The story behind this iconic photo will forever change the way you see it.

There are some images so iconic they stay with us long after they are taken.

The picture of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York’s Times Square during end of WWII celebrations is one of them.

The image was back in the news this week after it was announced the woman in the photo, Greta Zimmer Friedman, had passed away.

Friedman had previously been heralded as one half of a hugely romantic and passionate couple.

However, the dental nurse told the Veterans History Project in 2005 a little fact about the photo that challenged this long-held assumption.

“It wasn’t that much of a kiss,” she said.

“It was just somebody celebrating. It wasn’t a romantic event.”

The identity of the sailor was revealed in 2015 in an interview with CNN.

George Mendonsa told the news agency he had become overcome with passion as soon as he saw her.

"I saw this nurse coming down," he said.

"The war is over. The excitement of the war, and the drinking -- and when I see the nurse, I grabbed her."

At the time Mendonsa was on a date with another nurse, Rita Petry, whom he later married.

The moment was seen as a romantic spontaneous celebration, but others have also suggested that through a more modern lens it would be seen as sexual assault.

Of the moment Greta said: “I did not see him approaching, and before I know it I was in this vice grip.

"I felt that he was very strong. He was just holding me tight."

However her son Joshua Friedman told the Daily News his mother would not agree. "My mom… understood the premise that you don’t have a right to be intimate with a stranger on the street, but she didn’t assign any bad motives to George in that circumstance, that situation, that time.”

Feature image via Getty.