A Sailor, a Nurse, a Legendary Kiss

The Kiss Seen Round the World

In the 65 years since LIFE's Alfred Eisenstaedt captured this scene amid the joyous chaos of August 14, 1945, his "V-J Day in Times Square" has become one of the most famous photographs ever made. Showing a sailor planting a kiss on the lips of a nurse as happy New Yorkers look on -- shortly after the surrender of Japan effectively, finally ended World War II -- the image has entered America's and the world's popular, shared consciousness in a way that very few photographs ever have. Today, it remains the picture that, for millions, serves as an elegant visual shorthand for the notion, "War is over!" On June 20, 2010, Edith Shain, the woman in the photograph (or, at least, the woman widely believed to be in the photograph ... read on!), died in Los Angeles at the age of 91. But the story of the picture, and of the remarkable man who took it, never grows old ..