The picture we all know so well of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out was taken on his 72nd birthday. He was in the back of a limousine, leaving an event in his honor, sitting between Frank and Marie Aydelotte. Annoyed by the paparazzi, he gave them a funny face.
However, it was not the photographer who helped the photo achieve worldwide fame, but Einstein himself. He ordered numerous prints and cropped it so the Aydelotte couple could no longer be seen. He sent dozens of the photos to colleagues, friends and acquaintances. "The outstretched tongue reflects my political views," he wrote to his friend Johanna Fantova. In 2009, an original signed copy was sold for $74,324 (€62,677) at auction, making it the most expensive photo of the genius ever.
Read the sequence of events that led to the photo, and how it became so universal afterward, at DW. -via Damn Interesting