The Body of Che Guevara (Bolivia)

After capturing and killing Guevara (Marxist revolutionary),before bury him in a secret tomb, the Bolivian army showed this photograph to prove that he was dead. His death dealt a death blow to the socialist revolutionary movement in Latin America and the Third World.
The picture actually made him a legend, his admirers said he had a forgiving look on his face and compared him with Jesus.

Soviet Flag raised above the Reichstag (Germany)

In the closing days of World War II the Communist Russian Red Army smashed it’s way into Berlin. In the Nazi capital, the German army was overwhelmed into pockets of resistance that either surrendered or fought fanatically to the last man. On the front lines with the Red Army was Yevgeny Khaldei, Soviet war photographer. In the future, he would say that he spent every 1,481 days of the Russian-German war covering the Soviet battle for the motherland, but in Nazi Berlin he was looking for one thing, his Iwo Jima shot. Khaldei had seen the pictures of American GI’s raising the flag over the Japanese volcano and before the war ended he wanted to snap a similar scene in Berlin.

Soviet Union soldiers Raqymzhan Qoshqarbaev, and Georgij Bulatov raising the flag on the roof of Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany in May, 1945.

Antisemitism almost buried Khaldei into oblivion as his photos including his shot of the Soviet Flag over the bombed out ruins of Berlin were published without credit. It was only till after the cold war and the collapse of communism that professors Alexander and Alice Nakhimovsky came across his name in the Russian archives and created a book showcasing his work

Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire (USA)

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company always kept its doors locked to ensure that the young immigrant women stayed stooped over their machines and didn’t steal anything. When a fire broke out on Saturday, March 25, 1911, on the eighth floor of the New York City factory, the locks sealed the workers’ fate. In just 30 minutes, 146 were killed. Witnesses thought the owners were tossing their best fabric out the windows to save it, then realized workers were jumping, sometimes after sharing a kiss (the scene can be viewed now as an eerie precursor to the World Trade Center events of September, 11, 2001, only a mile and a half south). The Triangle disaster spurred a national crusade for workplace safety.

source: Life 100 photos that changed the world