424 From Z to A

Boogie-woogie went mainstream in America during the war, as evidenced by the music of Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters.

The Americans were on the offensive in the Southwest Pacific, and after Tarawa, in the Central Pacific. As they advanced, Japanese military leaders scrambled to find a way to stop the Americans.

As soon as Allied leaders chose Normandy as the site of the Operation Overlord invasion, British intelligence set to work convincing the Germans that the invasion would be somewhere else.

The Allied campaign in Italy stalled, and British and American leaders were searching for a way to break the stalemate on the peninsula. Winston Churchill suggested an amphibious invasion behing enemy lines.

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.