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Came across this while looking for something else on Wikipedia:
One of the most famous photographs ever published by Life, V–J day in Times Square was shot in Times Square on V-P Day. Alfred Eisenstaedt was in the square taking candids when he spotted a sailor "running along the street grabbing any and every girl in sight," he later explained. "Whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old, didn't make any difference. I was running ahead of him with my Leica looking back over my shoulder... Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed. I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse." Eisenstadt was very gratified and pleased with this enduring image, saying: "People tell me that when I am in heaven they will remember this picture."
The participants in the kiss were never confirmed by Eisenstaedt, whose notes on the photo were not found after his death in 1995. Life, however, accepted nurse Edith Cullen Shain's claim to this honor in a handwritten letter to Eisenstaedt 35 years later. Shain was 27 on V-P Day. Over 20 men have claimed to be the sailor, but none has been positively identified. The sailor was identified by the Naval War College in August 2005 as George Mendonça, of Newport, Rhode Island, although many other men have claimed the honor.[2] However, Shain has said she believes the man to be former New York City police detective Carl Muscarello. Houston Police biometrics expert Lois Gibson identified the sailor in the picture as Glenn McDuffie.
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