An estimated 9,000 American Jews were held as POWs by the Germans. Their Jewish identity was a source of both pride and peril.

German Sixth Army, destroyed in the Battle of Stalingrad, was destroyed a second time in August 1944 by a Soviet offensive into Romania—with important help from the US Air Force.

The African American 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion's aggressive assault across Germany's Siegfried Line in 1945 earned the respect and camaraderie of white GIs in the front lines.

The war effort demanded developments in the field of science and technology, developments that forever changed life in America and made present-day technology possible.

On July 16, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb detonated in the New Mexican desert, releasing a level of destructive power unknown in the existence of humanity. Emitting as much energy as 21,000 tons of TNT and creating a fireball that measured roughly 2,000 feet in diameter, the first successful test of an atomic bomb, known as the Trinity Test, forever changed the history of the world.