The Battle of Okinawa, an 82-day clash that was the deadliest campaign of WWII’s Pacific Theater, began on April 1, 1945. With nearly 300,000 American and Japanese troops involved, and thousands of American, British and Japanese warships and airplanes, massive firepower was employed during this bloody battle. When it ended on June 22, nearly every Japanese defender—more than 100,000 troops—had been killed, while the Allies suffered over 60,000 casualties. In addition, the local Okinawans suffered anywhere from 40,000 to 150,000 casualties. read more...
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In the spring of 1945 the Japanese empire was crumbling, and Allied commanders were thinking about the upcoming invasion of the Japanese homeland. One key objective was left, however: Okinawa, largest of the Ryukyu Islands, only 340 miles from the homeland. It was heavily defended by more than 100,000 determined and well-fortified Japanese troops, but it was a prize the Allies had to have: control of Okinawa would provide airfields close to Japan, anchorage for Allied warships, and staging areas for the massive number of troops needed for the invasion of Japan. read more...
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NewsInHistory is continually adding more content to our historical newspapers archive—titles new to our collection as well as expanding the date ranges and number of issues for titles already in our archive. This current addition involves 11 newspapers from 6 states and the District of Columbia. A total of 5,542 issues have been added in this release! Here are the details:
California
Evening Tribune (San Diego). 76 issues: 1896 to 1922
District of Columbia read more...
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Some people think August 1969 was the apotheosis of the ’60s counterculture, when the Woodstock Festival was held in New York from Aug. 15-17. Billed as “3 Days of Peace & Music,” as many as 500,000 young people, many long-haired, most doing drugs, and all coming together to be part of a “happening” greater than their individual selves, showed the world that America’s next generation embraced cooperation over competition, peace over war, and togetherness over isolation—all wrapped up in the electronic, sensational music of the times. read more...
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On the morning of March 16, 1968, American troops went on a search and destroy mission into some tiny hamlets in South Vietnam, killing everything in sight—animals as well as human beings. The exact death toll will never be known, but estimates of the My Lai Massacre range from 347 to 504 innocent villagers slaughtered, most of them women, young children and babies. No Viet Cong were found, and at no time were the American troops subjected to enemy fire. It was, plain and simple, a massacre. read more...
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When asked to name the greatest athletes in U.S. history, most Americans readily identify Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan. However, another name should always be added to that list: Jim Thorpe, arguably the best American athlete of all time. Thorpe’s life was an incredible mixture of triumph and tragedy and reads like a Hollywood script. In fact, Warner Brothers did make a movie of his life, the 1951 box-office smash Jim Thorpe, All American, starring Burt Lancaster. Being Hollywood, the movie has a happy ending. read more...
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When the clash over slavery between North and South erupted into the bloodshed of the U.S. Civil War, its violence mirrored what had been going on in the Kansas Territory the preceding decade. “Bleeding Kansas” was ravaged in the 1850s by deadly attacks from both pro- and anti-slavery forces, fighting each other to determine whether the territory would enter the Union as a slave or free state. John Brown, whose raid on the U.S. read more...
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When ex-president and general Dwight D. Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969, America lost one of its true heroes, a man who played an enormously important role in the nation’s history during the middle of the 20th century. A five-star general, Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II. In 1951 he served as the first Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. read more...
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On March 16, 1979, Hollywood released the blockbuster film The China Syndrome, depicting a frightening near-meltdown at a nuclear power plant. In an astonishing example of life imitating art, 12 days after the film’s debut a real-life nuclear accident occurred—one of the worst in the history of the industry—when the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident in Pennsylvania released radioactive steam into the atmosphere on March 28, 1979. It was publicity no Hollywood producer could ever dream up, but its environmental and public safety ramifications were real enough. read more...
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When reading the letters, poems and songs of the Civil War, it is striking how pervasive religious themes are. It seems everyone, from the highest politicians and generals to the common foot soldiers and the people back home still working the family farms, often expressed the Civil War as a religious struggle. read more...
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I understand that when writing a blog, it’s necessary to show a picture and say a few words about yourself, so that people don’t think a nameless, faceless committee or advisory board is running the show. Here I am, a real person. My name is Tony Pettinato, and I live in Deerfield, Mass. I did my undergraduate studies in English at Oberlin College, my graduate work in Journalism at UC Berkeley, and have been a reporter for six newspapers. For the past fourteen years I have worked at NewsBank, six of those as a managing editor for the U.S. Congressional Serial Set project – NewsBank’s acclaimed effort that digitized and indexed twelve million pages of primary source documents – that gratified my lifelong interest in American history. And that led me to editing this history blog!
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