On Aug. 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb used in history was dropped on Hiroshima by the U.S. The evolution of media coverage of that day shows how our retelling of history has changed in 80 years.
Tag: wwii
Here are the latest headlines.
Here are the latest headlines.
In his final address to the nation, just days before his departure, U.S. President Joe Biden warned against the emergence of a “tech-industrial complex” that threatens democracy; a charge against tech barons, including Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, who have pledged allegiance to incoming President Donald Trump.
Updated Aug. 19, 2024 at 11:20 a.m. Paris was liberated from Nazi Germany occupation on this day in 1944. How did the liberation of France unfold? The liberation of France involved a series of military campaigns and battles. It began with the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, when Allied forces landed on the beaches […]
Updated August 6, 2024 at 11:45 a.m. The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by the United States on this day in 1945, during World War II. Why was Hiroshima a target for the atomic bomb? Hiroshima was chosen as a target for the atomic bomb due to its military significance and its dense population. […]
Olaf Scholz has refused to dissolve Germany’s parliament, even though his coalition suffered a major defeat at the European elections. The Chancellor’s weakened position comes at a bad time for Europe, where the union’s other major power, France, is also in a fragile state.
Just north of Berlin, a luxurious villa that used to belong to top Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels has become a real estate headache. What should become of it?
Updated March 19, 2024 at 12:30 p.m. The meeting between West Germany’s Willy Brandt and East Germany’s Willi Stoph on this day in 1970, was part of Brandt’s “Ostpolitik” (Eastern policy), which aimed to improve relations between West Germany and East Germany. Who were the leaders of East and West Germany in the famous 1970 […]
Updated Jan 27, 2024 at 2:45 pm On this day in 1945, prisoners of Poland’s concentration camp, Auschwitz, where Nazis had exterminated more than one million people were finally free. How was Auschwitz liberated? Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Red Army during the Vistula–Oder Offensive of World War II. Although most of the prisoners […]
Stunning images of the attack of Nova Kakhovka dam, which had been described as a strategically important target, serve as a reminder that military forces in past wars have set off similar disasters to take out dams’ power.
The Polish government has recently demanded official apologies from Kyiv (which is busy fighting off the Russian invasion) for historic war crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists against ethnic Poles during World War II. The ruling PiS party is up to its old tricks of scapegoating for votes.
On his historic trip to Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recalls Winston Churchill in multiple ways, including that we wouldn’t have thought much of either one before war turned each into leaders of epic proportions. A view from Germany.
On Aug. 24, 1944, the first French and U.S. armored tanks entered Paris, after a week of intense fighting with German soldiers — effectively freeing the capital from Nazi occupation. The next day, General Charles de Gaulle, who had been heading the French government-in-exile from London, made his impassioned “Paris Libéré !” speech from the Hôtel de Ville, roared on by a large crowd. It would take another nine months for Allied Forces to finally defeat Germany and put an end to World War II. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/Jn01pnyW3CY expand=1] The Joy of Liberated Paris (© Richard Boyer) OneShot is a new […]
Six men, one flag: it is the defining image of the Greatest Generation. No bodies, no planes or tanks, and yet it has become one of the most recognizable images of that worldwide conflict that killed tens of millions and changed history forever. It was 74 ago, on Feb. 23, 1945, that U.S. photographer Joe Rosenthal captured image later dubbed Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. The photograph shows five U.S. Marines and a Navy corpsman planting the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in Japan. Three of the men — Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal […]
On June 6, 1944, WWII Allied Forces launched a combined naval, air and land assault on Nazi-occupied France. To commemorate the 74th anniversary of the D-Day landings, OneShot chose this iconic shot by U.S. Coast Guard photographer Robert F. Sargent. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/P4wfLGV0nwA expand=1] OneShot — Into The Jaws Of Death (© Robert F. Sargent) OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot: [rebelmouse-image 27068863 original_size=”320×320″ expand=1][rebelmouse-image 27068864 original_size=”174×174″ expand=1][rebelmouse-image 27068865 original_size=”128×128″ expand=1][rebelmouse-image 27068866 original_size=”227×227″ expand=1][rebelmouse-image 27068867 original_size=”256×256″ expand=1]
A recent series of documentaries unveil untold chapters of ugly Japanese history.
-Analysis- Today Donald Trump will deliver a speech at the Holocaust Memorial Museum for the National Day of Remembrance. Safe to say, there will be prepared remarks, which neither Trump nor his top spokesman will write. This is no occasion for Trump’s verbal freestyling. Meanwhile, it was Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who two weeks ago […]
Germany’s right-wing AfD party says school courses give too much attention to Hitler’s reign, overlooking other historical periods. A syllabus offers an answer.
Whether killing with their own hands, orchestrating or quietly aiding and abetting, a disturbingly high number of people in voluntarily fell in line with the Nazi killing machine.
On the front page of its Monday edition, Düsseldorf-based daily Rheinische Post ran a solemn picture of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande standing side by side at a cemetery in northeastern France, to mark “100 years after” the World War I Battle of Verdun. The Battle of Verdun was one of […]
More than 70 years after the end of World War II, Uwe Steinz wants to bring the Nazis’ “lower clergy” to justice.
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Allied Dog
Our dog, whom we had gotten soon after the end of World War II and named “Jeep,” was keeping a benevolent eye on our cat.
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The Remnants
Slowly, the sands of time eat away at the concrete bunkers on Utah and Omaha beaches. The half-buried structures still bear witness to the German efforts to repel the Normandy landings.
HIROSHIMA ANNIVERSARY As the world marks today the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan’s Prime Minister called for the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide, during a ceremony in the city where more than 140,000 were killed in the last moments of World War II. Asked about the significance of the anniversary before […]
Almost 2,000 pages, 5,000 commentaries, a huge introduction: The Institute of Contemporary History has finally released details on its new edition of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” planned for 2016.
“My Great-Grandmother’s Suitcase” — Die Welt, Jan. 27, 2015 The suitcase featured on Die Welt“s front page is kept at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and is labeled “Zdenka Fantl.” It belonged to a young woman who was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 — and survived it. The woman’s great-granddaughter Kim Sarah Mojecki […]
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The Philosopher’s Corner
I was a young philosophy teacher in eastern France when we went to Berlin, then divided in two. My wife took this picture of me at the crossroads between Leibnizstrasse and Kantsstrasse — though Spinoza has always been my favorite.
It gets harder to feel the weight of history’s most brutal hours when you’re surrounded by tourists soaking in the sun and thinking about lunch plans.
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Brick By Brick
Things were getting heated in West Berlin in the summer of 1967. The conflict was escalating between the government and the West German student movement, peaking with the police shooting dead a young protester just one month before we went there. This photo shows the ongoing construction of the Berlin Wall, six years after the […]
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Le Grand Charles
In 1950, Charles de Gaulle, head of the Free French Forces during World War II and for a brief period provisional president of France, was still trying to figure out how to transform himself from military leader to peacetime politician. He made this speech in Sochaux near my hometown. And though “le Grand Charles,” by […]
AUNAY-SUR-ODON — Will there ever be a place for the civilian victims in the commemoration of French liberation and of the air raids that helped hasten the end of Nazi occupation? On June 6, France, along with other European and North American countries, will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings, and will rightly […]
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Rising From Its Ashes
Tunisia’s economy was flourishing in 1970, a time when the country was opening itself up to tourism. This was particularly clear in Sfax, the country’s second city, a large portion of which had been destroyed during World War II.
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On The Good Side Of The Fence
In 1972, Germany was divided in two — between the Soviet-occupied German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the east and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the west. Being on the “good side” of the fence, we were able to drive there and see the ominous Iron Curtain with its barbed wire and threatening miradors. […]
NANJING — War crimes should never be forgotten, no matter how misleading may be their names. Asia’s history includes “comfort stations,” places used during World War II by Japanese forces to provide sexual services to their soldiers, often by imprisoned women from other countries. A recent controversy in this eastern Chinese city, infamous for the […]
Friday, June 6, 2014 D-DAY COMMEMORATIONS TODAY This morning, French President François Hollande launched commemorations for the 70th anniversary of D-Day, describing the Normandy landings as a day that “began in chaos and fire, would end in blood and tears, tears and pain, tears and joy at the end of 24 hours that changed the […]
A new study in Germany explores the role of Christian belief in driving Nazi brutality.
LA STAMPA (Italy) Worldcrunch ROME– Workers restoring Rome’s historic Palazzo Venezia have discovered what they are calling Benito Mussolini’s 12th and most secret bunker, reports La Stampa. There are no records or mentions of this bunker, which was abandoned and left incomplete. City superintendent Anna Imponente and architect Carlo Serafini made the discovery after they […]
A visit to the dictator’s birthplace in the former Soviet republic of Georgia where a complicated relationship with the notorious native son plays into current tensions with Russia.
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch BERLIN – “Tear down this wall!” Ronald Reagan famously implored in Berlin in 1987, challenging Mikhail Gorbachev to bring an end to the Cold War. Now, it appears, this was also the much quieter request of a luxury condominium developer. The longest remaining portion of the Berlin Wall, stretching 1,316 meters […]