The "Afghan Girl" cover from June 1985 is the most talked about in "National Geographic" history. It features a 12-year-old girl from a refugee camp on the Afghan-Pakistani border staring straight into the camera with haunting green eyes. Her family was killed when the refugee camp was bombed by Soviet planes.
The "New Discoveries at Herculaneum" cover from May 1984 showed a newly discovered skeleton of a Roman woman from Herculaneum. Her bones and jewelry were preserved 2,000 years before by the lava from Pompeii. The excavation led to new details of life and death in Herculaneum.
The "Conversations with a Gorilla" cover from October 1978 featured a gorilla, named Koko, holding a camera to his face and pressing the button. Koko took the picture of himself looking into a mirror. The inside article is about Koko learning sign language, which psychologist Francine Patterson successfully taught him.
The "Mauna Ulu Lava" cover from March 1975 showed the silhouette of a man against an almost entirely orange background of lava exploding from the Mauna Ulu volcano in Hawaii. The geologist had just collected a fresh sample of the lava.
The "Great White" cover from April 2000 featured a great white shark with its mouth wide open and teeth visible. The inside article, penned by "Jaws" director Peter Benchley, was about the dangers facing the great white shark.
The "Jane Goodall" cover from December 1995 showed a chimpanzee looking through primatologist Jane Goodall's hair. This was her second time appearing on the cover, the first as an illustration. The photo was taken to congratulate her on receiving the National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal.
The "Redwoods" cover from October 2009 depicted a man climbing up a massive 300-foot-tall redwood tree. The inside article featured the first-ever complete photograph of a redwood from top to bottom. The photo was made from a mosaic of 87 images combined.