In the midst of the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans launched Operation Nordwind, a lesser-known but significant offensive in Alsace in January 1945.

In August 1943, Jewish prisoners revolted against their Nazi captors at the Treblinka death camp. This act of resistance provides crucial insight into the horrors of the death camp and Operation Reinhard.

Days after Pearl Harbor, Nazi Germany declared war on America. But why did Hitler choose to draw the United States directly into the European conflict?

In her December 8, 1941, My Day column, Eleanor Roosevelt reflects on the moment she learned of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and other locations, describing the nation’s shift from uncertainty to resolve. 

In Hitler’s Winter, Anthony Tucker-Jones explores the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive in the West. 

The 17th International Conference on World War II, a program of the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at The National WWII Museum, was presented by the Pritzker Military Foundation on behalf of Pritzker Military Museum & Library, with additional support from the Gen. Raymond E. Mason Jr. Distinguished Lecture Series on World War II Endowment Fund and the George P. Shultz Forum on World Affairs.

If the American forces could break through the Hürtgen Forest, there was a chance they could reach the Rhine near Cologne, threatening the German industrial region along the Ruhr River and possibly even force a crossing. 

Even 80 years later, Korematsu v. United States still serves as a reminder of the need to protect civil liberties even during times of insecurity.

Despite early challenges to women’s place in the Navy, the WAVES’s establishment as a part of the Navy itself, not a corps or auxiliary like the WAACs, was “precedent-breaking.”

In October 1944, the largest naval battle ever fought raged in the Pacific. The Battle of Leyte Gulf ended in American victory—but the outcome could have been very different.

From the hedgerows of Normandy across the rivers of northern France and into the dense forests of the Hürtgen and the Ardennes, Royal Air Force (RAF) and US Army Air Forces (USAAF) aircraft cleared the way for the advance of the Allied ground armies. 

More than 2,600 Americans perished around the world on October 24, 1944—a day overshadowed by more widely remembered dates in WWII history.