On April 19, 1946, the League of Nations dissolved, ending 26 years of the existence of an organization which had proven incapable of preventing World War II.

On January 20, 1942, a group of Nazi leaders met to coordinate a continent-wide genocide.

World War II transformed the United States from a midlevel global power to the leader of the “free world.” With this rapid rise in power and influence, the United States had to take on new responsibilities, signaling the beginning of the "American era."

The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s deliberate, organized, state-sponsored persecution and genocide of European Jews. During the war, the Nazi regime and their collaborators systematically murdered over six million Jewish people.

Allied intelligence believed that most captured American officers were being held at the Hammelburg prisoner of war camp, Oflag XIII-B. This population likely included Patton’s son-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel John Waters, but there was no way to be sure.