Every day humans all over the world take pictures, and while all pictures are special in their own unique ways very few can be considered amongst the most powerful photos ever taken.
No matter where you live in the world, you share the same human experience as your brothers and sisters near and far. A photo may capture a moment you have never directly experienced, but the compassion human beings have for one another allows you to still relate, understand and feel for the people in the photos.
The following list includes some of the most powerful photos ever taken throughout human history. Each one tells the real story of human life, the struggle, triumph, defeat and love that keeps us going even when during the darkest of days.
1. During massive floods in Cuttack City, India, one brave villager risked his own life to save stray cats from drowning.
Photo Credit: Biswaranjan Rout / AP
2. WWII Russian Veteran found this old tank standing as a monument in a small Russian town. It was the same tank he passed the entire war through.
Photo Credit: englishrussia.com
3. Greg Cook reunites with his dog Coco after his home in Alabama was destroyed by a Tornado in March 2012.
Photo Credit: Gary Cosby Jr. / AP
4. Zanier the dog was buried with full honors in 2000. He is credited with saving thousands of lives during the Mumbai serial blasts in March 1993 when he detected over 3,329 kgs of RDX explosives, 249 hand grenades, 600 detonators and 6406 rounds of live ammunition.
Photo Credit: STR News / Reuters
5. Lending a helping hand to hunger
Photo Credit: Mike Wells
6. Terri Gurrola embraces her daughter after spending 7 months away in Iraq.
Photo Credit: Louie Favorite
7. Afghan man offers tea to hardworking soldiers
Photo Credit: Rafiq Maqbool/AP
8. A view of the sunset on Mars
Photo Credit: nasa.gov
9. “Wait For Me Daddy,” by Claude P. Dettloff in New Westminster, Canada on October 1, 1940.
Photo Credit: Claud Detloff
10. A woman sits among the wreckage of her town after a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Natori, northern Japan, March 2011.
Photo Credit: Asahi Shimbun, Toshiyuki Tsunenari / AP
11. The real faces of addiction, a son tries to help his alcoholic father
Photo Credit: imgur.com
12. “The Falling Man,” World Trade Center, 9/11
Photo Credit: Richard Drew / AP
13. Leao, a loyal dog, sits by his owner’s grave for the second day after a disastrous landslide near Rio de Janeiro in 2011.
Photo Credit: Vanderlei Almeida / Getty Images
14. A public market in Jayapura, the capital of Papua, holds condom usage demonstrations in 2009.
Photo Credit: Adri Tambunan
15. In the rubble of a collapsed factory this couple was found in a tight embrace.
Photo Credit: Taslima Akhter
16. Homeless men wait outside a mosque in New Delhi, India awaiting free food distribution.
Photo Credit: Tsering Topgyal / AP
17. Firefighter helps out a koala in Victoria, Australia during the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.
Photo Credit: abc.net.au
18. 29-year-old Hhaing The Yu stands in front of what remains of his home after cyclone Nargis hit southern Myanmar in 2008, leaving millions of people without a home and over 100,000 dead.
Photo Credit: Brian Sokol
19. Russian soldier plays on an abandoned piano found in Chechnya, 1994.
Photo Credit: drugoi.livejournal.com
20. Christians and Muslims come together to protect one another during the 2011 uprisings in Cairo, Egypt.
Photo Credit: Nevine Zaki
21. Photo of young man just moments after finding out his brother had been killed
Photo Credit: Nhat V. Meyer
22. 12-year-old Diego Frazão Torquato plays the violin at his teacher’s funeral. The same teacher helped him escape poverty and violence through music.
Photo Credit: salvemasnossascriancas.blogspot.com
23. The walls inside of an Auschwitz gas chamber
Photo Credit: kligon5
24. Father and son, then and now, 1949 and 2009
Photo Credit: Vojage-Vojage
25.Exhasted heart surgeon after completing a successful heart transplant surgery that lasted 23-hours. You can see his assistant sleeping in the corner.
Photo Credit: James Stanfield