Historical Photos (Part 2)

Posted on 12. Nov, 2009 in Featured, People

Long live free Quebec! (Vive le Québec libre !)
It was a controversial and famous phrase in French President Charles de Gaulle’s speech in Montreal on July 24, 1967.
Under the pretext of attending Expo 67De Gaulle was in Canada on an official state visit. While giving an address to a large crowd from a balcony at Montreal City Hall, he uttered “Vive le Québec !” (Long live Quebec!) and then added, almost drowned out by the crowd, “Vive le Québec libre !” (Long live free Quebec!). Many people mistakenly think that this sentence, the third-last of the speech, was the last one. “Vive le Québec libre !” was a popular slogan for people wishing to show their support for Quebec sovereignty.

Texas City Disaster
The Texas City Disaster of April 16, 1947, started with the mid-morning fire and detonation of approximately 2,300 tons [Texas City, Texas Disaster] of ammonium nitrate on board the French-registered vessel SS “Grandcamp” in the port at Texas City, Texas, killing 567 people. It also triggered the first ever class action lawsuit against the United States government, under the then-recently enacted Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), on behalf of 8,485 victims.

Obama in Kenya
It’s a photograph that was circulating on the Internet amidst a bitter Democratic presidential nomination race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama of Barack
During his visit to Kenya in 2006 Obama is dressed in traditional local Somali garments.
The Associated Press photograph, posted on the conservative blog the Drudge Report, portrayed Obama wearing a white turban and a wraparound white robe presented to him by elders in Wajir, in northeastern Kenya.
Obama’s estranged late father was Kenyan.

Auschwitz-Birkenau Selection
Virtually no photographs exist of any of the six death camps in operation (Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka).
The Auschwitz Album, a collection of pictures made by an unknown German officer during the ‘‘selection’’ process on the Birkenau train platform, remains a notable exception.
In above photo, Jews undergoing the selection process on the Birkenau arrival platform known as the “ramp.”

Benetton Pieta
Tibor Kalman was an editor and a journalist who believed that he had a moral obligation and a political desire to expose issues and make them as sexy as possible so an audience–primarily kids, but really everybody–would look at them.
That was why his work with Oliviero Toscani for United Colors of Benetton were extremely jarring and haunting.
In November, 1990, while reading Life, Tibor ran across a black-and-white documentary photo.
It showed an Ohio family around the bed of David Kirby, a 32-year-old man dying of AIDS in the Ohio State University Hospital in May 1990.
Tibor and Benetton approached the Kirby family and the photographer, Therese Frare.
Frare’s photo was part of a documentary on the lives of clients and caregivers in a hospice for people with AIDS and won the 1991 World Press Photo Award.
Benetton contributed generously to an AIDS foundation, with the family’s consent.
The family approved of the use of the image and came to New York for a press conference.
There was a collaborative feeling among all involved.
The image of a man dying of AIDS, surrounded by his family (his father, sister and niece), shows the terryfying sight of a body devasted by the HIV virus.
For a while, it became a central focus of the AIDS debate. It won the European Art Director Club award for the best 1991 campaign and the Houston International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award. In 2003 the photo was included in the Life magazine collection ‘100 Photos that changed the world’.
However, a number of AIDS activists believed that the photograph and its use in advertising actually painted AIDS victims in a negative light.
Others perceived the campaign as a vindication of homosexuality.
For some there was sensitivity about the implied connection between the deaths of David Kirby and Jesus. Many magazines refused to print it. Yet, in some countries, this photo became the very first campaign to talk about AIDS.

Prague Spring
An attempt to create “Communism with a human face” was undertaken in 1968 by Alexander Dubcek, new prime-minister of Czechoslovakia.
These reforms lead to period of euphoria known as the Prague Spring that resulted in freedom of speech and press, freedom to travel abroad, and relaxation of secret police activities.
Many Czechs called for far-reaching reforms including neutrality and withdrawal from the Soviet Union control being encouraged by Dubcek’s actions,
To forestall the spread of reforms, the Soviet army invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968.

Reagan Tears Down the Wall
On June 12th 1987, in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin, President Ronald Reagan challenged Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear down the Berlin Wall.
As the speech was being written, inclusion of the words “Mr. Gorbechev, Tear Down This Wall,” became a source of considerable controversy within the administration.
Several senior staffers and aides advised against the phrase might cause further East-West tensions or potential embarrassment to Gorbachev, with whom President Reagan had built a good relationship.
American officials in West Germany and presidential speechwriters thought otherwise. Reagan himself agreed, saying “I thought it was a good, solid draft,” later adding “I think we’ll leave it in.”
So it was. At the time, the speech received little coverage from the media, but the Soviet press agency TASS accused Reagan as giving an “openly provocative, war-mongering speech.” However, when 29 months later, Gorbachev allowed Berliners to destroy the wall, the speech gain iconic status.
On 12th September 1990, now-former President Reagan returned to Berlin, where he personally took a few symbolic hammer swings at a remnant of the Berlin Wall.
On the same day in Moscow, two Germanies and the Four Powers sign the Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany, paving the way for the Re-unification.

The Congolese Lese Majeste
As the state of Zaire (now Congo) declared its independence and the Belgium King Baudouin and President Joseph Kasavubu drove along the boulevard in an open car, On the way into Leopoldville from the airport, an exuberant nationalist pressed close to his open limousine, grabbed the King’s sword from beside him, and flourished it above his head before the police could move in and pommel him away.

Henry Cabot Lodge’s UN Trick
During a debate over the shooting down of an American U-2 spy plane over Soviet territory on May 20th 1960, U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jnr. decided to go on the offensive. He accused the Soviet Union of hiding a microphone inside a wood carving of the Great Seal of the United States, which had been presented to the U.S. embassy in Moscow by the Soviet-American Friendship Society. He extracted a tiny microphone out of the eagle’s beak with a pair of tweezers, as Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko smiles with amusement and mockery behind Lodge. “It so happens that I have here today a concrete example of Soviet espionage so that you can see for yourself,” he announced triumphantly. The Soviet resolution condemning the U.S. spy flights was subsequently defeated.

The Blunt Reality of War in Vietnam
It was perhaps the most controversial cover for LIFE magazine, which usually steered clear of controversy.
Paul Schutzers captured this image of a VietCong prisoner gagged and bound, being taken prisoner by American forces during the Vietnam War.
Photography and news coverage like this helped to turn the American public against the Vietnam war.

Boris Yeltsin on a tank
On August 19, 1991, the hardliners of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, led by the then-Vice President Gennady Yanayev, put the pro-reform General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest.
The party also sent tanks to suppress the people’s revolts for democracy.
At that critical juncture, Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation, defied the hardliners. He made a speech from the turret of a tank, calling on the military to refrain from firing on the people.
The Communist hardliners originally planned to occupy the Parliament at 3 a.m. on August 20, 1991. The plan was aborted after the Alpha Group, an elite unit of the KGB, refused to follow orders.
In the defeat of the August Coup, the consciences of KGB agents played an important role–some KGB agents had their weapons aimed at Yeltsin on the tank but refrained from firing.

Hand of God
There was much bad blood between England and Argentina — two powerhouses of world soccer — well before a ball was kicked in anger at the quarterfinals of 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
Four years earlier, the two nations had gone to war over the Falkland Islands.
Diego Armando Maradona, Argentina’s greatest-ever player, scored both his side’s goals in the 2-1 victory.
For the first, despite appearing to head the ball, the player actually used his fist to loop it over the English goalkeeper.