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World War II
Albert Einstein's 'Magnificent Birthday Gift'
By Olivia B. Waxman
The False Hope of the Iwo Jima Flag-Raising Photo
By Matthew Pressman and James J. Kimble
A Nazi U-Boat Tactic Stumped Allied Forces — Until a Retired British Naval Officer Designed a Game to Reveal How It Worked
By Simon Parkin
Germany Is Often Praised for Facing Up to Its Nazi Past. But Even There, the Memory of the Holocaust Is Still Up for Debate
By Jacob S. Eder
More in
World War II
What Translating a Firsthand Account of Life in Auschwitz Taught Me About the Language of Suffering
When Eddy de Wind wrote 'Last Stop Auschwitz,' he was driven to let others know what he had suffered. How can that emotion be translated?
By David Colmer
January 24, 2020
A Surprisingly Large Percentage of Young French People Don't Know About the Holocaust, Study Finds
The survey also found that 20% of young French respondents believe that anti-Semitic views are "acceptable"
By Olivia B. Waxman
January 22, 2020
Hundreds of Britons Volunteered for a Diary-Keeping Project in 1937. They Left an Invaluable Record of World War II
The founders of Mass Observation couldn’t have known that they’d be uniquely positioned to capture the hopes and fears of a nation at war
By Julia Kelly
January 14, 2020
How Methamphetamine Became a Key Part of Nazi Military Strategy
World War II was not only the most destructive war in human history but also the most pharmacologically enhanced. It was literally sped up by speed
By Peter Andreas
January 7, 2020
Why the U.S. Sent Librarians Undercover to Gather Intelligence During World War II
As bookmen and women became intelligence agents, the ordinary activities of librarianship—acquisition, cataloguing, and reproduction—became fraught with mystery
By Kathy Peiss
January 3, 2020
Refugees Fleeing Nazi Germany Reshaped Hollywood. This Forgotten Woman Helped Make It Possible
An estimated ten thousand refugees from Germany and Austria settled in greater Los Angeles between 1933 and 1941
By Donna Rifkind
January 2, 2020
What Happened to USS Arizona?
Today, the underwater wreckage is considered a historic relic, a sacred open grave and an environmental dilemma
By Sanya Mansoor
December 6, 2019
The WWII Incarceration of Japanese Americans Stretched Beyond U.S. Borders
The U.S. government orchestrated the roundup of people of Japanese descent in 12 Latin American countries, citing “hemispheric security"
By Erika Lee
December 4, 2019
The Persecution of the Roma Is Often Left Out of the Holocaust Story. Victims’ Families Are Fighting to Change That
They were subjected to forced sterilization as a form of ethnic cleansing, and a large number were sent to special internment camps
By Rachael Bunyan
November 12, 2019
The Man Who Died Pursuing Nazi Criminals More Than Four Decades After World War II Ended
Read an excerpt from 'Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soldiers in America'
By Debbie Cenziper
November 12, 2019
How Israel’s Justice System Dealt With Alleged Jewish Collaborators in Concentration Camps—And Why That Still Matters Today
Only in recent years has the Israel State Archives made the transcripts of some of these trials publicly available
By Dan Porat
October 25, 2019
The U.S. Recruited Missionaries as Spies During World War II. Their Stories Are Only Now Being Told
At about the same time that William Eddy was recruiting French hitmen, he wrote to his family about the sacrifices he was making for Lent
By Matthew Avery Sutton
September 24, 2019
What the British and the French Actually Thought About the Decision to Appease Hitler at Munich in 1938
In 1938, opinion polls were taking their first baby steps
By P. E. Caquet
September 24, 2019
World War II Launched a New Age of Global Power. 80 Years After the War Began, That Era Is Ending
On Sept. 3, 1939, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. Nearly everyone old enough to remember that time as an adult has passed
By David Kaiser
September 3, 2019
As Teenagers, These Sisters Resisted the Nazis. Here’s What They Taught Me About Doing the Right Thing
Eight decades after World War II, their message endures
By Sophie Poldermans
August 30, 2019
Why the Invasion of Poland Launched WWII
Roughly 1.5 million German soldiers, 2,000 airplanes and 2,500 tanks crossed the Polish border on Sept. 1, 1939
By Olivia B. Waxman
August 30, 2019
'I Have Only One More Test to Pass.' The Enduring Message of the Last Letters From WWII's Captured French Resisters
They were allowed to write home before being executed
By Ronald C. Rosbottom / History News Network
August 21, 2019
What Happened to the Enola Gay After Hiroshima?
The B-29 bomber now lives at the National Air and Space Museum
By Sanya Mansoor
August 6, 2019
'This Might Be My Last Night': What Chaplains Saw in World War II
"If ever I felt that I ought to be five priests it was that week"
By John Wukovits / History News Network
July 25, 2019
A Group of German Leaders Tried to Kill Hitler in 1944. Here’s Why They Failed
The Führer was dead, and Europe was potentially freed from the Nazi scourge. Or so it initially seemed
By Albinko Hasic
July 19, 2019
D-Day Veteran, 97, Parachutes Into Normandy Again
'I feel great,' said Tom Rice. 'I'd go up and do it all again'
By Madeline Fitzgerald
June 5, 2019
‘Those Are Things You Don’t Forget.’ How a Young Audrey Hepburn Helped the Dutch Resistance During World War II
Audrey Hepburn — born May 4, 1929 — was just a teenager when she first became involved in Dutch resistance against the Nazis
By Robert Matzen
May 3, 2019
130 Years After Hitler's Birth, He Continues to Live as a Symbol of Evil
Throughout its history, TIME has documented the finest of humanity—and the lowest. To cover a Mother Teresa is a joy; to cover an Adolf Hitler, a burden
By Jeffrey Kluger / TIME Books
April 19, 2019
Virginia Hall Was America’s Most Successful Female WWII Spy. But She Was Almost Kept From Serving
The one-legged socialite from Baltimore has only been comparatively recently been publicly acknowledged as an unqualified war heroine
By Sonia Purnell
April 9, 2019
Time Appears to Have Run Out on the Last Nazi War Crimes Trials. But There Are Other Roads to Justice
As a case collapses due to the defendant's health, it's time to reconsider the system, a scholar argues
By Thomas Weber
April 3, 2019
What One German Diary Reveals About Hitler's Attempt to Protect His Country With a Wall
What the diary of a German against the Third Reich can teach us about the Atlantic Wall
By Robert Scott Kellner / History News Network
March 11, 2019
How an Italian Hospital Saved Patients From Nazis by Inventing a Fake Disease
This was one instance where disinformation, fear and ignorance worked as a force for good
By Francesco Buscemi / History Today
March 8, 2019
Inside One Man's Trip to the Idaho Camp Where His Great-Grandparents Were Held During World War II
Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Executive Order that made internment of Japanese-Americans possible on Feb. 19, 1942
By Gina Martinez
February 19, 2019
The U.S. War Refugee Board Helped Rescue Thousands During the Holocaust—Despite Franklin Roosevelt
The remarkable story of FDR’s turnabout sheds light on America’s response to the most horrific humanitarian crisis of our time
By Rafael Medoff / History News Network
January 25, 2019
How Odette Sansom Became One of WWII's Most Remarkable Spies
Female couriers operating in occupied France had the second highest Allied fatality rate of the war
By Larry Loftis
January 15, 2019
'Operation Finale' Shows the Capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann. But What Happened at His Trial Changed History, Too
"The trial’s purpose was to put the Holocaust on trial"
By Lily Rothman
August 29, 2018
A Reunion: Discovering My Father's World War II Heroism
In the hall outside his study in our house in Wilmington, Delaware, my father had hung a small framed photograph, a group of old men on a bench wearing baseball caps. I had never asked...
By Lea Carpenter
August 28, 2018
Bush Cabinet Official Sees Parallels to Japanese Internment in Family Separation Policy
As someone once held in a Japanese internment camp, Norman Mineta typically avoids casual comparisons to his experience, but he sees similar roots in the Trump Administration's now-overturned family separation policy. A Cabinet member during...
By Abigail Simon
June 21, 2018
The World War II Auto Mechanic in This Photo Is Queen Elizabeth II. Here's the Story Behind the Picture
Queen Elizabeth II was the first woman in the royal family to serve full-time in Britain's women's military during WWII
By Lily Rothman
May 25, 2018
The Story of the Warsaw Ghetto Is About Much More Than Just the Uprising
The widespread embrace of the uprising's story sheds light on how a good number of Americans want, and need, to remember the Holocaust
By Samantha Baskind
April 18, 2018
Most Americans Believe the Holocaust Could Happen Again
The results were released in time for Holocaust Remembrance Day
By Lily Rothman
April 12, 2018
Growing Up Jewish on Hitler's Block: 'Our Neighbor's a Dangerous Man'
In this excerpt from 'Hitler, My Neighbor,' Edgar Feuchtwanger recalls growing up in Munich in the lead-up to Germany's 1930 elections
By Edgar Feuchtwanger and Bertil Scali
November 7, 2017
'Einstein of the Ocean' Who Helped Surfers Catch the Perfect Waves Turns 100
Munk is called the “greatest living oceanographer” and “Einstein of the ocean"
By Paul Spence and Shane Keating / The Conversation
October 19, 2017
Google Doodle Celebrates War Correspondent Clare Hollingworth
The British journalist was the first to report the outbreak of World War II
By Casey Quackenbush
October 10, 2017
Not Everyone Escaped at Dunkirk. This Is What Happened After the Rescue
Allied POWs faced five years of brutal captivity, forced marches and executions
By TIME-LIFE Books
July 21, 2017
The Miraculous True Story Behind 'Dunkirk'
The story takes place amid real events of 1940
By Olivia B. Waxman
July 20, 2017
The Latest Exercise Fad: Storming Normandy Beach on D-Day
To mark D-Day, a U.S. company is offering a 24-hour exercise test -- and history lesson -- on the beaches of Northern France
By Sean Gregory
June 2, 2017
How the Army Decided Which U.S. Troops Would Get to Go Home After V-E Day
On May 12, 1945 — R- Day — GIs in Europe and the Pacific Theater learned if they had accumulated enough points to be sent home
By Waldo Heinrichs and Marc Gallicchio / History News Network
May 12, 2017
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