World War II

Ornithologist Edmund Selous made empathy for birds respectable and, in doing so, changed the world. Bird-watching became a popular pastime, eventually making birding scientific and playing a pivotal role in the animals’ conservation.

How Bird Collecting Evolved Into Bird-Watching

In the early 1900s, newfound empathy for avian creatures helped wildlife observation displace dispassionate killing

The watch that likely belonged to Adolf Hitler

Hitler’s Watch Sells for $1.1 Million at Controversial Auction

Jewish leaders opposed the sale, calling it “an abhorrence” in an open letter

After the first group of students arrived at Bunce Court came hundreds more, traumatized by the ever-escalating catastrophe in Europe.

The Schoolteacher Who Saved Her Students From the Nazis

A new book explores the life of Anna Essinger, who led an entire school's daring escape from Germany in 1933

Donald Duck title card art, circa 1942

How Disney Propaganda Shaped Life on the Home Front During WWII

A traveling exhibition traces how the animation studio mobilized to support the Allied war effort

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Women Who Shaped History

Mary Sears' Pioneering Ocean Research Saved Countless Lives in WWII

Allied victory in the Pacific depended on strategy, bravery and military might. It also depended on a brilliant marine scientist from Massachusetts

Bradford Freeman died on Sunday, July 3, at age 97.

Bradford Freeman, Last Surviving Member of WWII 'Band of Brothers,' Dies at 97

The Easy Company veteran parachuted into France on D-Day and fought in major European campaigns during the last year of the war

The men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops created elaborate illusions featuring inflatable tanks, jeeps and artillery.

Untold Stories of American History

How the Ghost Army of WWII Used Art to Deceive the Nazis

Unsung for decades, the U.S. Army's 23rd Headquarters Special Troops drew on visual, sonic and radio deception to misdirect the Germans

Communist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg speaking at a conference in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1907

History of Now

The 20th-Century History of Anti-Semitic Attacks on Jewish Politicians

Russian rhetoric against Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy echoes the language directed toward Jewish leaders in post-WWI Europe

Sammy B torpedo tubes

World’s Deepest Shipwreck Discovered Four Miles Underwater in the Philippines

The U.S. destroyer was sunk during World War II

Charlotte Bischoff van Heemskerck sees the portrait for the first time since it was stolen.

Cool Finds

Nazi-Looted Painting Returned to 101-Year-Old Dutch Woman

Over 75 years ago, Germans stole 'Portrait of Steven Wolters' from Charlotte Bischoff van Heemskerck’s father

The large World War II barge that’s now visible in the Po River

Cool Finds

Drought in Italy Reveals Sunken World War II Barge

The Po, Italy's largest river, is experiencing its worst drought in 70 years

The new Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies in Aspen

How Bauhaus Artist Herbert Bayer Helped Put Aspen on the Map

The Colorado town is home to a new center dedicated to the artistic polymath's legacy

Li Shiu Tong and Magnus Hirschfeld at the 1932 conference for the World League for Sexual Reform

LGBTQ+ Pride

The Gay Asian Activist Whose Theories on Sexuality Were Decades Ahead of Their Time

In the 1930s, Li Shiu Tong's boyfriend, Magnus Hirschfeld, was a prominent defender of gay people. But Li's own research has long been overlooked

The first two panels of "Nazi Death Parade," a six-panel comic depicting the mass murder of Jews at a Nazi concentration camp

Untold Stories of American History

The Holocaust-Era Comic That Brought Americans Into the Nazi Gas Chambers

In early 1945, a six-panel comic in a U.S. pamphlet offered a visceral depiction of the Third Reich's killing machine

Haribo products are available in more than 100 countries, with 160 million Goldbears leaving factory floors around the world every day.

The Colorful History of Haribo Goldbears, the World's First Gummy Bears

2022 marks the centenary of the German candy company's flagship product

Visitors lay wreaths at the “Square of Nations,” a memorial site at the former Flossenbürg concentration camp’s crematorium, on April 24, 2022.

History of Now

At a Former Concentration Camp, Holocaust Survivors Draw Parallels Between Nazi and Russian Rhetoric

Speakers at a ceremony marking the liberation of Flossenbürg condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims of demilitarizing and de-Nazifying Ukraine

Antiques dealer Laura Young purchased the bust at Goodwill for $34.99.

Cool Finds

Ancient Roman Sculpture Likely Looted During WWII Turns Up at Texas Goodwill

Experts are debating who the bust portrays, but they agree on one thing—a thrift store is an unusual spot to find a millennia-old statue

NATO troops from a battalion based in Fort Hood, Texas, train in Germany in September 1983, two months before the Able Archer 83 drill.

The 1983 Military Drill That Nearly Sparked Nuclear War With the Soviets

Fearful that the Able Archer 83 exercise was a cover for a NATO nuclear strike, the U.S.S.R. readied its own weapons for launch

A Long Island family sits in a "Kidde Kokoon" underground bomb shelter in 1955.

Digging Up the History of the Nuclear Fallout Shelter

For 75 years, images of bunker life have reflected the shifting optimism, anxieties and cynicism of the Atomic Age

The 700-year-old book is thought to be the oldest surviving document of its kind. 

Holocaust Survivors Ask Israel Museum to Return One-of-a-Kind Haggadah

Their lawsuit claims the Passover book was stolen, then purchased under dubious circumstances

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