Drowned Syrian boy photo joins long list of iconic news images

A moving photograph of a drowned Syrian boy face down in muck after his body washed ashore in Turkey has caused heartbreak among people worldwide, and refocused attention on the international refugee crisis.

The bodies of thetoddler, lateridentified as three-year-oldAlan Kurdi, his older brother and mother were found Wednesday. The family, along with the father, who survived, were among Syrian war refugees in two boats that were attempting tocross theMediterranean to get to the Greek island of Kos.

The photos of Alan, whichwereshared around the world, have raised the profile ofthe plight of the four million Syrians displaced by thewar, and others seeking refuge from wars and turmoil.

• What the photo of Alan Kurdi can and can't do
• Father of Alan Kurdi, drowned Syrian boy, describes desperate ordeal to save sons
• Little Alan Kurdi, washed ashore, suddenly refocuses Syrian tragedy
• Should pictures of a drowned Syrian boy be shared on social media?
• Refugees storm trains in Budapest as police lift blockade

PeterBouckaert, emergency directorwithHuman Rights Watch, who shared the image of the Syrian boyon Twitter, told CBC News that ithasforced people to "become confronted with the horror of what's happening to Syrians right now."Canada's own immigration minister pausedhis re-election campaignto turn his attention to reports that relatives of the boy had tried to bring his Syrian family to Canada.

"There is a history in journalism of using the power of the photograph to bring attention to a crisis," saidAlfredHermida, aUniversity of British Columbiajournalism professor.

Here are sixother iconic images that have raised the profile of historic time of conflict:

Vietnam napalm attack

Nick Ut's 1972 photo of five childrenfleeingan aerial napalm attack during the Vietnam War is widely believed by historians to have been a major inspiration for the anti-war movement.

One of the most recognizable photos in the world, it centres on nine-year-old Kim Phuc, whose terror-strickenface and burnt nakedbodybecameacatalyst for peace.

Phuc is now aCanadian citizen and runs the Kim Foundation International, a group dedicated to helping child victims of war.

• 'Girl in the picture' brings peace message to Winnipeg

NDP Leader TomMulcair referred tothe imageThursday whileansweringquestions about Syrian refugees.

"There are images that define an era. I rememberan image of a young girl who had been severely burned bynapalmduring the Vietnam War that running down a road to flee," he said.

"That became the symbol of that war. And I have to say that today's images of ayoungboy being picked up off a beach in Turkey will remain with everybody for a long time."

Abu Ghraib

Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi prisonwest of Baghdad, was known for torture and deplorable living conditions during the Saddam Hussein era.

A shocking series ofphotographsrevealed in 2004 by aU.S.Army Criminal Investigation Command probe demonstrate thatthis legacy of torture, humiliation and abuse continued after the Iraqi president'sfall,this time at the hands of U.S. army and CIApersonnel.

• This is what former Abu Ghraib prisoners look like
• Abu Ghraib ex-detainees paid $5M by U.S. firm over abuse
• In-Depth: AbuGhraib

Thepicturesshow smiling Americans posing withnaked and hooded Iraqiprisoners. In some of them, the prisonersarepiled on top of each other in human pyramids. In others, they are covered in feces or forced tomasturbate or perform sexual acts on each other. Two dead Iraqi prisoners also appeared in photos.

The images drew international attention to American abusesoverseas and resulted in the conviction of 11 soldiers on various charges. They have all since been releasedfrom prison.

Oka crisis

The image of Canadian soldier PatrickCloutierand Saskatchewan aboriginal protester BradLarocquestaring each other down has become one of the most iconic examples of Canadian photojournalism.

The 1990Oka crisis grew out of an argument between the Mohawks ofKanesatakeand the townof Oka, Que., over the municipality's plans to expand a golf course andencroachon a Mohawk cemetery thatcommunity members have always maintained wastheirs.

• Oka Crisis legacy questioned

PhotographerShaneyKomulainentoldJ-Sourcein 2013: "That picture resonates partly because it's still like that today all over Canada."

Tiananmen Square

In 1989,thousands of students gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square for weeks, demanding democratic reforms of the Communist country, culminatingina deadly crackdown that saw hundreds of civilians killed.

• How China has rewritten the history of Tiananmen Square
• 1989: Massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square
• Tiananmen Square: Author Yiyun Li's story

One man stood in front of the tanks in protest.Known colloquially as Tank Manor the Unknown Rebel,he has never been identified, and it's not clear what happened to him after that moment. But hisimage remains etched in the public consciousness as a symbol of bravery.

In a 1998 Time magazineessay about the photo,Pico Iyer wrote: "One lone Everyman standing up to machinery, to force, to all the massed weight of the People's Republicthe largest nation in the world, comprising more than one billion peoplewhile its all powerful leaders remain, as ever, in hiding somewhere within the bowels of the Great Hall of the People."

Woolworth's sit-in

Jackson Daily News photographer Fred Blackwell stood on the countertop to capture this image of civil rights activists being bombarded by angry white Americans during a sit-in at aWoolworth's lunch counter in Jackson, Miss.,on May 28, 1963. The black university students were protesting the department store's racially segregated lunch counter.

The photo showsTougaloo College sociology Prof. John Salter and two students, Joan Trumpauer and Anne Moody, refusing to move fromthe counter as theangry mob dumpssugar, ketchup and mustard on them. The trio stayed there for three hours.

• The Current:Civil rights movement did not do enough to create systemic change

That Woolworth's is long gone, but Blackwell's famous photo remains at the site as part of a historical marker erected in 2013 to commemorate the protest.

"Those are the bravest people I've ever seen in my life," Blackwell told The Associated Press at the time. "What they went through ... pictures don't tell the story."

Viet Cong execution

Another image believed to have galvanized anti-VietnamWar sentiment, this PulitzerPrize-winning photograph showsSouth Vietnamese police ChiefGen.Nguyen Ngoc Loanexecuting Viet Cong prisoner Nguyen Van Lemin Saigon. Captured just after Loan squeezed the trigger, it became a symbol for the war's brutality.

• Vietnam: Canada's Secret War

But the image doesn't capture the whole story.

Photographer Eddie Adams later wrote in Time magazinethat he regretted taking the picture that demonizedLoan for the rest of his life. Theprisoner, Adamssaid, was the leader of a Viet Congsquadthat executed dozens of innocentcivilians earlier that same day.

"Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera," Adams wrote.