The remarkable stories behind 8 of the most iconic war photos ever taken

1. The Dead of Antietam (1862)

After the bloody Civil War battle of Antietam, Andrew Gardner took 70 shots of the dead in a field.

It was the first time dead soldiers had been photographed on a battlefield.

When Gardner later put them on display in New York City, the horrors of the Civil War, which before had only been seen in paintings, finally became apparent to Americans.

2. Warsaw Ghetto Boy (1943)

Likely taken by a Nazi photog named

3. Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (1945)

4. Raising a Flag over the Reichstag (1945)

Soviet photographer Yevgeny Khaldei

But the truth behind the photo, who was in the photo, and who actually raised the Soviet victory banner, was muddled by the Russian propaganda machine for decades.

Read more about the photo here.

5. Saigon Execution (1968)

Taken by Eddie Adams, this photo shows South Vietnamese Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem in Saigon during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War.

The photo was shown around the world and displayed at anti-war demonstrations in the US.

6. Napalm Girl (1972)

Taken by Nick Ut, this photo shows South Vietnamese children running after a

7. Joseph Duo in Battle (2003)

In June 2003, Chris Hondros took this image of Liberian commander Joseph Duo after he fired an RPG at rebel forces during a battle in Monrovia during the Second Liberian Civil War.

Hondros' photos, along with the work of other photojournalists that summer, has been credited by many with helping stop the civil war.

But Hondros himself later admitted in an interview that he wasn't sure whether the photo glorified or condemned war.

"Does it celebrate war or is it, you know, something else?" Hondros said. "I think a lot of different people would take different things away from that picture."

8. Iraqi Girl at Checkpoint (2005)

In January 2005, Chris Hondros captured this picture of 5-year-old Samar Hassan after US troops had accidentally killed her parents at a checkpoint in the Iraqi town of Tal-Afar.

The photo ran in newspapers and media outlets around the world for days, forcing the US military to change how it operated checkpoints and further questioned the role of the US in Iraq.

Hondros was killed in 2011 while covering the Libyan Revolution.

Here are some other iconic war photos to check out:

The Falling Soldier by Robert Capa.

American GI Moving Towards Omaha Beach by Robert Capa.

Bloody Saturday by HS Wong (1937).

The remarkable stories behind 8 of the most iconic war photos ever taken

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