What's in a kiss? A lot when it comes to a famous photo of one.
The Department of Veteran Affairs had a very public battle over an iconic photo of a World War II Times Square kiss in the past week, Knewz.com has learned.
Officials at the department issued a memo to remove the photo, dubbed "V-J Day in Times Square," from agency buildings last week, angering their boss, VA Secretary Denis McDonough.
McDonough reversed the decision on X, declaring: "Let me be clear: This image is not banned from VA facilities — and we will keep it in VA facilities."
A memo announcing the banishment of the photo was circulating around the VA before McDonough was made aware of the change, according to The Associated Press, which cited two anonymous sources who said the document was authentic.
“The VA is not going to be banning this photo,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. “I can definitely say that the memo was not sanctioned, and so it’s not something that we were even aware of.”
The photo — known to many as simply "The Kiss" — was taken on August 14, 1945, known as V-J Day, the day Japan surrendered to the United States.
Upon the announcement, people filled the New York City streets from restaurants, bars and movie theaters to celebrate the news.
The two people featured in the photo — who didn't previously know each other — were George Mendonsa and Greta Friedman. In 2005, Friedman told the Library of Congress that "it wasn’t a romantic event. It was just an event of thank God the war is over kind of thing.” She added in an oral history of the photo: “It wasn’t my choice to be kissed. The guy just came over and kissed or grabbed.”
The history of the kiss goes back 1,000 years more than previously thought.
As Knewz.com reported on February 14 — Valentines Day — historians in Denmark and England believe they’ve found evidence that lip-locking began about 1,000 years earlier than conventional wisdom has said.
“Lip kissing was documented in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt from at least 2500 BCE onward,” they declared in a May 2023 edition of the journal Science. Their work finally gained national attention for Valentine’s Day 2024.
Exactly who did the first kiss on the lips is still a mystery. Several places could compete for that honor.
“This behavior did not emerge abruptly or in a specific society but appears to have been practiced in multiple ancient cultures over several millennia,” the study says.
The research was based on case studies from an area now known as Iraq and Syria.
According to The New York Post, one ancient kiss was etched into a clay tablet in the city of Nippur called the “Barton cylinder.” But something else apparently happened first.
“The subjects have sexual intercourse first, and only afterward do they kiss,” academic Gonzalo Rubio said after reviewing the study. “It is after-play of some sort, rather than foreplay.”
One of the European researchers told The New York Times that humans might even have followed the lead of animals. In other words, it all goes back to evolution.
