First lady Michelle Obama (R), joined by daughters Sasha Obama (C) and Malia Obama, is presented with the official White House Christmas Tree on November 25, 2011 in Washington, DC. The tree, a 19-foot-tall balsam fir, was grown on Schroeder's Forevergreens farm near Neshkoro, Wisconsin. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)

The civilised world lies on its knees, a sickness wracking its body. The affliction causes a necrotising of tissues so perfectly uniform in distribution that victims take on the appearance of corpses long before death occurs due to organ failure or secondary infections. ...

While the lido was described as bringing “modernism to the masses” on the British coast it was just the latest example of a trend that had been developing since Victorian times – transforming seaside towns into resorts for leisure and entertainment. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the fashion was for local authorities to build great piers stretching from the promenade out into the sea. The Eastbourne Pier, pictured here in May 1931, was erected between 1866 and 1870 to an ingenious design by Eugenius Birch, which saw the structure sitting on special cups allowing the supporting struts to “move” in bad weather. Arranged on the pier's 1,000-foot length were kiosks, a theatre, a ballroom and a camera obscura. 1931. (Photo by Aerofilms Collection via “A History of Britain From Above”)

A woman uses a virtual reality (VR) headset to view images by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo in Mexico City, Mexico, 23 May 2018. The technological giant Google launched the “The Faces of Frida”, an interactive digital exhibition that treasures the heartrending work of the Mexican artist to tell her story from different points of view, with attention to the invisible details. (Photo by Sashenka Gutierrez/EPA/EFE)

Women perform under black fabric during a street performance in Pristina on October 6, 2017 against sexual harassments in Kosovo. (Photo by Armend Nimani/AFP Photo)

A woman offers a prayer at Pashupatinath Temple during the Teej festival in Kathmandu, Nepal September 4, 2016. During this festival, married Hindu women observe day-long fast and pray for a happy married life while those unmarried pray for a good husband. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

A partial Solar eclipse is seen just after sunrise over the Queens borough of New York across the East River on November 3, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Stan Honda/AFP Photo)

“The Independence day”. While on storm chasing expeditions in the Tornado Alley in USA I have encountered many photogenic supercell storms. This photograph was taken while we were approaching the storm near Julesburg, Colorado on My 28th, 2013. The storm was tornado warned for more than one hour, but stayed an LP storm through all its cycles and never produced a tornado, just occasional brief funnels, large hail and some rain. Photo location: Julesburg, Colorado, USA. (Photo and caption by Marko Korošec/National Geographic Photo Contest)