For the last several days of its existence, before soldiers of the United States Seventh Army arrived, Dachau was a small, self-enclosed universe of decay and death.

Wartime reshaped life and death in the Dachau concentration camp in fundamental ways.

In June 2004, while spending a weekend in Munich away from dissertation research at the Austrian National Library, I boarded a train in the city’s Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) for a short trip.

Victory in the largest battle of the Pacific War came 82 days after it began, and the costs were high.

On August 28, 1942, the Detroit Times announced that the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion would receive its own official battle song. Newspapers across the country celebrated the battalion, informally called Carlson’s Raiders after the commander Lt. Colonel Evans Fordyce Carlson, for its successful assault against the Japanese on Makin Island in the Pacific.