The following is adapted from the introduction to LIFE’s newcspecial issue 100 Photographs: The Most Important Pictures of All Time and the Stories Behind Them, available at newsstands …

Here, LIFE.com presents pictures made in the Nevada desert by photographer Loomis Dean shortly after a 1955 atomic bomb test. These are not “political” pictures.

LIFE magazine was fortunate enough to visit Cabo Blanco in 1959, when the club was still in its heyday. Staff photographer Frank Schershel captured the fisherman out at sea and along the …

In an age when attaining a satisfying work-life balance seems virtually impossible, and at a time when everyone is constantly asked to do more, achieve more, be better or risk feeling less …

All 800 paratroopers landed safely (including Kuhl, who snapped a photo on the way down for LIFE), despite encountering some initial sniper fire. But the mission itself was an anticlimax.

When LIFE magazine visited Big Sur in 1959, the Esalen Institute was three years from opening, but the coastal community had long been attracting free-thinking types.

The following is from the introduction to LIFE’s special tribute issue, Jimmy Carter: A Noble Life, which is available online and at newsstands. When James Earl Carter died at his home in …

In 1947 Jane Greer starred opposite Robert Mitchum in the film noir classic Out of the Past, and the success of that film helped earn her a place on the cover of LIFE.

The 2016 Nobel Prize was simply a crowning honor in an extraordinary life. Here are a selection of images from LIFE’s special issue Bob Dylan: America’s Greatest Songwriter.

Here’s how LIFE described it: Twice a week a small group of operators leave their high-powered lifts and are sent to be kneaded, pummeled and painted in a flossy charm school in the Loop.