In the moment: 40 years of Reuters photojournalism – in pictures

A gunman with a bag over his head fires an automatic rifle from a doorway of the hijacked Trans World Airlines plane at Beirut airport, Lebanon, 20 June, 1985. The gunmen lost patience with photographers perched on a balcony overlooking the plane. They opened fire. “They were annoyed by journalists taking pictures with big lenses,” recalled Frédéric Neema, one of the Reuters photographers on the balcony. “The bullets went above our heads and hit the wall behind us. I ducked and kept on shooting.”

Argentina’s Diego Maradona celebrates holding the World Cup trophy aloft as he is carried off the field after Argentina won the World Cup Final between Argentina and West Germany at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Mexico 29 June, 1986

Schoolchildren walk past a group of Palestinian men being searched by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip, November 1986

A man stands in front of a convoy of tanks in Beijing, 5 June, 1989. Tsang was one of several photojournalists near the square, photographing army vehicles as they began to depart. A man carrying two shopping bags walked out to confront a line of tanks. “When I released the shutter, it didn’t occur to me that ‘Wow, this is a great shot’”. It was only when he returned to Hong Kong he realized how much of a global icon the picture had become. To this day, the identity of Tank Man remains unknown but the image stands as a reminder of a key moment in the country’s history

President Nelson Mandela is accompanied by his then wife Winnie, moments after his release from prison near Paarl, South Africa, 11 February, 1990. Ulli Michelsays: I managed to shoot only twelve frames before Mandela’s security detail rushed him back into the limousine and drove off.I had to dash back to Cape Town to develop my film, make a colour print and send it to the Reuters picture desk in London. During the chaotic drive, I was praying I had got a picture that captured this historic moment.It turned out I had: Nelson Mandela, arm aloft, jubilant on his walk to freedom.

Bucharest’s residents protect themselves from the crossfire between an army tank and pro-Ceausescu troops during clashes in the Republican square in Bucharest 23 December, 1989. “I shot the fighting with a long lens as if I was covering a soccer game,” said Platiau, who had started out as a sports photographer. There was no time to take any more pictures and only just enough time to process and send a single colour print to meet Sunday newspaper deadlines.

A demonstrator pounds away the Berlin Wall as East Berlin border guards look on from above the Brandenburg Gate on 11 November, 1989

Emaciated Muslim refugees, recently released from a Croat prison in Dretelj, wait for lunch in a grammar school in Jablanica, central Bosnia, 10 September, 1993.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein firing shots in the air, 31 December, 2000.

Rescue workers carry fatally injured New York City Fire Department Chaplain, the Rev. Mychal Judge, from the World Trade Center in New York City, 11 September, 2001. “I will never forget the call from my bureau chief ” says Shannon Stapleton “Can you get down there as soon as possible? Through clouds of dust I noticed a group of men carrying a man, slumped in a chair, out of the rubble. I took several photos as they yelled at me to get out of the way. I had no idea that the man being carried was Father Mychal Judge and the first reported death at the World Trade Center

A US soldier watches as a statue of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein falls in central Baghdad 9 April, 2003. Tomasevic says “I went down there and took pictures of this guy looking at the statue. I came closer to him and had the perfect picture – a US Marine looking at a statue pulled down by Americans.” That image has been reproduced hundreds of times or more in the years sincethe statue fell. “I didn’t expect this picture to be in so many publications,” Tomasevic said. “But I guess it does show the end of the Saddam era.”

African migrants try to climb aboard a Spanish civil guard vessel after their makeshift boat capsized during a rescue operation at sea off the coast of Fuerteventura 12 November, 2004

A Russian police officer carries a baby from a school in Beslan, Chechnya, 2 September 2004. Viktor Korotayev: “Throughout my career I’ve covered many difficult stories, Beslan remains the biggest psychological trauma I have experienced. It began when gunmen took control of a school and seized 1,000 hostages. On the second day, the gunmen freed some women and babies. I think the sense of hope captured in that image was the reason it was printed all over the world. The hope did not last. Security forces stormed the building and the siege ended in a chaotic gun battle with 330 hostages killed

The fingers of malnourished one-year-old Alassa Galisou are pressed against the lips of his mother Fatou Ousseini at an emergency feeding clinic in the town of Tahoua in northwestern Niger, 1 August 2005. One of Niger’s worst droughts in living memory destroyed crops, leaving an estimated 3.6 million people short of food, including tens of thousands of starving children

A man rinses soot from his face at the scene of a gas pipeline explosion near Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos 26 December, 2006. Up to 500 people were burned alive when fuel from a vandalised pipeline exploded in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos

US President-elect Senator Barack Obama arrives to speak to supporters with his wife Michelle and their children Malia and Sasha during his election night rally after being declared the winner of the 2008 Presidential Campaign in Chicago, 4 November, 2008

Staff stand in a meeting room at Lehman Brothers offices in London, 11 September, 2008. Kevin Coombs: The US bank Lehman Brothers was on the brink, I was in Reuters London newsroom and I noticed several reporters peering at the skyscraper opposite. I knew the building opposite was the Lehman building, so I grabbed my camera and ran across. The bank’s staff were lined up with their backs to the window, and I took some pictures with a 70–200mm lens. I didn’t realize the significance of the scene until I walked back and checked our systems, which showed the Lehman share price still dropping

A US soldier of 2-12 Infantry Task Force Mountain Warrior takes a break during a night mission near Honaker Miracle camp at the Pesh valley of Kunar Province 12 August, 2009

Displaced people from the minority Yazidi community, fleeing violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State in Sinjar town, walk towards the Syrian border on the outskirts of Sinjar mountain near the Syrian border town of Elierbeh of Al-Hasakah Governorate in this 11 August, 2014

Singer Rihanna arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala in Manhattan, New York, 4 May, 2015

Cats crowd the harbour on Aoshima Island in the Ehime prefecture in southern Japan February 25, 2015. An army of cats rules the remote island in southern Japan, curling up in abandoned houses or strutting about in a fishing village that is overrun with felines outnumbering humans six to one.

Ieshia Evans stands her ground while offering her hands for arrest to riot police outside the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana, 9 July 9 2016. Jonathan Bachman: “I just knew that anyone who stepped into the street was getting arrested, I saw her standing there and the instincts kicked into gear, to try to get into a position where I could photograph this arrest.” It became the defining image of the Black Lives Matter rallies that swept America. “I just prayed that it was sharp because I was shooting directly into the sun and it happened so fast”

A Syrian refugee holds onto his children as he struggles to walk off a dinghy on the Greek island of Lesbos, after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Lesbos 24 September, 2015

Usain Bolt of Jamaica looks at Andre De Grasse of Canada as they compete in the men’s 100m Semifinals at the Olympic Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 14 August 2016. Kai Pfaffenbach: “I decided to play with slow shutter speed for that race. I set my camera to a 50th of a second and was waiting for the moment when he passed my position. In this very right moment he looked to his left with the proud smile and my first thought was: ‘hopefully I got this sharp.’ Well, I’ve been a lucky bunny in this case but I still would not have imagined at this moment that this picture would go viral”

Rohingya refugees are reflected in rain water along an embankment next to paddy fields after fleeing from Myanmar into Palang Khali, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, 2 November, 2017. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya in the northern part of Rakhine State fled, seeking sanctuary in Bangladesh. Reuters photographers were first to reach the area. They followed people through neck-deep waterm their feet wrapped in duct tape against leeches. “I had a few moments where my heart outweighed my head and I had to stopshooting to help the people in front of me,” said Hannah McKay

Maria Meza, a migrant woman from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, runs away from tear gas with her five-year-old twin daughters in front of the border wall between the US and Mexico, in Tijuana, Mexico 25 November 2018

US President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, 30 June, 2019

Neonatal Nurse Kirsty Hartley carries premature baby Theo Anderson to his mother Kirsty Anderson in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Burnley General Hospital, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Burnley, UK, 15 May, 2020. The pandemic changed the way journalists worked, with safety a priority and access difficult. So when Hannah McKay was given the opportunity to cover medical workers much of the time was spent changing in and out of protective clothing, under the close surveillance of hospital staff. “I must have put on twenty masks throughout the day,” McKay said

A mob of supporters of US President Donald Trump fight with members of law enforcement at a door they broke open as they storm the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, 6 January 2021.Leah Millis was covering the rally when she heard about the assault on the Capitol and headed there as it fell under siege. She captured images of crowds fighting police and swarming up scaffolding that had been erected for Biden’s inauguration on 20 January.

Inas Abu Maamar, embraces the body of her niece Saly, who was killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser hospital, Gaza, 17 October 2023. Mohammad Salem saw the woman in the morgue: “People were confused, running from one place to another, anxious to know the fate of their loved ones, and this woman caught my eye as she was holding the body of the little girl and refused to let go.” The moment was particularly poignant for Salem, whose wife had given birth to their own child just days previously. The photograph won the 2024 World Press Photo

The moon is pictured with the Olympic cauldron and the Eiffel Tower, 9 August 2024