While the war provided opportunities for soldiers to foster their sense of manhood, the postwar years and peacetime preferred the husband and father ideal while also finding ways to deal with injured or psychologically traumatized veterans.

One of the most noteworthy fashion evolutions of the 1940s was the transformation of the women’s swimming attire, presumably in part due to fabric rationing.

During World War II, this anthem was sung by African Americans fighting fascism abroad and continuing the struggle for social justice in the United States.

Hazel Ah Ying Lee was the first Chinese American woman to join the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) during World War II.

The “Angels of Bataan and Corregidor,” 77 American military nurses taken prisoner in the Philippines, provided lifesaving care to the civilian POWs in the Santo Tomas and Los Banos Internment Camps where they were held from 1942-1945.

Before World War II, the German-American Bund was one of the most successful pro-Nazi organizations in the United States. On February 20, 1939, American Nazis gathered at Madison Square Garden for a mass rally for “true Americanism.”

Throughout his life, FDR’s Little White House in Warm Springs became an important location from his time as Governor of New York until his death on April 12, 1945.

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.