Free Republic

The ecstatic sailor shown kissing a woman in Times Square celebrating the end of World War II died Sunday. George Mendonsa was 95. Mendonsa fell and had a seizure at the assisted living facility in Middletown, Rhode Island, where he lived with his wife of 70 years, his daughter, Sharon Molleur, told The Providence Journal. Mendonsa was shown kissing Greta Zimmer Friedman, a dental assistant in a nurse’s uniform, on Aug. 14, 1945. Known as V-J Day, it was the day Japan surrendered to the United States. People spilled into the New York City streets to celebrate the news. Mendonsa...

SARASOTA, Fla. — The iconic kissing statue, known as the "Unconditional Surrender" statue, in Sarasota was vandalized less than 24 hours after the passing of the World War II veteran who was identified as the "kissing sailor" in the famous photo that inspired the sculpture. The 26-foot tall statue is located on the Sarasota Bayfront near Marina Jack. Sarasota Police Department says at approximately 12:53 a.m. on Tuesday, officers were dispatched to the intersection of North Gulfstream Avenue and Bayfront Drive for a report of an unknown person spray painting the statue. When officers arrived on scene, they found the...

Greta Friedman, the woman in white kissed by a sailor in New York’s Times Square in a photograph symbolising the end of the second world war, has died aged 92. Her son, Joshua Friedman, said she died on Thursday in Virginia after suffering a series of ailments, including pneumonia, NBC News reported. CBS News said she would be laid to rest with her late husband, Mischa Elliot Friedman, at Arlington national cemetery in Virginia. Friedman, then a dental assistant on a break, was the woman in one of the most famous pictures of the 20th century, the moment Americans learned...

An American sailor named George Mendonsa spontaneously takes hold of a complete stranger, 21-year-old Austrian-Jewish refugee Greta Zimmer, bends her backward, plants a kiss on her mouth and continues on his way. Unbeknown to either, famed photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt has captured the encounter. The resulting image, published soon after in Life magazine, came to symbolize the exuberance of that moment, in a country overflowing with vigor and youth, at a time when anything seemed possible.....In 2012, a London-based blogger who uses the pseudonym Leopard wrote a provocative post on Crates and Ribbons titled “The Kissing Sailor, or ‘The Selective Blindness...