The American assault on Fortress Brest, led by the 2nd, 8th, and 29th Divisions under General Troy Middleton, marked one of World War II’s most ferociously contested battles.

The United States was not the only leading power on the world stage after the end of World War II; it had a new competitor for this power in the Soviet Union. Tensions between the former allies quickly grew, leading to a new kind of conflict—one heightened with the threat of atomic weapons—that came to dominate global politics for the remainder of the twentieth century.

The Bretton Woods conference in summer 1944 saw the global rise of the American Economic Empire—the empire of the dollar.

Find out the story behind one of the boldest defiant acts of World War II. 

As World War II approached, schizophrenics became victims of an even greater human rights violation at the hands of the Third Reich.