V-J Day: 1945

Edith Shain, who claimed to be the nurse kissed by a sailor in Life magazine’s memorable photograph of V-J Day in Times Square on Aug. 14, 1945, died last week at age 91.

“The happiness was indescribable,” Mrs. Shain later recalled, and the joy over Japan’s surrender, captured in that one image by the renowned photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, swept across the city. “Restraint was thrown to the four winds,” The New York Times reported the next day. New Year's Eve celebrations paled into insignificance. ... In the Times Square area particularly, crowds in bars were four and five deep with servicemen — principally sailors — predominating.” At one dinner club, the Zanzibar, “patrons climbed on tables and shouted and screamed. ...Pandemonium took over.”