour performances of Swift’s best hits. When the worldwide juggernaut lastly concluded in December 2024, it was the highest-grossing live performance tour of all time: greater than $2bn in ticket gross sales. Her supremacy was confirmed.

The success of the tour additionally mirrored the post-pandemic growth in main dwell music occasions, pushed by followers craving pleasure and connection, in addition to by artists searching for to complement their incomes within the period of streaming. Meanwhile, it’s usually stated that our century has seen the loss of life of the monoculture. Swift, it appears, is likely one of the final stars standing. GS

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Trump assassination try, 2024 …

By Evan Vucci

“Let me get my shoes,” have been Trump’s first phrases to the Secret Service brokers bundling him away, after a sniper’s bullet grazed his ear. It was what he stated subsequent, nonetheless, fist raised, that sealed the second in historical past: “Fight!” The picture galvanised his supporters and injected new vitality into his marketing campaign. Coming simply weeks after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate efficiency, this pivotal second satisfied commentators on each side of the political spectrum {that a} second presidency was inside his grasp. FB

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By Saul Loeb

It is a defining picture of energy in 2025: Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk within the entrance row at Trump’s inauguration (Apple CEO Tim Cook is out of body).

The tech bosses – of Meta, Amazon, Google and Tesla – are collectively price nearly $1tn, a determine that displays the sharp enhance in inequality globally this century.

The picture additionally captures the political journey the US tech sector has been on, from darling of the left to throwing in its lot with the Maga proper. FB