Mala Zimetbaum was the first Jewish woman to escape Auschwitz and she refused to let the Nazis decide her fate — “I will die a heroine, but you will die like a dog!” These were the words Mala Zimetbaum spat at an SS officer as she slapped him — hard — across the face. The blood that streamed from her slit wrists sprayed over his face and neck, and the symbolism…

When a catty newspaper columnist supposedly said Marilyn Monroe would be better off wearing a potato sack, she did just that — What’s the first image that comes to mind when you think of Marilyn Monroe? There’s of course the iconic white dress that billows out over a subway grate while she cheekily attempts to hold the fabric down. Or the one where she’s sitting and enveloped by a massive white tulle…

The soft-spoken activist believed in nonviolence and led one of the longest agricultural strikes in America — The year was 1968, and activist Cesar Chavez was 25 days into his hunger strike. Chavez, who was the president of the United Farm Workers (UFW), had joined a strike in the grape-growing region of Delano, California, three years earlier in solidarity with Filipino American farm workers, and the movement…

But Weegee’s iconic photo has a twist — the whole thing was staged — The first thing you notice about Weegee’s photograph, “The Critic,” is the radiant white gowns of two society ladies heading into the Metropolitan Opera on the opening night of the season. They break their way through the sea of the dark masses seamlessly, clearly accustomed to people getting out of…

Benetton said it was raising awareness about the crisis, but many gay rights activists disagreed — It was 1990, and the AIDS crisis was at its peak with over 18,000 known deaths recorded in the U.S. It was also the year that gay activist David Kirby came home to die. Originally estranged from his family and living in California, Kirby returned to Ohio once he learned…

Was it a matter of mistaken identity, or is it really Vladimir Putin in that photo? — This post has been updated to include recent comments from the photographer. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan traveled to Moscow to meet Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Reagan was accompanied by his photographer, Pete Souza, who later became President Obama’s official photographer (and an expert practitioner of the subtle Trump troll)…