421 Two Strikes and You're Out

The war era (1939-45) saw the beginning of the end of the big band era. Part of this decline was due to two key strikes in the music industry.

The Holocaust should not be viewed as strictly a Nazi project or even a German project. Millions of people across Europe share responsibility for those crimes.

When Hitler learned that the Hungarian government was attempting to make a separate peace with the Allies, he ordered the German military to occupy Hungary, which was also the home of the largest surviving Jewish community in Axis-occupied Europe.

The US tries out a new strategy against Japan, but the American public is shocked by the cost. 

A look at some prominent blues singers, plus Judy Garland and her most famous role, as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz.

The Allies hoped their invasion of the Italian mainland would lead to a rapid occupation of Italy, but the Germans put up a defense that slowed their advance to a crawl.

The German Army continued to retreat westward over the winter of 1943-44, abandoning most of Ukraine. Red Army pressure was relentless, not giving the Germans any opportunity to establish a strong defensive line.

The Big Three--Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill--met and conferred together for the first time in November 1943. It was the most important meeting of world leaders since the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, created in 1924 by the merger of three film production companies, quickly rose to become the most successful studio of the era. The record box office for the 1939 film Gone with the Wind represents the studio at its height.

The Japanese "Zero" fighter plane played an important role in Japan's amazing victories early in the Pacific war. But by 1943, the Zero (and its pilots) were falling behind their Allied counterparts.