Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher. Three years ago, on October 9, 2009, a former member of General Patton’s Third Army, in Room 105 of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. returned to the German Ambassador two 16th Century books he had taken from a German mine during April 1945. The story how [...]

Political cartoonist Clifford Berryman made use of Thanksgiving throughout his career to highlight timely political issues near the holiday. Below are two examples of his Thanksgiving-themed cartoons: These and other cartoons by Clifford Berryman can be found in Record Group 46 in the series “Berryman Political Cartoon Collection, 1896-1949″ (ARC Identifier 306080) as part of the Center [...]

Thanksgiving is considered by many to be the quintessential American holiday.  As Thanksgiving 1918 approached, American had more reason than the usual to give thanks.  On November 11, 1918, Germany signed the armistice that brought World War I to an effective end.  In the wake of that event, the United States made an attempt to [...]

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher. I would wager that few NARA staff members, especially those hired during the past five years, and most researchers are familiar with the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) nor its website: www.archives.gov/iwg. The website contains a wealth of valuable information not [...]

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher. Some seventy years ago, this past August, the first major collection of captured Japanese documents in the Pacific Theater to arrive at Pearl Harbor were those captured in August 1942 when the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, under Lt. Col. Evans F. Carlson, made a harassing raid on Makin [...]

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher. Seventy-years ago, on November 9, 1942, forty-nine year old Allen W. Dulles arrived in Bern, Switzerland to head up the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operations in Switzerland.  Dulles was lucky to be in Switzerland.  His train passed from Vichy France into Switzerland only minutes before the Germans [...]

The past Saturday, I was visiting the Florida Keys and took a bike tour of parts of Islamorada, a village which spans several islands. The meeting place for the tour was a memorial to the victims of the 1935 Labor Day hurricane located near mile marker 82 of U.S. Route 1. Our guide was very knowledgeable [...]