Chinese female troops march during a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on September 3, 2025. (Photo by Pedro Pardo/AFP Photo)

A young Ukrainian woman wears an ear of grain braid during a traditional Ukrainian celebration of Kupalo Night, in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday, June 22, 2024. Ukrainians in Warsaw jumped over a bonfire and floated braids to honor the vital powers of water and fire on the Vistula River bank Saturday night, as they celebrated their solstice tradition of Ivan Kupalo Night away from war-torn home. (Photo by Czarek Sokolowski/AP Photo)

Visitors throw colored powder over each other as they attend the 9th annual festival Day of India in Moscow, Russia, 15 August 2024. The festival Day of India is a colorful celebration of Indian culture. The event kicked off on India's Independence Day and will continue until 18 August 2024. India declared its independence from British rule on 15 August 1947. (Phoot by Yuri Kochetkov/EPA)

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. ...

In this Monday, July 25, 2016 photo, skydiver Luke Aikins smiles as he jumps from a helicopter during his training in Simi Valley, Calif. After months of training, this elite skydiver says he's ready to leave his chute in the plane when he bails out 25,000 feet above Simi Valley on Saturday. That's right, no parachute, no wingsuit and no fellow skydiver with an extra one to hand him in mid-air. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

A female Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighter stands near a security position in Sinjar, March 13, 2015. Women fighters at a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) base on Mount Sinjar in northwest Iraq, just like their male counterparts, have to be ready for action at any time. Smoke from the front line, marking their battle against Islamic State, which launched an assault on northern Iraq last summer, is visible from the base. Many of the women have cut links with their families back home; the fighters come from all corners of the Kurdish region. (Photo by Asmaa Waguih /Reuters)

“Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puʻuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941, brought the United States into World War II”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Women fire fighters directing a hose after the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour (Pearl Harbor). (Photo by Three Lions)

Honorable Mention: “The Storm”. During I was taking photo with my nephew, the storm came and I caught this beautiful moment. Photo location: Kocaeli, Turkey. (Photo and caption by Aytül Akbaş/National Geographic Photo Contest)