You have probably seen this heart-wrenching photograph before. It has been described as a photo that changed the world:
The year was 1972. The nine-year-old girl in the center of the frame is Phan Thi Kim Phuc. The place was Vietnam, and the black smoke in the background was the aftermath of a napalm bombing.
Napalm was an American weapon, but this particular bombing was an accident. A South Vietnamese aircraft accidentally dropped its payload on one of its own villages (Trang Bang). The South Vietnamese soldiers in the photo look indifferent to the children’s misery, but presumably it was not so.
The photo was taken by Nick Ut, an Associated Press photographer. After taking the photo, Mr. Ut hurried Kim to the hospital. (Contrary to the popular image of press photographers as people who don’t lift a finger to help the subjects of their photos.)
The photograph made Kim an international figure who symbolized everything that was wrong with war in general, and the Vietnam war in particular.
Where is Kim now? She lives in Ajax (near Toronto).
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