World War II

Wreck of Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. <i>Lexington</i> Found 76 Years After It Was Scuttled in Battle

The ship was sunk by an American destroyer so it couldn't be captured in the Battle of Coral Sea, considered to be the first carrier battle in history

"Reflections of the Weeping Willow on the Water-Lily Pond" Claude Monet

Long-Lost Monet, Sent Away for Safekeeping Before WWII, Found in Louvre Storage

The painting was acquired by Japanese art collector Kōjirō​ ​Matsukata in the 1920s. It will go on view at the National Museum of Western Art in 2019

The Nazi atomic effort relied on work done in this remote lab.

How a Sneak Attack By Norway's Skiing Soldiers Deprived the Nazis of the Atomic Bomb

Seventy-five years ago, in Operation Gunnerside, a stealthy group of commandos took out a crucial Nazi chemical plant

Norman Rockwell (above in a 1968 photograph by Garry Camp Burdick), who created more than 300 original covers for the Saturday Evening Post over the course of his long career, was already widely known for his rich visualizations of the American dream when he set about the challenging task of animating FDR's Four Freedoms.

Norman Rockwell's 'Four Freedoms' Brought the Ideals of America to Life

This wartime painting series reminded Americans what they were fighting for

The Louvre museum has opened two showrooms with 31 paintings on display which can be claimed by their legitimate owners.

The Louvre Puts Nazi-Looted Art in Public Eye in Effort to Find Rightful Heirs

The museum hopes the initiative will help connect the works to their legitimate owners. But critics say the move is too little, too late

Rosie the Riveter by J. Howard Miller, 1942; Uncle Sam by J. M Flagg, 1917

Rosie the Riveter and Uncle Sam: Two Portraits, Two Methods of Persuasion

Kim Sajet, director of the Portrait Gallery, says that while Uncle Sam orders, Rosie inspires collective action

This Man Filmed Life Inside an Internment Camp

Dave Tatsuno was one of the 120,000 Japanese-Americans rounded up in the U.S. in 1942 and placed in an internment camp

AP file photo of musician Coco Schumann taken on August 16, 1997.

Coco Schumann, the Holocaust Survivor who Played Jazz at Auschwitz, Dies at 93

The Berlin native returned to the city after the war and became renowned for playing the electric guitar

Parade of volunteers for Waffen-SS Division “Galicia” in Buczacz, 1943

When Mass Murder Is an Intimate Affair

A new book reveals how neighbors turned on neighbors in an Eastern European border town

Artist J. Howard Miller produced this work-incentive poster for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company. Though displayed only briefly in Westinghouse factories, the poster in later year has become one of the most famous icons of World War II.

The Unsung Inspiration Behind the "Real" Rosie the Riveter

Historians pay tribute to the legacy of Naomi Parker Fraley, who died Saturday at 96. In 2015, she was linked, circumstantially, to the We Can Do It poster

Page B of the February 26, 1942, Los Angeles Times, shows the coverage of the so-called Battle of Los Angeles and its aftermath.

The Great Los Angeles Air Raid Terrified Citizens—Even Though No Bombs Were Dropped

The WWII “battle” was an example of what happens when the threat of attack feels all too real

Why Did the U.S. Sink Captured Japanese Subs After WWII?

WWII had come to a close, and the U.S. was the first to seize a new class of giant Japanese submarines. The next step was to analyze them quickly

Intense Footage of Kamikaze Attacks During WWII

U.S. marines faced a battle unlike any they had faced before: the Japanese intentionally crashed over 1,900 planes in suicide kamikaze dives on them

Major General Cates with War Correspondents Aboard Ship, Febraury 1945. Robert Sherrod is second from left.

The Reporter Who Helped Persuade FDR to Tell the Truth About War

After witnessing the bloody struggle with Japan, Robert Sherrod thought the public should face the 'cruel' facts

Hitler used shameless self-promotion and alternative facts to cast himself as a national hero.

Hitler Created a Fictional Persona To Recast Himself as Germany's Savior

In 1923, Adolf Hitler wrote an embellished autobiography to convince Germans he was their natural leader

Women grieving over the coffins of those killed in the Kielce pogrom as they are transported to the burial site in the Jewish cemetery.

Kielce: The Post-Holocaust Pogrom That Poland Is Still Fighting Over

After World War II, Jewish refugees found they could never return to their native land—a sentiment that some echo today

In World War II America, Female Santas Took the Reins

Rosie the Riveter wasn’t the only woman who pitched in on the homefront

An artist's rendering of the CP-1 nuclear reactor.

How the First Man-Made Nuclear Reactor Reshaped Science and Society

In December 1942, Chicago Pile-1 ushered in an age of frightening possibility

The Ten Best History Books of 2017

From presidential biographies to a look at the long rise of fake news, these picks will surely interest history buffs

You may know the woman depicted here as Rosie the Riveter, but she wasn't originally called that.

The Riveting Story of an American Icon

Rosie has a surprising history

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