- He and his wife Shelley were the first photography journalist husband and wife team to cover World War II events overseas.
- He and wife Shelley were taken prisoners in Manila by invading Japanese in 1942. They spent almost two years in Manila and Shanghai until they were released in a prisoner exchange.
- He took photos of the Japanese signing official documents of surrender aboard the battleship Missouri.
- One of his most memorable shots was on a commuter train. The shot depicted all the commuters reading the headliner "President Shot Dead" on November 22, 1963.
- Photographed landmarks of 20th century history: the gaunt faces of 1930s dust-bowl farmers; Gen. Douglas MacArthur wading ashore in the Philippines; Frenchwomen having their heads shaved as punishment for "collaboration" with the Nazis; the Japanese surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri in 1945; and homebound rail commuters on Nov. 22, 1963, reading newspapers with the headline "President Shot Dead."
- His wife, Shelley Smith Mydans, was also a journalist, and they often teamed up. During World War II, they were imprisoned by the Japanese for nearly two years. Mydans refused a Japanese offer of freedom if he would take photos for them. The couple was repatriated in a 1943 prisoner of war exchange, and they immediately returned to photographing the war.
- First attracted attention in the mid-1930s after his stark black-and-white portraits of Arkansas farm families dramatized the plight of rural people victimized by the Depression.
- Joined The Boston Globe as a reporter while a student at Boston University. Later became part of the original photography staff when Life magazine was started in 1936 as a bold new experiment in pictorial journalism.
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