From Dailyhistory.org: Atomic diplomacy refers to attempts to use the threat of nuclear warfare to achieve diplomatic goals. After the first successful test of the atomic bomb in 1945, U.S. officials immediately considered the potential non-military benefits derived from the… Read More ›
From Dailyhistory.org: The last meeting of the “Big Three” occurred at Potsdam in July 1945, where the tension that would erupt into the cold war was evident. Despite the end of the war in Europe and the revelation of the… Read More ›
In 1931, a dispute near the Chinese city of Mukden (Shenyang) precipitated events that led to the Japanese conquest of Manchuria. In response, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson issued what would become known as the Stimson Doctrine, stating that… Read More ›
The first involvement of the United States in the wartime conferences between the Allied nations opposing the Axis powers actually occurred before the nation formally entered World War II. In August 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston… Read More ›
The first involvement of the United States in the wartime conferences between the Allied nations opposing the Axis powers actually occurred before the nation formally entered World War II. In August 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston… Read More ›
Joseph Stalin was one of bloodiest dictators in world history and one of the most significant people of the 20th Century. He was the absolute ruler of the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc of Eastern Europe. He killed millions… Read More ›
Joseph Stalin reacted extremely slowly to the invasion of his country by German forces in 1940. Indeed, not only did he react slowly, but he also ignored warnings that the Germans planned to attack his country. Stalin’s response to the… Read More ›
Nikita Khrushchev assumed leadership of the Soviet Union during the period following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Khrushchev served as a General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as a… Read More ›
Originally Published on Videri.org Ronald Takaki’s book Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Bomb explores the decision-making process that led up to America’s use of nuclear weapons against Japan in World War II. A professor of Ethnic Studies at the University… Read More ›
From OUP Blog by Megan Koreman author of The Expectation of Justice: France 1944-1946 and The Escape Line: How the Ordinary Heroes of Dutch-Paris Resisted the Nazi Occupation of Western Europe: On this, the 74th anniversary of the end of the Second World… Read More ›
From Aeon by James Chappel author of Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church (Harvard UP, 2018) The 20th century is littered with failed global experiments. The British Empire roared into the century with the wind at… Read More ›
From Aeon by Thomas White: Can one do evil without being evil? This was the puzzling question that the philosopher Hannah Arendt grappled with when she reported for The New Yorker in 1961 on the war crimes trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi operative responsible for… Read More ›
From History Extra by Alexandra Richie author Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin and Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising: This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, one of the most significant and tragic events in the… Read More ›
From Smithsonian.com by Brigit Katz: It has been said that Johann “Hans” Asperger, the pioneering Austrian physician who first described the profile of distinct psychological characteristics that later became known as Asperger syndrome in a workship in 1938, resisted the… Read More ›
The early German victories in Poland, Norway, France, the Low Countries, the Balkans, North Africa, and the Soviet Union form an impressive list of military triumphs. What was more, these triumphs were accomplished with great speed and fairly modest cost… Read More ›
The Treaty of Versailles: A Concise History by Michael S. Neiberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017) offers a detailed account of the players, events, and political environment that contributed to the drafting of arguably the most significant document of the… Read More ›
From Werehistory.org by Todd Arrington: In all of American history, millions of men and women have served in the nation’s armed forces. Of those many millions, only 3,517 have received the nation’s highest award for military valor: the Medal of… Read More ›
From History Extra from Damien Lewis author of Hunting Hitler’s Nukes: The Secret Race to Stop the Nazi Bomb: That Hitler’s Germany might win the race to build the world’s first atom bomb was arguably one of Winston Churchill’s greatest wartime concerns,… Read More ›
In September 1939, the Nazi war machine invaded Poland and World War II began. France and its Britain declared against Nazi Germany in 1939. The French army was in theory as strong as the Germany’s. It had a vast… Read More ›
From the Holocaust Encyclopedia of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. By May 16, 1943, the Germans had… Read More ›