V-J Day in Times Square. August 14, 1945

Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt created some of the most memorable images of twentieth-century American popular culture. Born in Dirschau, German Empire (now Tczew, Poland), Eisenstaedt began his career as a freelance photojournalist in Germany, where he attended the University of Berlin. During World War I, he served in the German army. As political tensions rose in the mid-1930s, Eisenstaedt left Berlin for New York where he continued to freelance, working for such publications as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Town and Country. In 1936, he was hired as one of the first staff photographers at Life magazine, where he worked for the next forty years, producing more than 2,500 photo essays for it.