Napalm Girl

This Pulitzer-winning photograph, commonly known as "Napalm Girl," was taken by Nick Ut in 1972. It depicts a nine-year-old girl running from her destroyed village of Trang Bang after a napalm attack by South Vietnamese forces. This image really showed the senseless brutality of the war in Vietnam to the public when it was published on the front page of the New York Times. It humanized the violence and showed people that much of the damage in Vietnam was being done to villagers and, like in the photo, even small children. The juxtaposition of the innocence of childhood and the horror of war is inarguably powerful, and works to create one of the most iconic anti-war photographs of all time. People could talk about the violence in Vietnam as much as they wanted to, but it wasn't until the publication of this photo that it really began to feel real to American citizens. It shows how a photograph can change the mindset of a whole group of people, and even the whole course of history.