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ONESHOT
OneShot is a new digital format created by Worldcrunch, to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video.
The Tulsa Race Massacre, 100 Years Later — This Happened, May 31
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The Tulsa Race Massacre, 100 Years Later — This Happened, May 31

May 31 marks the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, believed to be the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.

On May 30, 1921, a young Black man named Dick Rowland was arrested for an alleged assault on a White woman in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The next morning, in retaliation, a mob of white residents attacked the Greenwood district, known as "Black Wall Street" at that time for its prosperity and thriving businesses. The shootings, looting and lynchings only ceased 24 hours later: dozens of city blocks were destroyed and an estimated 300 people were killed. In the wake of this violence, thousands of Black residents were displaced.

A black and white photograph, taken in June 1921, shows the extent of the damages in the Greenwood district.

The Tulsa Race Massacre had been absent from most history books and newspapers for decades and was long referred to as the "Tulsa Race Riot." But as the U.S. is engaging in a new reckoning with its history of racist violence, led by the Black Lives Matter movement, a new light has been shed on this particularly violent episode. In October 2020, an investigation launched two years before by Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum unearthed a mass grave believed to hold victims of the massacre at the Oaklawn Cemetery. A full excavation is scheduled on June 1, in the hopes that some of the victims of this massacre can finally be properly laid to rest .

Photo Of The Week: This Happened In Brazil
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Anne Sophie Goninet

Photo Of The Week: This Happened In Brazil

One year into the coronavirus pandemic, Brazil registered its deadliest month in March. In the 31 days that have just passed, 66,573 people were killed by COVID-19, more than double the previous monthly high. The explosion of cases is largely blamed on the local virus variant, believed to be more contagious, having now pushed Brazil over the 300,000 mark in total coronavirus deaths, second only to the United States with 553,000. Currently, however the U.S. is down to under 1,000 daily deaths while Brazil is more than 3,000.

As hospitals are pushed to the brink, funeral services and cemetery caretakers are also overwhelmed and forced to make hard choices. This week, the Cemitério da Vila Nova Cachoeirinha, São Paulo's second largest cemetery, had to suspend burials due a to lack of graves.

Photographer Dario Oliveira captured, from above, the harrowing sight of workers performing exhumations in order to free graves.

Fukushima Disaster A Decade Later: This Happened, March 11
Japan

Fukushima Disaster A Decade Later: This Happened, March 11

One of the most striking photographs of the destruction caused by the tsunami that struck Japan and set off the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Today marks 10 years since an earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated Fukushima in Japan, killing 18,000 people, destroying towns and triggering the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

At 2:46 pm, the strongest Japanese earthquake ever recorded struck off the northern coast and created monstrous waves up to 16 meters high. On detecting the earthquake, the active reactors automatically shut down, which sparked the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, at the time one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world. The explosions of the reactors released large quantities of radiation that contaminated a vast area of northern Japan.

A decade later, the deep scar left by the disaster is still visible. While the Japanese government has spent about $300 billion to rebuild the region, some areas still remain inaccessible due to radioactivity and some 40,000 people are still displaced. The government is also still working on decommissioning the wrecked plant and decontaminating water and waste — a daunting task which officials say will take another 30 to 40 years.

Detail of Address To The Nation
Italy

COVID-19, Address To The Nations: Faces Of A World Under Attack

Charles de Gaulle was the first world leader to truly understand the power of television, using regular presidential broadcasts as a way to circumvent French legislators, labor unions and other levers of democratic influence.

Since then, prime ministers and presidents, benevolent monarchs and ruthless dictators have used the televised "address to the nation" as an essential tool of modern leadership — to comfort or intimidate, confront crises, unveil policies, announce coups, launch wars. While each may have a different script, the broadcasts share a familiar choreography and iconography: from my desk to your living room, I will lead you through this collective moment in our nation's history.

The Italian photographer Tommaso Bonaventura, shut off from his field work, was watching the COVID-19 drama unfold on his computer and television screens. With people dying each day by the dozens then hundreds in his native country, he joined with others waiting anxiously for the relatively anonymous and inexperienced Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to appear on the screen before the gathered nation.

It was only the beginning: over the next three weeks, at least 70 national leaders have similarly addressed their respective populaces with messages that mix practical information with some semblance of national unity. But the words were not the point.

Bonaventura understood that the very fact of these televised appointments, taken together, could depict an unprecedented moment for the world — a world under attack. He has joined them in a common visual work, freezing the first moment (within 1 second) that each leader appears before his or her nation.

Address To The Nations becomes a singular document of this chapter of human history, appearing to us like a solemn roll call of geopolitical leadership morphing into a cutaway scene from an alien invasion movie.

This is, of course, not a movie. Our enemy is as real as it is invisible, exposing everyone on the planet to the most basic threat to lives and ways of life that we have all long taken for granted. We will instinctively continue to turn to our leaders, even if there's really nothing they can say to change what is happening. Their faces, captured in time, are a sign of how vulnerable we've become.

—Jeff Israely


Address To The Nations © Tommaso Bonaventura / OneShot / Worldcrunch

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Detail of photograph taken in Milan Central Railway Station on March 8, 2020
Italy

Watch: OneShot — Milano Love In The Time Of Coronavirus

It's a bittersweet scene captured at Milan's Central Railway Station, at the global epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis.

With more than 800 deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus and 12,000 infected in Italy, the northern region of Lombardy, which includes Milan, is by far the hardest hit, with 617 deaths as of Thursday.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has extended a severe lockdown to the entire country, with all shops, restaurants, cafes and bars being ordered to close, with the exception of grocery stores and pharmacies, until March 25.

Amid the chaos and uncertainty, this photograph recalls Gabriel García Márquez" epic 1985 novel Love in the Time of Cholera. In one form or another, this current "plague" will find its place in the annals of literature.

Milano Love in the Time of Coronavirus © Daniele Mascolo / Xinhua / ZUMA Wire

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Detail of the iconic image
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30 Years Later: Looking Back on Mandela's Release From Prison

Like the entire story of his life, Nelson Mandela's release from Victor Verster Prison exactly 30 years ago helped define the 20th century. Having served 27 years for leading the opposition to South Africa's racist system of Apartheid, his release brought to an end white minority rule. Four years later, Mandela would be elected president as the nation sought to find peace and reconciliation after decades of oppression.

But it was his release on February 11, 1990 became the iconic moment marking the change. After nearly three decades behind bars between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison, the trained lawyer and activist triumphantly marched to freedom, walking hand-in-hand with his wife Winnie Mandela and surrounded by supporters.

There were many photographers on hand for the historic moment, but the best shot was captured by New York-based photographer Allan Tannenbaum. A veteran war photographer and chronicler of the New York City music scene, Tannenbaum had covered earlier uprisings in South African townships. When word came that Mandela was going to be released, the photographer got the call from his Sygma agency to cover the event. And with a steady hand and a bit of luck got the shot seen around the world.

OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video.

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Detail of Yalta Conference photograph
Russia

Watch: OneShot — Yalta, The Conference That Reshaped The World

A closer look at the iconic photo of the three Allied leaders gathered to bring an end to World War II, and shape the map of the coming Cold War.

It was exactly 75 years ago, when Yalta — a seaside resort on Russia's Black Sea Crimean coast — became the scene of a memorable summit between the "Big Three" Allied leaders: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin. Held between Feb. 4-11, 1945, the conference helped devise the final strategy of the war against Nazi Germany and Japan.

Ultimately, the summit would find a controversial place in 20th-century history, when the World War II "allies of convenience" drew the lines of Europe's future map, which became the effective borders of the Cold War world.

OneShot looks back at this historic moment:

The Yalta Conference © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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Watch: OneShot — 75 Years Ago, Liberation of Auschwitz
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Watch: OneShot — 75 Years Ago, Liberation of Auschwitz

It was 3 p.m. on January 27, 1945, when the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Soviet Army. The full scope of the Nazi barbarities, which included the extermination of six million Jews, was about to be exposed to the world.

That January afternoon 75 years ago also marks the beginning of the documenting process, the painful but necessary gathering of evidence, accounts, photographs and film that would later be used in the Nuremberg war crimes trials, and stand as the historical record of the Holocaust.

About 1.3 million people (mostly Jews) had been deported to the Polish camp by the Nazi regime. In Auschwitz, 1.1 million people were exterminated. Before they were taken to the gas chamber, they would leave their personal effects behind; eyeglasses, clothing, shoes. These objects were found after the liberation, piled up in the warehouses at the camp.

Liberation of Auschwitz © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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