WW2

73 years since World War II officially ended, two European countries are still seeking satisfaction from the German government over damages caused by the Nazi regime. According to a report from DW, both Greece and Poland are officially asking that Germany pay reparations to the two states for invading their countries during the war. Hitler […]

While economically struggling, Russia has a long history of deriving national pride from military parades celebrating past victories. Last Thursday, Russian forces participated in just such an event: a parade commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk. In 1943, some 1.9 million Soviet soldiers alongside more than 5,000 tanks participated in what would […]

Although the United States has remained embroiled in a war of one sort or another fairly consistently since the final days of World War II, something about that war prevents it from waning out of our cultural lexicon. War stories about later conflicts, like Vietnam and Korea, have been transposed to film and television, of […]

The acronym “UFO” has lost a fair amount of its meaning over the years. Once intended as a descriptive placeholder for something spotted in the sky that has yet to be identified, it now evokes images of little green (or grey) men from another planet, solar system, or even galaxy. Like our collective inclination to […]

In December of 1941, the United States was thrust into the fighting of World War II by way of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and by the summer of 1942, the U.S. Army Air Force (the Air Force wouldn’t be established for another five years) set about hopping a variety of aircraft from […]

The United States boasts many iconic monuments like the Statue of Liberty or the United States Marine Corps War Memorial. These achievements in architecture and art all serve different purposes — some are utilitarian like the Golden Gate Bridge, and others are commemorative like the Abraham Lincoln Memorial. Whatever their purpose, these images are stamped […]

In telling the stories of war, we have a natural inclination to focus on the action, the drama of the front lines. Heroes, villains, and violence unlike most people have ever seen has a unique way of grabbing at the human attention span, luring us in with via own aspirations of heroism, or our own […]

The picture above was taken on April 5, 1935, exactly 83 years ago today. One look at this picture and one can already surmise the difficulties Germany may have had after the fall of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler — just because the military and political infrastructure were defeated did not mean that all […]

Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft alongside Bill Gates. He has been estimated to have been the 46th richest person in the world, and has a knack for underwater exploration. He owns the RV Petrel, a research vessel outfitted with deep sea equipment that is more capable than ever — it is the only ship equipped to explore depths […]

There are certain memories that snap you back to the past. Smell can carry you all the way back to the earliest memories, like Grandma’s house on a Sunday, or freshly cut grass in the morning. The sharp bite of the cold can bring back memories of childhood Christmas, or training missions in the worst […]

Imagine you’re a German soldier during WWII, just for a moment. It’s nearing the end of December, and you’re in a coastal town in far west Norway — England is somewhere across the icy waters. It’s freezing cold, and British boats are closing in. Troops are about to charge the garrison, and the first landing […]

February 27, 1942 — The USS Langley was sailing off the Indonesian coast with her escort anti-submarine vessels in tow. A Japanese reconnaissance plane spotted them and reported back to their command. By mid-day, the U.S. ships were being bombarded by Japanese bombers — Mitsubishi Navy Type 1 attack bombers, to be precise, known to […]