For his first 107 years, Richard Overton lived in relative anonymity. A World War II veteran who fought in the Pacific, he could usually be found post-retirement on the porch of his Austin, Texas, home, smoking cigars and chatting up his extensive circle of family and friends. ...read more
On this day, Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict. The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a ...read more
After 75 years, wrecked remains of a U.S. Navy destroyer, cleaved in two during World War II by an underwater explosion, has been located in frigid waters off the Aleutian island of Kiska. A NOAA-funded team of scientists discovered the stern of the USS Abner Read on the ...read more
Like most Americans, Don Seki and Frank Mitoshi Wada remember the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii as a dark day. For these two “Nisei” (American-born children of Japanese immigrants), December 7th, 1941 was darker than for most, since it led to their ...read more
A wildfire that scorched the coast of Ireland has revealed a World War II-era sign carved into the ground. Irish police officers spotted it while flying over Bray Head to assess the fire’s damage. The partially-eroded sign originally said “ÉIRE,” which means “Ireland” in the ...read more
As record-high temperatures have sent water levels plunging in Germany this summer, World War II munitions have surfaced. So far, 22 grenades, mines or other explosives have been recovered from the Elbe River in the German states of Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony. Authorities warn ...read more
Though Tony King is sharp and alert at the age of 94, a part of him is trapped forever in the summer of 1945. He time-travels there when he speaks of it—even as he sits in a wheelchair near the lone window in his San Francisco apartment. King’s eyes mist over as he tells his ...read more
Duck boats are a U.S. tourist attraction that have unfortunately seen several high-profile accidents (the most recent killed 17 people on Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri). Yet before they were a controversial tour vehicle, the Allied troops during World War II used them to ...read more
It was a seemingly simple document—a brief 1944letter with text in German and Hungarian that declared that a Jewish woman from Budapest, was under the protection of the Swiss Legation. But for Maria Magdalena Grausz, it meant freedom. Grausz and over 60,000 other Hungarian Jews ...read more
Article 5 is the cornerstone of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and states that an attack on one member of NATO is an attack on all of its members. But despite its importance, NATO has only invoked Article 5 once in its history—in response to the terrorist attacks ...read more
Desperate to escape Nazi persecution during World War II, Anne Frank’s family tried repeatedly to flee to the United States before going into hiding in 1942, according to new researchpublished this week. However, the combination of Nazi rule, World War II bombing and American ...read more
Getting the perfect shot in wartime is not only about weapons. With over 30 countries involved in World War II and the loss of over 50 million lives, war photography captured the destruction and victories of the deadliest war in history. Lead by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, over one ...read more
When Germany signed the armistice ending hostilities in the First World War on November 11, 1918, its leaders believed they were accepting a “peace without victory,” as outlined by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points. But from the moment the leaders of the ...read more
In the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government forced over 100,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II—and one of those Japanese-Americans, Fred Korematsu, would later contend the act had violated his constitutional rights. In 1944, ...read more
Almost as soon as World War II ended, the question of what to do with a defeated, destroyed Germany threatened to drive a wedge between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies. At Potsdam in 1945, the Big Three (the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union) agreed to ...read more
History Flashback takes a look at historical “found footage” of all kinds—newsreels, instructional films, even cartoons—to give us a glimpse into how much things have changed, and how much has remained the same. On February 19, 1942, just over two months after the bombing of ...read more
A set of silverware made to commemorate Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday in 1939 has been sold at auction in Dorset, England for £12,500 (or $16,583 in U.S. dollars). The rare set of cutlery—which included two knives, three spoons and three forks, each engraved with the ...read more
Global tournaments like the World Cup are never free of politics and that was especially true in 1938 during the run-up to World War II when the fascist leaders of Germany and Italy were eager to put their stamp on the final outcome. But the Germans may have made a miscalculation ...read more
Before Professor Plum, Miss Scarlett and Colonel Mustard gathered on a game board to claim their first victim—wielding a revolver, a rope or a lead pipe—a British musician named Anthony Pratt was watching murder-mystery scenarios unfold in European country mansions, where he ...read more
Rome has been seized and occupied by enemies so many times that it is hard to come up with an exact number. After each sacking, however terrible, Rome rose again, phoenix-like. Evidence of these assaults can still be seen today. 387 BC The Gauls’ attack on Rome more than 24 ...read more
Steven Spielberg’s 1998 film Saving Private Ryan may include some of the most horrific fighting scenes ever produced on film. But that isn’t its only element of realism. The film draws on the story of an actual soldier named Fritz Niland and a U.S. War Department directive ...read more
The Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 is considered one of the most consequential developments of World War II and instrumental in defeating the Axis powers. 156,000 troops landed on the beach as part of Operation Overlord, but before they would carry out the liberation ...read more
Haviva Reik looked out over the fields of Slovakia. For the first time in years she was home—or, rather, above home, flying in an English warplane. It was summer 1944. For years, Slovakia had been a Nazi puppet. And now it was time for Reik, a Jew, to jump into enemy territory at ...read more
After World War II, a critical MI5 spy named Juan Pujol Garcia faked his own death, and kept it secret for almost four decades. And that’s not even the most interesting thing about him. Pujol was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War who had come to loathe totalitarianism, both in ...read more