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World War II

The museum's temporary location will close in February ahead of renovations and expansion scheduled for completion in 2022.

A New Holocaust Museum Is Coming to the Netherlands, With Help From Germany

Germany has pledged €4 million to a project that seeks to revamp the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam

Giichi Matsumura was one of 11,000 Japanese-Americans interned at the Manzanar War Relocation Center during World War II.

Remains of Japanese-American Internment Camp Detainee Found on California Mountain

In 1945, Giichi Matsumura set off for the Sierra Nevada mountains. He never came back

Founded in 1854, the town of Ivittuut (formerly Ivigtut) once held the world’s largest reserve of naturally occurring cryolite.

How This Abandoned Mining Town in Greenland Helped Win World War II

Ivittuut held the world’s largest reserve of naturally occurring cryolite, a mineral that was used in the manufacturing of fighter planes

A WWII Airman’s Son Tracks Down His Father’s Last Mission—to Destroy a Nazi Weapon Factory

The impact of one heroic flight would take decades to reconcile

New Research

Oceanographers Map Legacy of Nuclear Tests at Bikini Atoll

Sonar scans reveal undersea craters from atomic testing conducted between 1946 and 1958

Photographer Charles Marville captured this snapshot of an open-air urinal with three stalls in 1865.

How Paris’ Open-Air Urinals Changed a City—and Helped Dismantle the Nazi Regime

During World War II, the stalls served as rendezvous points for French Resistance fighters

A stone in front of Adolf Hitler's birthplace reads, "For peace, freedom and democracy. Never more fascism. Millions of dead warn."

Hitler’s Birthplace Will Be Converted Into a Police Station

Officials hope the building’s new function will deter Nazi sympathizers from making pilgrimages to the site

Charlotte Salomon's "Life? or Theatre?" combines memory and imagination, presenting flashbacks and split screens filled with a “dizzying array” of allusions to other art forms.

The Genre-Bending, Death-Defying Triumph of Charlotte Salomon’s Art

Prior to her murder in Auschwitz, the Jewish-German artist created a monumental visual narrative centered on her family history

Nick Jonas plays Bruno Gaido, a rear gunner who attacked the Imperial Japanese Navy's carrier fleet during the Battle of Midway.

Based on a True Story

The True Story of the Battle of Midway

The new film “Midway” revisits the pivotal WWII battle from the perspectives of pilots, codebreakers and naval officers on both sides of the conflict

Roma or Sinti girl imprisoned in Auschwitz, as seen in pictures taken by the SS for their files

London Library Spotlights Nazi Persecution of the Roma and Sinti

The Roma and Sinti’s wartime suffering “isn’t necessarily a subject that people know that much about,” says the curator of a new London show

Researchers suspect the wreck is all that remains of the U.S.S. Johnston, a naval destroyer sunk during the Battle off Samar in October 1944.

Cool Finds

World’s Deepest Shipwreck Is WWII Destroyer Lost in the Philippine Sea

A private mission found the mangled debris of what is likely the U.S.S. Johnston 20,400 feet under the surface

This aerial picture shows Shuri Castle after a fire ripped through the historic site in Naha, Japan's southern Okinawa prefecture, on October 31

Fire Ravages Japanese Heritage Site Shuri Castle

The castle, first built more than 500 years ago, was seen as a symbol of the dynamic Ryukyu Kingdom

The Wright brothers' 1903 flight made history, regardless of other claims about earlier flights.

Ask Smithsonian

Was Jakob Brodbeck First in Flight? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions, we’ve got experts

U.S. Army Pvt. John McGrath survived the bullet that scarred this letter he penned during the liberation of Italy.

The Unprecedented Effort to Preserve a Million Letters Written by U.S. Soldiers During Wartime

A tragedy at home led one intrepid historian to find and catalog precious correspondence for future generations to study

Entering German cities within days of their capture by Allied forces, the special Army-led team slipped into bomb-ravaged Cologne in early March 1945.

The Untold Story of the Secret Mission to Seize Nazi Map Data

How a covert U.S. Army intelligence unit canvassed war-torn Europe, capturing intelligence with incalculable strategic value

Violet King, an usherette at the London Coliseum, pocketed the half-smoked cigar and safeguarded it for the rest of her life

Cool Finds

A Cigar Puffed by Winston Churchill Is Set to Go on Auction

The British prime minister smoked the cigar while attending a movie premiere in 1953

American assault troops move up the beachhead from their landing craft in northern France.

Cool Finds

Man Discovers Original D-Day Dispatch Audiotape in Basement

The tape and several other recordings have since been donated to the National D-Day Memorial

Trending Today

The “Versailles of Dresden” Has Been Rebuilt, 74 Years After World War II

The opulent royal apartments at the Residential Palace were Augustus the Strong’s attempt to project and prolong his power

A still life of Renia Spiegel’s diary

The Unforgotten: New Voices of the Holocaust

How an Astonishing Holocaust Diary Resurfaced in America

Hidden for 70 years, a new invaluable contribution to Holocaust literature—the diary of Renia Spiegel—was rediscovered inside a desk in New York

A picture taken on September 8, 2019 shows a Swastika formed with red carpets by artist Ralph Posset during the opening of an exhibition entitled "Design of the Third Reich" at the Design Museum Den Bosch, in 's-Hertogenbosch, central Netherlands. - The exhibition will show the contribution of design to the development of the Nazi ideology.

Dutch Museum Faces Protest Over Exhibition on Nazi Design

The show focused on how design furthered the ‘development of the evil Nazi ideology,’ but critics worry the show glorifies Nazi aesthetics

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