Sports have the ability to transform groups of strangers into a united community. In the celebratory spirit surrounding the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Sony and the World Photography Organisation present UNITED – a contest honouring the passion of football fans around the world. Seven inspirational photographers have been selected by Sony and WPO to capture the atmosphere and celebration of the World Cup across the globe. Photo: France – French fans cheering for their team. (Photo by Anthony Lepinay)

“Kim Kardashian surfs up an impressive sight as she wanders along a Miami beach in a colourful bikini on August 4, 2012. The reality TV star looked stunning as she wandered barefoot along the shore in the black and orange two-piece”. – Miranda Prynne via The Sun. (Photo by Splash News)

Participants wear traditional clogs as shepherds lead their sheep through the center of Madrid, October 28, 2012. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/Associated Press)

“The Blitz (from German, “Lightning”) was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, half of them in London”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A fireman attempts to check the flames from a gas explosion, after an air raid in Central London the previous night. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images). 1940

In the spring of 1965, within weeks of 3,500 American Marines arriving in Vietnam, a 39-year-old Briton named Larry Burrows began work on a feature for LIFE magazine, chronicling the day-to-day experience of U.S. troops on the ground – and in the air – in the midst of the rapidly widening war. The photographs in this gallery focus on a calamitous March 31, 1965, helicopter mission; Burrows’ “report from Da Nang”, featuring his pictures and his personal account of the harrowing operation, was published two weeks later as a now-famous cover story in the April 16, 1965, issue of LIFE.

Photo: Man your battle stations: The crew chief of helicopter Yankee Papa 13, lance corporal James C. Farley, mans an M-60 machine gun during a mission near Da Nang, Vietnam on March 31, 1965. (Photo by Larry Burrows/Time & Life Pictures)

A Lion-Tailed macaque holds a big block of ice with a mix of frozen vegetables and fruit at the zoo in Leipzig, central Germany, Friday, July 19, 2013. Weather forecasts predict sunny weather and warm temperatures for Germany in the next few days. (Photo by Jens Meyer/AP Photo)

Revellers celebrate the New Year in Princes Street during Hogmanay street party celebrations in Edinburgh, Scotland January 1, 2015. (Photo by Russell Cheyne/Reuters)

A fellow officer comes to the aid of injured patrolman C.V. Satt, who was pelted with rocks and beer bottles during a clash between police and relief demonstrators in Denver September 23, 1935. (Photo by Henry G. Eisenhand/AP Photo)