Rosenthal passed away in a nursing home near San Francisco according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.
On February 23, 1945, Rosenthal shot the iconic photograph of six US Marines raising the American flag over Mount Suribachi on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima in one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
The then-33-year-old journalist was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the photo.
The photograph remains one of the most enduring images of the war and served as the model for the US Marine Corps War Memorial, which overlooks Washington from a corner of Arlington National Cemetery.
Nearly 7,000 Americans and 20,000 Japanese were killed in the week-long battle for the strategically important Japanese island.