Alfred Eisenstaedt took the best-known photograph of the sailor kissing a woman during V-J Day celebrations in Times Square.
Eisenstaedt photographed the scene on August 14, 1945, as New Yorkers gathered for news that Japan had surrendered. The image shows a U.S. Navy sailor embracing a woman in white in the middle of Times Square and became one of Life magazine’s most recognizable photographs.
A second photographer, Victor Jorgensen, captured the same moment from another angle. Jorgensen’s image was published in The New York Times, while Eisenstaedt’s better-known image appeared in Life magazine.
The woman was later identified as Greta Zimmer Friedman, a dental assistant, and the sailor as George Mendonsa. The photograph was long popularly described as a romantic kiss, but Friedman later explained that it was a spontaneous act of celebration rather than a romantic encounter.