100 photos that defined the decade

Introduction by Bernadette Tuazon, CNN Digital's Director of Photography

Updated 1:56 PM ET, Mon December 23, 2019

A child sleeps in a bag in the Syrian village of Beit Sawa in March 2018.

Omar Sanadiki/Reuters

As my team sifted through 10 years of historic imagery, I was struck by the amount of devastation and pain the world has endured: the Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, Benghazi, Ebola, the constant school shootings in the United States, the Las Vegas massacre.

Then there are images calling for democracy and change: the Arab Spring, Venezuela, Hong Kong.

And there are pictures that mold public opinion and push governments to take action: the image of the Honduran toddler crying as her mother is detained near the US-Mexico border and, before then, the plight of 5-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, washed ashore after drowning in the waters off southern Turkey.

I also can't help but be inspired by the courage shown by 17-year-old Emma Gonzalez, a school shooting survivor who has helped galvanize the call to action on gun control. I found the moment Serena Williams consoled Naomi Osaka at last year's US Open admirable, just moments after Williams pointedly argued with a chair umpire over a call that eventually cost her the championship.

And the latter part of the decade produced a string of storytelling images from Donald Trump's presidency, his administration and his policies.

All of these stories are woven together in this 100-picture report. Every image is iconic in its own merit, and they are sometimes taken by photojournalists in harm's way. Each photo is memorable, permanently capturing a moment in history, searing its significance and its oddity in our consciousness, oftentimes shaping public opinion and affecting policy.

We present to you the defining photos of the past decade.

Editor's note: This gallery contains graphic images. Viewer discretion is advised.

Cindy Tersme throws herself on the rubble of Ecole St. Gerard, a school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the country in January 2010. Tersme screamed in anguish after finding the lifeless body of her 14-year-old brother, Jean Gaelle Dersmorne. "I can see my brother's feet but can't pull him out," she said, weeping. The earthquake's death toll has been estimated at 220,000-300,000.

Carol Guzy/The Washington Post via Getty Images

A bird is covered in oil at Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island in June 2010. Two months earlier, an explosion occurred aboard the Deepwater Horizon, a BP-contracted oil rig stationed in the Gulf of Mexico. For 87 straight days, oil and methane gas spewed from an uncapped wellhead 1 mile below the surface of the ocean. President Barack Obama described the oil spill as "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced."

Charlie Riedel/AP

Lady Gaga wears a dress made of real meat at the MTV Video Music Awards in September 2010. Appearing later on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Gaga said the dress "has many interpretations, but for me ... if we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones."

Matt Sayles/AP

This photo of Afghan woman Aesha Mohammadzai appeared on the cover of Time magazine in August 2010. Her Taliban husband and in-laws punished her for running away by hacking off her nose and ears and leaving her for dead. She became a symbol of the oppression of women in her war-torn country. She was flown to the United States, where she underwent multiple surgeries to reconstruct her nose.

Jodi Bieber