malcolm browne and the burning monk

50 years later

Fifty years ago, on June 11, 1963, AP Saigon correspondent Malcolm Browne shook the world with his picture of the ritual suicide by fire of a Buddhist monk in protest against South Vietnam’s repressive U.S.-backed regime.

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Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, burns himself to death on a Saigon street June 11, 1963 to protest persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government.

AP Photo / Malcolm Browne

Capturing What Lincoln Wrote and Said: The AP at Gettysburg

150th anniversary

AP shorthand reporter Joseph Gilbert not only took down the president’s address at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, he also borrowed the president’s delivery text, copied it and telegraphed it to AP member newspapers, thereby establishing an authoritative version that the president later consulted in making his final copies.

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Hay Copy of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln’s hand, [November 1863].

The Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

ap covers the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

50th anniversary

“I grabbed that phone when it rang and Ike said, ‘Bob, the president has been shot!’ I said, ‘Ike, how do you know?’ He said, ‘I was shooting pictures then and I saw it. There was blood on his face. Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and grabbed him. She cried, ‘Oh no!’ And the motorcade raced on.’”

COMING SOON

President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy in their motorcade approximately one minute before the president was shot. 

AP Photo / James W. Altgens