Beginning with Memorial Day on May 31, a series of major events, ceremonies, special exhibits and lectures will be taking place at The National World War II Museum in New Orleans. The commemorative period will culminate with a weekend of special events June 5-6 to honor the 66th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy and to celebrate the Museum’s 10th anniversary.

The National World War II Museum will celebrate Armed Forces Day on Saturday, May 15, 2007, with free admission for all veterans. The Museum, in partnership with the Mayor’s Military Advisory Committee, will also host a full day of performances and programs that are open to the public, plus displays and presentations from all service branches.

May, 8, 1945. Few announcements in modern history have ever been greeted with such joy as the announcement that Germany had surrendered to the Allies, ending World War II in Europe. The iconic images of happy throngs holding up the newspapers of the day found their way into countless scrapbooks and frames. Though Japan remained defiant, the joyous parades and street parties symbolized the relief that the war in Europe had ended.

On Thursday, May 6, 2010, at 7:00 pm, The National World War II Museum will host author Elizabeth Bettina and Holocaust survivor Ursula Korn-Selig who will speak about the Holocaust in Italy during World War II.

Just a few months after Adolf Hitler came to power in Nazi Germany and a full six years before World War II, German university students carried out an “Action Against the Un-German Spirit” targeting authors ranging from Helen Keller and Ernest Hemingway to Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Their orchestrated book burnings across Germany would come to underscore German-Jewish writer Heinrich Heine’s 19th century warning, “where one burns books, one soon burns people.

Be the reason technology, family or frugality, people are flocking to The National World War II Museum in the resurgent Crescent City. Since the start of 2010, more than 100,000 visitors have trooped through the Museum’s six-acre campus to learn about the battles and motives behind the 20th-century’s most momentous event. In the process they are breaking all attendance records.

On March 25, 2010, The National World War II Museum held finals for the annual Cox Quiz Bowl. This year’s competition was won by Mandeville High School. Second place went to Brother Martin High School.