Five-year-old Jeda takes a close look at “Sharnana” by artist Drew McDonald at the Sculpture by The Sea on October 18, 2024 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Jessica Hromas/The Guardian)

A giant panda named Kai Kai looks on as he opens a gift to celebrate his upcoming 14th birthday at the River Safari wildlife park in Singapore on September 10, 2021. (Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP Photo)

“By 1969, the fashion choices of tens of millions of young American men and women were as variegated and ever-evolving as the world around them. Cultural transformation was an irresistible force during the Sixties, and across America and around the globe civil rights, women’s and gay liberation, the sexual revolution and, of course, the explosive soundtrack of R&B, soul and rock and roll informed everything from politics to fashion”. – LIFE. Photo: Corona del Mar High School students Kim Robertson, Pat Auvenshine and Pam Pepin wear “hippie” fashions, 1969. (Photo by Arthur Schatz/Time & Life Pictures)

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)

The alligator trying to crack the turtles tough shell. These incr-edible pictures by Patrick Castleberry capture a real-life mutant ninja turtles hardy victory over a mighty ALLIGATOR during an exhaustive battle of brute strength.

Buddy Bears are a series of painted, life-size fibreglass bear sculptures originally developed in Berlin, Germany. The first Buddy Bear was created by the German businesspeople Klaus and Eva Herlitz, in cooperation with the sculptor Roman Strobl in 2001.

The more representative dogs from every country photographed wearing the uniform of their football national team for Life on White