War & Peace: In Brief - HISTORY

Get a funny animated overview of Tolstoy’s epic novel “War & Peace” and the key themes it explores in this web exclusive.

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On April 16, 1953, after the death of Russian Premier Joseph Stalin, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers what is known as his “Cross of Iron” speech before the American Society for Newspaper Editors, contrasting the philosophies of the Soviet Union and the United States.

American soldiers used military-issue shovels for many tasks in World War II.

Despite North Vietnam's violation of the New Year ceasefire in 1967, Secretary of State Dean Rusk expresses hope for a peaceful resolution in Vietnam.

In a radio interview on October 28, 1943, Dr. Vojta Benes, a former Czechoslovakian senator who had been living in America since escaping his homeland in 1939, is hopeful about lasting peace after the end of World War II.

Six days a week, the president receives a daily briefing about international security issues including covert operations underway around the world.

On November 27, 1995, President Bill Clinton announces the end of years of ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. The leaders of the three warring factions met in Dayton, Ohio, and signed an agreement known as the Dayton Peace Accords, which created two new sovereign states: Bosnia and Herzegovina.