When Dr. Natalie Chen, senior curator of photography at the National Museum of American History, began scanning a batch of images from the recently acquired Montgomery collection, she expected routine work. She had handled thousands of historical photographs. But one image from 1853 made her pause. The photograph showed two teenage girls seated side by … Read more
In the summer of 1988, Philadelphia was a city of hospitals, universities, and medical research centers. In a quiet residential neighborhood on the west side, tree-lined streets and red-brick row houses seemed to hold a stable, ordinary life for the Whitmore family. Dr. Jonathan Whitmore was 42 years old, a respected ophthalmologist trusted by patients … Read more
In April 1945, a cold spring wind moved across a yard of frozen mud and rusted barbed wire near Hammelburg, Bavaria. It carried the smell of sickness. Hundreds of American prisoners stood in ragged formation. Their uniforms hung from shoulders that no longer filled them. Their cheeks were sunken, and their eyes looked past the … Read more
On July 5, 1945, Harry Truman sat in the Oval Office reading a letter that made his jaw tighten. Henry Morgenthau Jr., Franklin Roosevelt's Treasury Secretary for the past 11 years, had just delivered an ultimatum. Morgenthau insisted on attending the Potsdam conference with the Allied leaders. If Truman refused to include him, Morgenthau would … Read more
The men of Easy Company, the celebrated paratroopers of World War II immortalized in the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers,” did not ride off into a simple sunset after the guns fell silent in 1945. Their lives after the war were as varied, complicated, and at times as tragic as the combat they endured, and … Read more
Karl Jäger lived for 14 years after World War II as an ordinary farm laborer in rural West Germany. He worked quietly, attended local gatherings, and drew no suspicion from neighbors or authorities. Then, in March 1959, a single surviving wartime document resurfaced from a Lithuanian archive. It bore his own name and his own … Read more
In 2018, Marcus Jefferson returned to his grandmother's house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to sort through her belongings after she passed away. The 42-year-old high school history teacher spent a sweltering summer day in the attic, opening boxes filled with old letters, faded receipts, and clothing that smelled of mothballs and time. Then he found … Read more
On June 4, 1942, one of the most feared men in the Nazi regime died in a Prague hospital bed, eight days after a bomb exploded beside his open-topped car. The wound itself, according to the doctors who first treated him, should not have killed him. He had survived the initial blast, undergone surgery, and … Read more
In March 1945, inside a Third Army prisoner processing compound in occupied Germany, a captured German major waited for an audience with a senior American commander. He had been in American custody for less than three days. He was unhurt and had been fed. He had walked into captivity at the head of his surviving … Read more
In the summer of 1984, Salem, Oregon, still felt like the kind of quiet city where many families believed locking the door at night was enough to keep the outside world away. On the south side of town, low houses sat behind maple and fir trees, children rode bicycles in the street until dark, and … Read more