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 …

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.

With news of the Supreme Court's decision in favor of same-sex marriage, LIFE presents photos of the early days of the gay rights movement.

The following is excerpted from LIFE’s new special issue Michael Jordan: The Greatest of All Time, available at newsstands and here online. When it dropped in the mid-’90s, the 30 …

The actress, born Bettyjane Greer, had actually been in LIFE magazine twice before that ’47 cover. In 1942 she appeared, unnamed, as one of three women modeling the uniforms of the …

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

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 …

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 …

All 800 paratroopers landed safely (including Kuhl, who snapped a photo on the way down for LIFE), despite encountering some initial sniper fire. But the mission itself was an anticlimax.

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 …