20 of the Most Amazing Photos in History
When you think about it, the whole idea of photography is almost unacceptably bonkers. Through a process of chemicals and paper — or, today, in a digital process that your average person couldn’t begin to explain — we can see the past exactly as it happened. Before about 200 years ago, that wasn’t only not possible, it was unthinkable. They would have burned you as a witch just for suggesting it.
That’s made it an important medium for documenting history, beauty or just plain awesomeness, to the point that if something incredible happens today, it’s almost guaranteed someone got a picture of it. “My vote would go to the burning monk,” user Curlaub told r/AskReddit, referring to the famous photo of Thích Quảng Đức burning alive in 1963 in protest of Vietnam’s persecution of Buddhists.
They then asked, “What do you think is the single greatest photograph in history?” and their fellow Redditors quickly showed just how many thousands of words certain pictures are worth.
