A picture dating back to 1946 of Mahatma Gandhi with his Charkha in the foreground has made it to the 100 most influential images compiled by Time magazine. The black and white photo of a bespectacled Gandhi taken by Margaret Bourke-White shows the leader sitting on a thin mattress on the floor, his head bent and reading the news, while his spinning wheel sits still ahead of him.
While the photo was taken for an article on India's leaders, less than two years later it was featured in a tribute published following his assassination. "It soon became an indelible image, the slain civil-disobedience crusader with his most potent symbol, and helped solidify the perception of Gandhi outside the subcontinent as a saintly man of peace," Time said.
The collection includes 100 history-altering images, dating back from the 1820s to 2015. Among the pictures is the 2011 Situation Room photo where US President Barack Obama and his team of senior officials appear watching the secret operation to kill Osama Bin Laden, the tragic photo of three year old Aylan Kurdi lying face down on the shore near Bodrum, and the 2001 image of a man falling from the Twin Towers in a desperate attempt to save his life.
