The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., surrounded by associates and fellow civil rights leaders, holds a wreath in honor of James Reeb, a white minister who was beaten to death while marching for the cause in Selma, Alabama. The story inside detailed what LIFE called a “surge of conviction that was sweeping the nation”: “They came from everywhere — clergymen, nuns, students, doctors, plain Americans, Negro and white — to place themselves beside Martin Luther King in the streets, to stand against the police of Alabama in the name of human dignity. In all the turbulent history of civil rights, never had there been such a widespread reaction to the doctrine of white supremacy.”

Audrey Hepburn had been a Hollywood leading lady just once by 1953, in Roman Holiday, and yet the charm and style she displayed in that film instantly made her worthy of LIFE’s cover. This one, photographed by Mark Shaw, is her first of six. From the inside story: “Nobody ever quite sums her up because Audrey defies definition. She is both waif and woman of the world. She is disarmingly friendly and strangely aloof. She is all queen (her grandfather was a Dutch baron) and all commoner — you can imagine her lifting a lorgnette at a ball or milking a cow in a barn.”

Picking a winner? Sarah Jessica Parker sits among VIPs (including Elizabeth Hurley, seated far right, and her fiance Shane Warne) during horse races on Crown Oaks Day in Melbourne, Australia.

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What’s not to love about this photo? Just strollin’ with some penguins in 1937…

(see more — Penguins Round the World)