The following is adapted from the introduction to LIFE’s newcspecial issue 100 Photographs: The Most Important Pictures of All Time and the Stories Behind Them, available at newsstands …

The following is from the introduction to LIFE’s special tribute issue, Jimmy Carter: A Noble Life, which is available online and at newsstands. When James Earl Carter died at his home in …

Explore World War II within the LIFE photography vault, one of the most prestigious & privately held archives from the US & around the World.

When LIFE magazine visited Big Sur in 1959, the Esalen Institute was three years from opening, but the coastal community had long been attracting free-thinking types.

Here, LIFE.com presents pictures made in the Nevada desert by photographer Loomis Dean shortly after a 1955 atomic bomb test. These are not “political” pictures.

In LIFE’s coverage of the event the magazine actually used a different photo, taken from a wider angle. That shot is majestic in its own right, giving more emphasis to the Utah landscape and …

LIFE magazine was fortunate enough to visit Cabo Blanco in 1959, when the club was still in its heyday. Staff photographer Frank Schershel captured the fisherman out at sea and along the …

The breadth of the GE operations underlines the great variety of activity that legendary LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt documented when he gained access to the General Electric …

In 1968 LIFE magazine summed up the appeal of French philosopher and author Albert Camus with a single sentence: “Camus looked directly into the darkness as saw sun—the human …

What’s even more surprising is the many moods that LIFE photographers were able to achieve when they brought their subjects under—or in most cases, on top of—the covers. The most …