World War 2

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• 1/19/20
  

  A Courageous Catholic Voice Against Antisemitism

  by Stephen H. Norwood and Rafael Medoff

  As the harassment and beatings of Jews in the streets of Boston reached epidemic levels in 1943, one hundred Jewish boys and girls, ages 12 to 16, sent a poignant petition to the mayor. 

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• 1/19/20
  

  Poles Apart: Putin, Poland and the Nazi-Soviet Pact

  by Geoffrey Roberts

  As the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches, two of that war’s main victims – Poland and Russia – are once again embroiled in a highly emotional dispute about its origins. At the heart of the matter is the perennial controversy about the Nazi-Soviet pact of 23 August 1939. 

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• SOURCE: Time
  1/14/20
  

  Hundreds of Britons Volunteered for a Diary-Keeping Project in 1937. They Left an Invaluable Record of World War II

  The hundreds of unpaid volunteers who participated filled out a series of questionnaires and made regular diary entries. They wrote about the intimate details of their lives as well as their thoughts and feelings about the world around them. 

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• SOURCE: PolitiFact
  1/14/20
  

  Fact check: After Pearl Harbor, Japanese didn't invade US because they feared armed citizens?

  Four experts told us there is no evidence that Japan ever seriously considered such an invasion and that military limitations, not Americans armed with hunting weapons, were the reasons why.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/5/20
  

  Putin’s Big Historical Lie

  by Anne Applebaum

  In a series of comments in late December, the Russian president appeared to blame Poland for the outbreak of the Second World War.

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• SOURCE: Time
  1/7/20
  

  How Methamphetamine Became a Key Part of Nazi Military Strategy

  by Peter Andreas

  As Norman Ohler shows in Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, while other drugs were banned or discouraged, methamphetamine was touted as a miracle product when it appeared on the market in the late 1930s.

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• 12/29/19
  

  Great Britain’s Secret Role in Prodding a Reluctant U.S. to Superpower Status

  by James Thornton Harris

  America’s rapid emergence as a global superpower after 1945 is the subject of Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower 1945-1957. Author Derek Leebaert challenges the conventional wisdom that an exhausted Great Britain voluntarily “handed the baton” of world leadership to the U.S. after World War II. 

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• 12/18/19
  

  Why FDR Turned Away Jewish Students

  by Rafael Medoff

  American immigration policy was governed by a strict quota system, based on national origins. But the law contained three major exceptions: clergy, professors, and students could be admitted outside the quota restrictions.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/17/19
  

  ‘Vile and disturbing’: Army unit marks Battle of the Bulge with picture of Nazi war criminal who massacred Americans

  The Army unit posted a glamorous, colorized photo of Peiper alongside an intimate narrative depicting the Nazi writing in his diary.

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• SOURCE: Time
  12/16/19
  

  WWII Allies and Ex-Enemy Germany Together Mark Battle of the Bulge 75th Anniversary

  Side by side, the Allies and former enemy Germany together marked the 75th anniversary of one of the most important battles in World War II — the Battle of the Bulge, which stopped Adolf Hitler’s last-ditch offensive to turn the tide of the war.

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• 12/1/2019
  

  Neville Chamberlain, Sir Horace Wilson, & Britain's Plight of Appeasement

  by Adrian Phillips

  The history of appeasement is intertwined with the history of Churchill.

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• 11/12/19
  

  The Battle of Midway Movie is Mostly Terrific

  by Bruce Chadwick

  Despite its drawbacks, Midway is a rip-roaring military saga and a testament to the men who won it.

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• SOURCE: NY Times
  11/10/19
  

  Navy Submarine, Missing for 75 Years, Is Found Off Okinawa

  Private explorers found the U.S.S. Grayback beneath 1,400 feet of water after realizing that a mistranslated Japanese war record had pointed searchers in the wrong direction.    

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• SOURCE: The First News
  November 9, 2019
  

  Historians unearth the lost secrets of Hitler’s Wolf Lair fruit and veg plot

  by Alex Webber

  A team of local historians unearthed the remains of a garden and greenhouse complex once used to grow vegetables destined for the Fuhrer’s dining table.

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• SOURCE: History.com
  11/6/19
  

  How Codebreakers Helped Secure U.S. Victory in the Battle of Midway

  Advance intelligence helped the Allies turn the tables on Japan in this crucial World War II naval battle.

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• 11/3/19
  

  The Age of the Commando: How a Group of WWII Heroes Rewrote the Rules of War

  by Saul David

  The history behind today's Special Operations Forces. 

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• 11/3/19
  

  Churchill and Stalin: Comrades-in-Arms during World War Two

  by Geoffrey Roberts

  Neither the formation of what Churchill later called the Grand Alliance nor its collapse was inevitable. The Grand Alliance was willed into existence by its leaders and then sustained through four years of total war. It was one the most successful alliances in history. 

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• 10/15/19
  

  Love in Post World War II Paris

  by Bruce Chadwick

  An American in Paris is a complicated story of a man who loves a woman.

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• ‘Return to the Reich’ Review: Refugee Redux

  The true story of a Jewish boy from Freiburg who escaped Nazi Germany only to return as an American commando on a secret mission.

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• SOURCE: NY Times
  10/10/12
  

  Trump Says the Kurds ‘Didn’t Help’ at Normandy. Here’s the History.

  Kurds may not have been present at the D-Day landings, but there is evidence some fought for the Allies during World War II.