50 Of The World's Most Remarkable Photographs

Pictures serve as keepers of history, as evidence, and as storytellers of the human experience. Pictures have the power to inspire, to anger, to soothe, to heal, and ultimately to effect change.

While it is nearly impossible to choose the most impactful imagery from the millions of photographs, we present this list of 50 of the world's most remarkable. We chose them for a variety of reasons, from their historic significance to the indelible impact they left in their wake.

1957. AP Caption: Students of Central High School in Little Rock, including Hazel Bryan, shout insults at Elizabeth Eckford as she calmly marches down to a line of National Guardsmen, who blocked the main entrance and would not let her enter.

1963. AP Caption: 3-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr. salutes his father's casket in Washington, three days after the president was assassinated in Dallas. Widow Jacqueline Kennedy, center, and daughter Caroline Kennedy are accompanied by the late president's brothers Sen. Edward Kennedy, left, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

1963. AP Caption: Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, burns himself to death on a Saigon street June 11, 1963 to protest alleged persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government.

1965. Primatologist Jane Goodall meets baby chimp, Flint in Tanzania's Gombe Stream Game Reserve.

1965. Getty Caption: Boxing: World Heavyweight Title: Muhammad Ali in action after first round knockout of Sonny Liston at St. Dominic's Arena.

1968. AP Caption: South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the National Police, fires his pistol into the head of suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem (also known as Bay Lop) on a Saigon street, Feb. 1, 1968, early in the Tet Offensive.

1968. AP Caption: Extending gloved hands skyward in racial protest, U.S. athletes Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos stare downward during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner after Smith received the gold and Carlos the bronze for the 200 meter run at the Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City on Oct. 16, 1968. Australian silver medalist Peter Norman is at left.

1968. Sen. Robert Kennedy lies on the ground next to busboy Juan Romero after being shot in the head by Sirhan Sirhan.

1968. Getty Caption: Dr. Ralph Abernathy (1929 - 1990) and Jesse Jackson (both obscured) and others stand on the balcony of Lorraine motel and point in the direction of gun shots that killed American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968), who lies at their feet, Memphis, Tennessee.

1972. AP Caption: South Vietnamese forces follow after terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places, June 8, 1972. A South Vietnamese plane accidentally dropped its flaming napalm on South Vietnamese troops and civilians. The terrified girl had ripped off her burning clothes while fleeing. The children from left to right are: Phan Thanh Tam, younger brother of Kim Phuc, who lost an eye, Phan Thanh Phouc, youngest brother of Kim Phuc, Kim Phuc, and Kim's cousins Ho Van Bon, and Ho Thi Ting. Behind them are soldiers of the Vietnam Army 25th Division.

1974. Getty Caption: President Richard Nixon of the United States gives the V-sign with both hands before boarding the Presidential helicopter to leave the White House for the last time after his resignation speech following the Watergate scandal

1980. The United States national team, composed entirely of amateur and student hockey players, defeats the Soviet Union national team in the Winter Olympic Games.

1986. Ken Meeks sits in his apartment in San Francisco, California, three days before his death from AIDS.

1987. Zbigniew Religa, watching his patient, Tadeusz Zitkevits's, vital signs, after a 23-hour heart transplant. His colleague is asleep in the corner.

1989. AP Caption: A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Cangan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square. The man, calling for an end to the recent violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way. The Chinese government crushed a student-led demonstration for democratic reform and against government corruption, killing hundreds, or perhaps thousands of demonstrators in the strongest anti-government protest since the 1949 revolution. Ironically, the name Tiananmen means "Gate of Heavenly Peace".

1991. Sgt. Ken Kozakiewicz cries as he learns the identity of the soldier in the body bag next to him. The fallen troop, 20-year-old Pvt. Andy Alaniz, was a close friend of Kozakiewicz's.

1991. Camels among a backdrop of burning oil fields in Kuwait during the Gulf War.

1993. A vulture preys on a Sudanese toddler near the village of Ayod.

1995. Firefighter Chris Fields carries Baylee Almon from the Alfred P. Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Almon later died from her injuries sustained in the blast.

1999. Getty Caption: Kosovar refugee Agim Shala, 2 years old, is passed through the barbed wire fence into the hands of grandparents at the camp run by United Arab Emirates in Kukes, Albania.

2000. AP Caption: Elian Gonzalez is held in a closet by Donato Dalrymple, one of the two men who rescued the boy from the ocean, right, as government officials search the home of Lazaro Gonzalez for the young boy in Miami. U.S.-based relatives fought to keep Gonzalez, rescued at sea at age 5 after his mother died, but U.S. officials finally sent him back to his father in Cuba.

2001. AP Caption: Chief of Staff Andy Card whispers into the ear of President George W. Bush to give him word of the plane crashes into the World Trade Center, during a visit to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla.

A crowd of stunned New Yorkers watch the collapse of the south tower of the World Trade Center at 9:59am, September 11, 2001.

2001. AP Caption: A person falls headfirst from the north tower of New York's World Trade Center Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

Rescue workers carry fatally injured New York City Fire Department chaplain, the Rev. Mychal Judge, from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

2001. Three firefighters raise the American Flag at Ground Zero in New York City.

2004. The body of eight-month-old Sakura Lisi is bathed for burial in Mongbwalu, northeaster Congo.

2005. AP Caption: Tanisha Belvin, 5, holds the hand of fellow Hurricane Katrina victim Nita LaGarde, 89, as they are evacuated from the Convention Center in New Orleans. Hundreds of people waited several days to be evacuated.

2005. Getty Caption: Samar Hassan, 5, screams after her parents were killed by U.S. Soldiers with the 25th Infantry Division in a shooting January 18, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq. The troops fired on the Hassan family car when it unwittingly approached them during a dusk patrol in the tense northern Iraqi town. Parents Hussein and Camila Hassan were killed instantly, and a son Racan, 11, was seriously wounded in the abdomen. Racan, paralyzed from the waist down, was treated later in the U.S.

2005. Reuters Caption: A man clings to the top of a vehicle before being rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard from the flooded streets of New Orleans, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

2005. Marines drape a flag over 2nd Lieut. James Cathey's casket at the airport in Reno, Nevada. Cathey, 24, died August 21, 2005, when a roadside bomb exploded near Al Karmah, Iraq.

2006. AP Caption: a Jewish settler struggles with an Israeli security officer during clashes that erupted as authorities evacuated the West Bank settlement outpost of Amona, east of the Palestinian town of Ramallah.

2007. Getty Caption: Mary McHugh mourns her slain fiance Sgt. James Regan at 'Section 60' of the Arlington National Cemetery May 27, 2007. Regan, a US Army Ranger, was killed by an IED explosion in Iraq in February of this year, and this was the first time McHugh had visited the grave since the funeral. Section 60, the newest portion of the vast national cemetery on the outskirts of Washington D.C, contains hundreds of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan

2007. Terri Gurrola reacts as she greets her daughter Gabrielle Gurrola, 3, at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport after returning from a seven month tour in Iraq.

2009. Getty Caption: At New Journey Ministries Church, in Hawthorne, Edward J. Cobbin (center) is comforted by a friend as he grieves over his son, Edwin Cobbin, 17, an innocent teen who was gunned down by gang members as he stood in front of his GrandMothers house in Hawthorne.

2009. Brazilian 12-year-old Diego Frazão Torquato plays the violin at the funeral of his teacher, Evandro João da Silva. Da Silva helped him escape the world of drug trafficking through music.

2009. President Obama bends down to 5-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, who wanted to see if the President's hair felt like his own.

2011. Robert Peraza, who lost his son Robert David Peraza, pauses at his son's name at the North Pool of the 9/11 Memorial during the 10th anniversary ceremonies at the site of the World Trade Center.

2011. President Obama and his national security team in the White House Situation Room, during the raid which led to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

2012. Three young women pose next to a homeless man during New York Fashion Week.

2012. AP Caption: A woman named Aida cries as she recovers from severe injuries after the Syrian army shelled her house in Idlib, northern Syria. Aida's husband and two children were killed in the attack.

2012. Carlee Soto uses a phone to ask about her sister, Victoria Soto, a teacher at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, after gunman Adam Lanza killed 26 people inside the school, including 20 children. Victoria Soto, 27, was among those killed.

2013. Getty Caption: a youngster jumping from Yangtze River Bridge in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province into the river following another person who committed suicide minutes before.

2013. Two victims of a garment factory building collapse in Savar, Bangladesh.

2013. Police officers react immediately after an explosion near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

2013. A woman shelters her children on the floor of the the Westgate Mall during an attack by militants in Nairobi.

2014. Getty Caption: A man kisses his son, rescued of the mine, on May 13, 2014 after an explosion in a coal mine in Manisa. At least 157 miners were killed in collapsed coal mine in the western Turkish city of Manisa. 'At least 200-300 workers were working in the mine when an electric fault caused an explosion,' the mayor of Soma, a district of Manisa, told private NTV television.

2014. Palestinian refugees line up for food in Yarmouk, Damascus, Syria.

2015. Three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi drowned when his family's inflatable boat capsized as they tried to reach the Greek island of Kos.

2016. Getty Caption: Turkish Coast Guard personnel help refugees as they swim with buoys, after they toppled over a fishermen dinghy en route to Greece on January 22, 2016 in Didim district of Aydin, Turkey. 4 refugees body including 3 children pulled out of the water as Turkish coast guard personnel rescued 43 others.