Photo Essays

Deadly Tornadoes Leave Path of Destruction in Texas
At least six people are dead and as many as 100 are injured after multiples tornadoes tore through North-Central Texas Wednesday night.

Fatal Frontier: The Perils of Crossing the Rio Grande
In 2012, sheriff’s deputies in Brooks County, Texas, uncovered 129 bodies, around double the number of the year before and six times recorded fatalities from...

‘Take off the Silk, Put on the Khaki’: America’s First Women Soldiers, 1942
In light of recent reports of rampant sexual violence against women in America’s armed forces — with an estimated 26,000 cases of unwanted sexual contact last...

Waco Tornado, 1953: Photos From the Aftermath of a Deadly Texas Twister
The world is a dangerous place. Earthquakes, floods, wildfires, volcanoes, droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes reshape the land, destroy lives and lay waste to...

‘Stand and Fight’: Scenes from the NRA’s Annual Meeting
The nationwide battle over gun control rages on, but from May 3-5, about 70,000 members of the National Rifle Association crowded around 550 vendors for its...

Texas Town Rocked by Fertilizer Plant Explosion
A powerful explosion in the town of West, Texas, killed at least two people, leveled homes, and prompted a widespread evacuation.

George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum Dedication
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama join four former presidents and first ladies to celebrate the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential...

Apollo 13: LIFE With the Lovell Family During ‘NASA’s Finest Hour’
The story of NASA’s Apollo 13 mission has been told so well, so many times, across so many types of media, that there’s little point in rehashing the details...

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960
Very few non-violent civil disobedience tactics of the late 1950s and early 1960s were as brilliantly simple in conception and as effective in execution as the...

Gunning for White-Winged Doves, 1961
For millions of Americans, fall means one thing: hunting season. Sure, there are school openings and pumpkins to be carved and, for much of the nation,...

Bigotry in the USA: Photos of the Klan in 1946
According to a recent report (March 5, 2013) by the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of extremist and anti-government “Patriot” groups...

Muhammad Ali in Exile: LIFE With the Once and Future Champ
When 25-year-old Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight champion of the world and the world’s single most famous Muslim, refused induction into the United States Army in...

Texas Flood
Thousands are homeless as Tropical Storm Allison ravages the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast

Photos: Wildfire Burns Across Central Texas
A roaring wildfire raced through Central Texas, destroying more than 1,000 homes

Larger Than Life: Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose
Industrialist, record-setting aviator, movie mogul, recluse — Howard Hughes was one of the most accomplished and mysterious figures America has ever produced …...


Last Meals on Death Row, Texas
Photographer Mat Collishaw recreates the menus requested by men condemned to die; after killer Russell Brewer -- executed September 21, 2011 -- requested ten...

Firestorm Photos: Scenes from the Texas Wildfires
Dozens of blazes burn across the state

LIFE in the Middle East: Power and Petroleum in the Gulf in 1945
Oil. A simple word that for much of the 20th century, and well into the 21st, has meant unimaginable wealth for a very few; plentiful and (for a time, at least)...

Faces of the American Dead in Vietnam: One Week’s Toll
In June 1969, LIFE magazine published a feature that today, incredibly, remains as moving and, in some quarters, as controversial as it was when it sparked...


