The Lend-Lease Act stated that the U.S. government could lend or lease (rather than sell) war supplies to any nation deemed “vital to the defense of the United States.” Under this policy, the United States was able to supply military aid to its foreign allies during World War II ...read more
Blitzkrieg is a term used to describe a method of offensive warfare designed to strike a swift, focused blow at an enemy using mobile, maneuverable forces, including armored tanks and air support. Such an attack ideally leads to a quick victory, limiting the loss of soldiers and ...read more
The Yalta Conference was a meeting of three World War II allies: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. The trio met in February 1945 in the resort city of Yalta, located along the Black Sea coast of the ...read more
The Battle of Britain took place during World War II between Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Luftwaffe, Nazi Germany’s air force. From July 10 through October 31, 1940, pilots and support crews on both sides took to the skies and battled for control of airspace over Great ...read more
The Battle of Midway was an epic clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy’s decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defense of the major base located at ...read more
The German air force launches Operation Castigo, the bombing of Belgrade, on this day in 1941, as 24 divisions and 1,200 tanks drive into Greece. The attack on Yugoslavia was swift and brutal, an act of terror resulting in the death of 17,000 civilians—the largest number of ...read more
When the United States entered World War II after the 1941 attacks on Pearl Harbor, men shipped overseas by the millions to serve in the war. This left many of the civilian and military jobs on the home front unfilled—and that's when women stepped in. Before the war, some women ...read more
In February of 1942, just 10 weeks after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government issued Executive Order 9066, calling for the internment of Japanese-Americans. Intended initially to prevent Japanese spies from receiving intel, this order authorized their removal from ...read more
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
