32. Afghan Girl.
Photograph by Steve McCurry.
National Geographic, June 1985

And back in 1985, I was a librarian at a secondary school, and part of my responsibilities involved the processing of the magazines the library subscribed to. National Geographic always arrived in a thick cardboard envelope, heavily stapled, and difficult to open, but I vividly recall the moment of first being face to face with the Afghan girl.

Her name is Sharbat Gula, and she was 12 at the time, but those details were not revealed until McCurry tracked her down, 17 years later, and described in an article titled Afghan Girl Revealed. National Geographic, April 2002.