The Broadway hit offered an escape from the anxieties of World War II. But the America it portrayed – unified, patriotic and white – rings hollow today.
Influenza victims crowd into an emergency hospital near Fort Riley, Kansas in 1918.
AP Photo/National Museum of Health
In 1958, Mildred and Richard Loving were arrested in Virginia for the crime of being married. The couple helped spark an effort to strike down laws against interracial marriage in the United States.