An elephant eats a snack after performing at Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus' “Circus Extreme” show at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S., April 29, 2016. Elephants take a final bow at Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus on Sunday, ending a 145-year spectacle that delighted fans but enraged animal activists, who say the highly publicized retirement is not enough. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

This picture released by Turkish Cumhuriyet Daily newspaper shows Dilek Dundar (L), the wife of editor-in-chief of Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet daily Can Dundar, trying to stop a gunman who is also being held back by a man on May 6, 2016 in Istanbul. Turkish opposition journalist Can Dundar escaped a shooting on May 5 outside a courthouse in Istanbul where he is on trial, adding police detained the assailant. Dundar, who was unharmed, was outside the courthouse during a break as the court prepared to deliver its verdict in his trial for allegedly revealing state secrets in a newspaper story. (Photo by AFP Photo/Cumhuriyet Daily Newspaper)

The BADGER shot was a 23 kiloton nuclear bomb. Over 2,000 US soldiers were within 3.7 kilometers of the explosion. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

A long skater speeds away on the rain-wet ice on lake Orlangen, South of Stockholm on December 15, 2013. Meteorologists forecast temperatures around 5 degrees for southern Sweden. (Photo by Tobias Rostlund/AFP Photo)

P.S. All pictures, as usual, are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture (if available; this principle works anywhere on the site AvaxNews).

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)

Actor George Clooney from the film “Ides Of March” arrives at the Hotel Excelsior during the 68th Venice Film Festival on August 31, 2011 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

An Israeli spectator watches a giant T-Rex balloon during the Purim parade festival in Petah Tikva, Israel, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Jewish holiday of Purim commemorates the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther. (Photo by Oded Balilty/AP Photo)

More than 6 billion people live in countries where serious levels of public sector corruption are fueling inequality and exploitation, according to Transparency International's 2015 index of perceived public sector corruption. The group's annual report measures perceptions of corruption due to the secrecy surrounding most corrupt dealings. Two thirds of the 168 countries assessed were identified as having a serious corruption problem. Somalia, which has been mired in conflict since civil war broke out in 1991, ranks bottom of the list. (Photo by Feisal Omar/Reuters)