Jazz great Dave Brubeck died on December 5, one day short of his 92nd birthday.  Since then, there have been many retrospectives – in print, on television, on radio, and on line.  Almost all of those remembrances mention the goodwill tour of Poland and the Far East that Brubeck and his quartet made in 1958 [...]

In February 1963, the United Nations (UN) held the UN Conference on the Application of Science and Technology for the Benefit of the Less Developed Areas (UNCAST) in Geneva, Switzerland. This conference, held at the peak of the Cold War, brought together about 1,600 delegates from 96 countries, including delegations from both the West and [...]

To assist researchers interested in records of the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies, the most heavily used records in the National Archives, the Textual Archives Services Division has launched a newly revamped set of pages on the Archives’ website for providing an introduction to foreign affairs records. The conduct of foreign affairs [...]

Today’s post is written by Ashby Crowder. A few days ago the Washington Post ran a story about the recent closing of the Voice of America’s (VOA) Croatian language radio broadcast service. If you’re interested in the history of Voice of America in the former Yugoslavia, the National Archives at College Park has some records [...]

The Great Depression had a serious negative impact on the situation of American diplomatic and consular officials overseas.  As the end of the first year of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency drew near, the President sent the following note to Secretary of State Cordell Hull: MEMORANDUM FROM             THE PRESIDENT [...]

In honor of the passing of former First Lady Betty Ford, we thought we would find her in the records. Obviously, there is more to be found in the Ford Presidential Library but she can be found in our corner of NARA as well. Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren Ford, Betty, was First Lady of the United [...]

Today’s post is written by Monique Politowski, an archives technician who works on the NARA/Ancestry digitization partnership project in Silver Spring, Maryland. Millions of records have been converted to digital form since the partnership between NARA and Ancestry.com began in 2008, and some of the most popular records digitized as a result of this union [...]

Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart who works primarily with diplomatic records. In my earlier post about Despatches, I noted that the correct spelling in Department of State usage is dEspatch and not dIspatch.  After writing that post, purely by serendipity, I located a document that shows just how seriously the Department of [...]

Today’s post is written by Ashby Crowder, a processing archivist who works primarily with civilian records. During a stack inventory project, I came across a small series of records related to the practice of capital punishment in the United States in the late nineteenth century. The series is entitled “Governors’ Replies to a Circular on [...]

A couple of weeks ago I overheard a converstation between some colleagues discussing OPA.  “Try finding it in OPA,” one said.  They went on to discuss OPA functionality and benefits and use.  I assumed OPA was one of those things above my pay-grade about which I did not need to know.  As it turns out, [...]