American personnel faced a humanitarian catastrophe when they liberated Buchenwald Concentration Camp. 

Shortly removed from Prohibition and with a growing hatred of all things Germans, the United States began a relationship with beer and breweries that lasts still today.

In 1945 the American intellectual, Norman Cousins, was one of the first to raise terrifying questions for humanity about the successful splitting of the atom.

Despite facing resistance and discrimination, more than 150,000 women served in the Women's Army Corps during World War II, performing vital noncombat roles and paving the way for women's permanent inclusion in the US military.

On May 8, 1945, World War II in Europe came to an end.