Exhausted British troops on the quayside at Dover, May 31 1940.
Official War Office photographer, Imperial War Museum
It may not have been Britain’s finest hour, but was it Fleet Street’s?
Eric Blair (better known as George Orwell) in characteristic pose.
When two of Britain’s most influential voices clashed over allied bombing of Germany, Orwell took an unusual line.
Protesters in Berlin demand that the 1904-1908 mass killings in Namibia be recognised as the first genocide committed by Germany.
Supplied/Courtesy of Joachim Zeller
The culture of remembrance in Germany is viewed by many as exemplary. But it has some grave shortcomings.
Food is a measure of how countries respond to crises from access to pricing to shortages.
(nrd/Unsplash)
Food is essential to survival. It is also essential to identity. During times of national crisis like the coronavirus pandemic and in the historical landscape, food issues become prominent.
Israeli families hold pictures of relatives killed in the Soviet Union struggle against the Nazis in WWII, Jerusalem, May 2015.
EPA/Abir Sultan
There’s a widening split over rival interpretations of the end of the second world war and its aftermath.
Joy to the world: but especially for white British people, apparently.
Piranhi via Shutterstock
Just like now, Britain’s war effort depended on the sacrifice of migrants and minorities. But this was soon forgotten.
Jubilation in London as Britain rolled out the barrel to celebrate victory in Europe.
Imperial War Museum
It was a great celebration, but not everyone was jubilant.
The Daily Herald’s front page for VE Day: 80% of the UK public read a newspaper during the war.
Philip Bird LRPS CPAGB
Britain’s newspaper’s reported some wild scenes as the nation celebrated, but none wilder than in the Daily Mirror’s cartoon strip.
Japanese internees starting to leave the train which brought them from Hay on their way to the Loveday Internment Camp Group in the Barmera area (1943, Renmark, South Australia).
Australian War Memorial/Photo: Hedley Keith Cullen
Reflecting on the wartime treatment of two Japanese Australians (or Nikkei) raises the spectre of our racist past - and can prompt us to consider the vulnerabilities of Asian Australians today.
DreamWorks Pictures
War movies are an enduring genre, making hundreds of millions at the box office. With Anzac Day approaching, we ask: does Hollywood go too far in obscuring the true horrors of battle?
A mural of Cardi B updated by the artist Colton Valentine to include a face mask in San Antonio. Cardi B’s instagram post, ‘Shit is getting real’ went viral.
(AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Now that we know what essential work is, it seems the perfect time to reflect upon the not-so-essential work of celebrities.
Istvan Anhalt at the piano, at a 1950s composition class at McGill University, in Montréal.
(Music Archives at the National Library of Canada)
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, or ‘Yom HaShoah,’ a music scholar recollects how composer Istvan Anhalt’s experiences in Nazi-occupied Hungary informed his later life and music in Canada.
Air raid wardens in Washington, D.C., conduct a practice air raid.
Office for Emergency Management, Office of War Information/National Archives
Since the Cold War, Americans have shifted from engaging in active self-rescue to passively waiting for help from a centralized, bureaucratic federal emergency response.
Pilots and air crew passing the time with books and newspapers.
S.A. Devon, RAF official photographer/Imperial War Museum
Books were an important weapon on the home front in the second world war.
The Capital One Arena, home of the Washington Capitals, sits empty.
AP Photo/Nick Wass
This isn’t the first time sports have been put on hold. But in the past, the reprieve was brief, and sports went on to act as a way to bring Americans together. This time’s different.
Prime Minister Ben Chifley (1945- 1949) and then Opposition Leader Robert Menzies.
AAP
The commitment we made to full employment after World War II ushered in decades of prosperity. The paths we chose after this war will be as important.
An image of the popular Sandy Macpherson from circa 1958. Macpherson played soothing music for BBC listeners during Second World War.
(BBC Programming)
During the Second World War, anxious but also bored BBC listeners found comfort in the soothing sounds of Sandy Macpherson, Canadian-born organist.
Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall had been performing royal duties until he tested positive for COVID-19.
Yui Mok/PA Wire/PA Images
The pandemic makes it hard for the royal family to act as national figureheads as they have in past crises.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Walmart CEO Doug McMillon at a White House press conference joining government and corporate officials – but no representatives of workers.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
If government and business collaborate with workers, a scholar of labor relations writes, current economic problems could get less severe, the recovery smoother and lasting prosperity more likely.
Al Pacino and Logan Lerman play Nazi hunters in the US in Amazon Prime’s new series.
Amazon Prime via IMDB
Amazon’s new TV series series divided the critics, but almost everyone agrees that it takes problematic liberties in its representation of Auschwitz.