Theory predicts [1, 2, 3, 4] that with an ultrashort and extremely bright coherent X-ray pulse, a single diffraction pattern may be recorded from a large macromolecule, a virus, or a cell before the sample explodes and turns into a plasma. Here we report the first experimental demonstration of this principle using the FLASH soft X-ray free-electron laser. An intense 25 fs, 4 x 10^13 W/cm2 pulse, containing 10^12 photons at 32 nm wavelength, produced a coherent diffraction pattern from a nano-structured non-periodic object, before destroying it at 60,000K. A novel X-ray camera assured single photon detection sensitivity by filtering out parasitic scattering and plasma radiation. The reconstructed image, obtained directly from the coherent pattern by phase retrieval through oversampling [5, 6, 7, 8, 9], shows no measurable damage, and extends to diffraction-limited resolution. A three-dimensional data set may be assembled from such images when copies of a reproducible sample are exposed to the beam one by one [10]. Show Partial Abstract