Every aspect of the Japanese surrender on board the USS Missouri was carefully choreographed, with one eye on the past and another on the future.

Severely damaged by Japanese torpedoes at Pearl Harbor, USS West Virginia returned to service in October 1944. When the Japanese surrendered on September 2, 1945, she was in Tokyo Bay, a symbol of the resilience of the United States Navy.

On V-J Day, MacArthur invited two unexpected guests to witness the signing.

The combined force of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings was minuscule in comparison to the Tsar Bomba, the most awesome nuclear weapon ever detonated.

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.

One of the Museum's longest-serving employees reflects on one of the most trying times in the institution's history.

The Soviets inflicted terrible brutality on their Japanese captives.

When World War II ended in Europe, American soldiers feverishly began calculating how soon they might go home based on a newly instituted point system.

In the bloodiest of battles in Marine Corps history, 27 Marines and sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for action on Iwo Jima. No other campaign surpassed that number.

The courageous volunteer pilots of three obsolete British biplanes nicknamed Faith, Hope, and Charity engaged enemy raiders in combat over Malta in June 1940.

Manning 155mm howitzers, African American gunners sacrificed themselves to defend fleeing infantry. Eleven of them were murdered by the Waffen SS, and then forgotten by the US Army.

Entertainer Noël Coward's flamboyant lifestyle and defiance of social conventions masked a fierce determination to defeat Nazi Germany.