National Geographic celebrates its 125th anniversary this month. Since its debut in 1888, the publication has become an authority on geography, history, and world culture, but it’s perhaps best known for its incredible photographs, images that provide fresh insight into human culture, animal behavior, and natural landscapes.
In honor of the publication’s venerable history, the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles will display some of the most powerful photographs ever published in the magazine. The exhibit, The Power of Photography: National Geographic 125 Years, will run from Oct. 26 through April 27, 2014, and will feature over 400 iconic images from 1888 to the present, in both print and digital form.
Click through to see some of the most incredible images from the exhibition.
Above: After years of drought and depopulation, many parts of the Great Plains meet the historic definition of frontier territory: an area with no more than six people per square mile (Nebraska, 2004)
Novosibirsk, Russia │ 2009
Studying rats bred to be hostile may help scientists decode the relationship between DNA and behavior, by comparing the aggressive rats’ genome with that of rats bred for friendliness.
California │ 1892
Loggers pose with the Mark Twain redwood, felled in California.
Churchgate Railway Station in Mumbai │2010
New York │ 2008
Light pollution and fog combine to blur the Big Apple skyline. But it’s not all bright lights, big city: On a clear night in Central Park, Mercury, Mars and Saturn are still visible.
Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, Florida │ 2012
Highly dependent on warm temperatures to survive, Florida’s estimated 5,000 manatees flee cold waters in winter to congregate at springs and power plant discharge sites. Scores are killed each year in collisions with watercraft, fueling conflict between conservationists and boaters.
Nepal │ 1948
Instead of cars carrying workers, Nepal has workers carrying cars on the trail from Katmandu. Here automobiles, stripped of wheels and bumpers, are shoulder-borne to and from the capital and only Nepalese city with modern roads. This old German-made Mercedes is going to India as a trade-in on a shiny American model.
Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea │ 2008
A five-month-old mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) reacts to a visitor near a bushmeat market in Malabo, a city on Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea. This animal was brought over from mainland Africa, most likely as an infant. Once fully grown, many such pets are sold into the bushmeat trade and consumed as food. Though this country has laws on the books stating that taking primates from the wild is illegal, poaching continues to be rampant both in Equatorial Guinea and many other African nations.
Saudi Arabia │ 1965
Pilgrims circle the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Making this time exposure from the roof of his nearby hotel, Abercrombie watched the faithful, dressed anonymously in white, circle the Kaaba “in harmony with the planets and the atoms,” he wrote.
Washington │ 1997
Visitors to Mount St. Helens compare the volcano’s cone with a photo taken before its 1980 blowout. Other peaks in the Cascades range now threaten to erupt at any time.