Experience LIFE's visual record of the 20th century by exploring the most iconic photographs from one of the most famous private photo collections in the world.

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 and online:

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

Learn about Edward Clark, one of the many photographers for LIFE who captured some of the most iconic pictures from the US & around the World.

The 2016 Nobel Prize was simply a crowning honor in an extraordinary life. Here are a selection of images from LIFE’s special issue Bob Dylan: America’s Greatest Songwriter.

Decades after American troops unleashed hell in that village in Vietnam, LIFE.com remembers by republishing the story as it ran in LIFE, 20 months later. Nothing will ever keep innocent men, women …

6 days ago · The photos by George Silk capture that world in vivid color, and Moser’s words bring to life the characters trying to make a life in the Outback. One cattle rancher, Bill Waudby, talked about the …

Here, LIFE.com features photographs (some never published in LIFE magazine) from the funeral held three days after John F. Kennedy was killed: Nov. 25, 1963, which was also his son John Jr.’s third …

Once, instead of painting on canvas, Dalf staged a phantasmagoric scene and Schaal transformed it into a real-life photograph. The brainy Schaal was at ease among many of the profound thinkers and …

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.