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World War II

Scripps oceanographer Eric Terrill and BentProp founder Pat Scannon investigate the main fuselage of a TBM Avenger lost 70 years ago during a bombing mission near Palau.

Cool Finds

Divers Turn to Robots for Help Scouring the Pacific for Long-Lost WWII Soldiers

An ongoing effort to recover those missing in action teams military historians, volunteers and scientists

After World War II, Gottschee ceased to exist as an independent community

An Attempt to Keep the Dying Gottschee Culture Very Much Alive

Inspired by a trip to Slovenia with her grandmother, one New Yorker took it upon herself to chronicle the story of a lost piece of European history

Hitler's signature on one of his watercolors.

Trending Today

Did an Auction of Hitler’s Art Go Too Far?

A collection of Hitler’s paintings just sold for $450,000

Cool Finds

Los Alamos’s “Atomic Secretary” Was Never Told What the Manhattan Project Was For

Dorothy McKibbin coordinated entry of all people and property to the Los Alamos site

The washable knitwear c. 1950s suit by Claire McCardell resides in the collections of the National Museum of American History.

What a 1950s Fashion Maven Might Teach Us About What To Wear

When it was time to suit up for work, politics or social engagements, Claire McCardell’s fans embraced her chic, but comfortable style

The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial museum.

Cool Finds

This Company is Turning Holocaust Survivor Interviews into Holograms

Researchers are using new technology to keep Holocaust testimonies alive

Cool Finds

Seventy Years Ago Today, Queen Elizabeth Secretly Partied with Commoners

Before she became Elizabeth II, the then-princess slipped into London’s streets incognito to celebrate Europe’s victory over Germany

An image of Alexanderplatz in May 1945, set in Alexanderplatz today. Behind it, poking just above the image, is the Park Inn Hotel.

Dramatic Images of Berlin in May 1945, Set Against the City’s Prosperous Present

“Spring in Berlin” compares Germany’s capital city at the end of World War II and today

Trending Today

Germany Just Opened a Nazi Museum in the Party’s Former Headquarters

70 years later, Munich’s mayor says the city is ready to “face up to its Nazi past”

How Do Seals Find Their Prey and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

The flight deck of the U.S. aircraft carrier Hornet, some 800 miles off Tokyo Japan, where it shows some of 16 Billy Mitchell (B-25) Bombers, under the command of Major Jimmy Doolittle, just before they were guided off flight deck for historic raid on Tokyo, April of 1942.

The Untold Story of the Vengeful Japanese Attack After the Doolittle Raid

When the U.S. responded to Pearl Harbor with a surprise bombing of Tokyo, the Imperial Army took out its fury on the Chinese people

New Research

There’s New Information About Anne Frank’s Death

New research challenges the notion that if the Frank sisters had lived a few days more, they’d have survived the war

Cool Finds

Found: A Secret Nazi Hideaway in the Heart of an Andean Jungle

Hints of a dark Nazi history found in Argentina

Paul Allen used his superyacht Octopus to locate a Japanese battleship near the Philippines.

Cool Finds

Microsoft Billionaire Finds Enormous Sunken Japanese Battleship

Paul Allen used his megayacht to locate the long-lost ship, which has been missing since World War II

United States Marines pose on top of Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima with the American flag on February 23, 1945.

Photos From the Battle of Iwo Jima to Mark Its 70th Anniversary

The battle for the Pacific island in the late winter of 1945 positioned the United States to invade mainland Japan, but at a cost

A former bombe operator shows the back of a drum from the decryption machine at Bletchley Park.

Brains Make Decisions the Way Alan Turing Cracked Codes

A mathematical tool developed during World War II operates in a similar way to brains weighing the reliability of information

An Enigma deciphering machine from the German navy

Cool Finds

Notes From Alan Turing’s Code-Breaking Days Found in Roof Insulation

The rare code-breaking documents include sheets used to calculate settings for the machine working on “Enigma”

Jean Valentine, a former Bombe machine operator, shows a drum of the machine in Bletchley Park Museum in Bletchley, England.

Cool Finds

Women Were Key to WWII Code-Breaking at Bletchley Park

Female operators and mathematicians play a greater role in the history of computers and code-breaking than most realize

Turing's journal was kept while he helped build the Bombe Machine, a device used to encrypt Nazi codes.

Cool Finds

Turing’s Secret Notebook Is Up for Auction

The notebooks offer a glimpse into the mind of a codebreaker

Olympian and airman Louis Zamperini crouches in his starting position on a B-18 bomber.

Document Deep Dive

“Unbroken“‘s Louis Zamperini Crashed Into the Pacific on May 27, 1943. Here is the Missing Air Crew Report

The National Archives holds a record with details of the downing of the former Olympian’s B-24 bomber that left him lost at sea for 47 days

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