Situation Room
You might remember it as the Situation Room photo
This spread through many posts rather than one canonical upload.
2011·The social era
One White House photograph that the internet immediately took apart and reassembled.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- the Situation Room photo
- Spread in
- 2011
- Format
- Photograph
- Made by
- Pete Souza, the White House’s chief photographer
- Recorded
- At 4.05 in the afternoon, Washington time, on 1 May 2011
- Who or what it shows
- Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and members of the national security team
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
Pete Souza's 1 May 2011 photograph of the national security team watching the bin Laden raid. Released to Flickr, it became one of the most reproduced and most parodied press images ever made.
Why it matteredWhat changed
The official photograph of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden shows none of it: only the faces of the people following it from Washington.
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asThey are watching bin Laden being killed.
ActuallyThe director of the CIA said the President did not see that. They were following a feed from a drone and live reports.1
Commonly remembered asClinton’s hand is over her mouth in shock.
ActuallyShe said she had an allergy and was probably stifling a cough.1
Commonly remembered asIt is the Situation Room.
ActuallyIt is a much smaller room in the same complex.1
LegacyWhat it left behind
- Two newspapers printed it with the women removed. One apologised.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
More from 2011You were there
More from the social eraMore of the archive
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things