In his new book Duel in the Deep (Naval Institute Press), author David Sears tells a story that he subtitles “The Hunters, the Hunted, and a High Seas Fight to the Finish.” The central incident is the tale of an outmoded four-stack destroyer, the USS Borie, and its intense fight with the German U-405 on October 31, 1943, a “swashbuckling, no-holds-barred brawl of cannons, machine guns, small arms, and even knives and spent shell casings.” Sears builds up to that that epic struggle by outlining the ebbs and flows of the Battle of the Atlantic, when Germany’s submersible craft attempted to starve Britain into submission and keep the Allies reeling by sinking the ships carrying necessary food and supplies across the Atlantic. In a high-stakes game of technological cat and mouse, both sides attempted to gain the upper hand in the contest with advanced technology and, on the Allied side, intensive codebreaking work.

Sears, who served in the U.S. Navy aboard a destroyer himself, uses diaries, letters, and contemporary newspaper interviews to bring his story to life. In this interview with World War II editor Tom Huntington, Sears talks about his book.

As it is for so many of us today, coffee was an essential treat for soldiers during the Civil War. That was particularly true for members of the 1st Special Battalion of Louisiana Infantry — better known as Wheat’s Tigers. So attached to their New Orleans-brewed Joe with added chicory, the Tigers had a thousand pounds of beans transported by train to Richmond leading up to the First Battle of Manassas. Café du Monde was a Crescent City hot spot during the war, and it remains so today. Recently author Richard Holloway indulged himself at the historic café.

On April 14, 2023, a new museum about Amelia Earhart opened in Atchison, Kansas, the town where the aviator was born in 1897. The Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum features interactive exhibits intended to celebrate the legacy of the first woman to fly across the Atlantic (as a passenger in 1928 and solo in 1932) and inspire young people to perhaps follow in her footsteps. “We want people to take away the fact that she truly is relevant today,” says Karen Seaberg, the museum director and the founder and president of the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation.

The museum’s centerpiece is the last remaining Lockheed Electra 10-E, the same type of aircraft Earhart was flying on an attempted round-the-world flight when she disappeared over the Pacific in July 1937. In other exhibits, visitors can get a sense of what it was like to rivet an airplane, experience how aviators from Earhart’s time navigated by the stars and explore the Pratt & Whitney Wasp engines that powered the Electra. They can also hear recordings of Earhart’s voice and climb into a life-size reproduction of the Lockheed’s cockpit.

Listen to Seaberg talk about the museum and take a look at the facility in this video.

A-10 pilot Kim Campbell recalls saving her own life after her plane was hit above Baghdad in 2003. Campbell is the author of “Flying in the Face of Fear.”

Originally published by Military Times, our sister publication.

The American folk trio “The Ghost of Paul Revere” wrote “The Ballad of the 20th Maine,” which focuses on Andrew Tozier and the regiment’s actions on Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg. The song became the official State Ballad of Maine in 2019.

America’s Civil War author Richard H. Holloway explores six Civil War-era sites in Alexandria and Pineville, La. George Armstrong Custer and his wife, Libbie, briefly made the area their home as the war came to a close in June 1865.

Red River, Alexandria, Louisiana

Fort Randolph, Pineville, Louisiana

St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, Alexandria, Louisiana

Kisatchie National Forest, Louisiana

Mount Olivet Cemetery, Pineville, Louisiana

Kent Plantation House, Alexandria, Louisiana

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

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As races go, this one was not so great. It took place in 1919, with 63 airplanes competing in a contest that was supposed to be a round-trip across the country. Some competitors started in Long Island and flew to San Francisco and others traveled in the opposite direction. The man behind the competition was Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell, a passionate air power advocate who believed the race would push aviation to the forefront of public awareness and help set the table for an independent air force. It didn’t quite work out as he planned. By the time the race was over, nine people were dead and 54 of the airplanes had crashed—some more than once. As John Lancaster details in his engaging and informative new book, The Great Air Race: Glory, Tragedy, and the Dawn of American Aviation, the race really pointed out how far aviation really had to go before long-distance flying became routine.

Lancaster, who has worked for the Washington Post and written for National Geographic the New Republic, Slate, Smithsonian and other publications, talked to Aviation History editor Tom Huntington about his book.

Editor Dana B. Shoaf samples Civil War liquor recipes at Frederick, Maryland’s Tenth Ward Distillery.  

Civil War Times editor fires a reproduction Griswold & Gunnison revolver. He’ll discuss the quirks of revolvers and also compare the reproduction to an original.

Beau Geste

The 1924 novel by P.C. Wren, about brothers who run off to join the French Foreign Legion in the wake of a family disgrace, has been filmed several times (1926, 1939 and 1966) and adapted for TV. The best version is arguably the 1939 film starring Gary Cooper, the 1926 silent drama with Ronald Colman coming in a close second.

Sahara

The 1943 version of this film, based on the 1927 Philip MacDonald novel Patrol, stars Humphrey Bogart as an American tank commander fighting Germans at an oasis in North Africa. A 1953 remake—filmed as the Western Last of the Comanches—remained faithful to the original script, while a 1995 TV adaptation starring Jim Belushi was only passable.

Tora! Tora! Tora!

This 1970 epic about the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was based on histories of the strike by Gordon Prange and Ladislas Farago. Featuring an international cast and crew, it wowed audiences. While not technically a remake, the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, starring Ben Affleck, bombed with critics but did surprisingly well at the box office.

The Manchurian Candidate

Two films have dramatized the 1959 Richard Condon novel about a Korean War veteran brainwashed by Communist Chinese captors to be a sleeper assassin. The 1962 version —starring Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury—ranks among the all-time best political thrillers. The 2004 remake, updated for the Gulf War and starring Denzel Washington as the assassin, pales by comparison.

The first motion pictures debuted in 1895, and in the years immediately after, filmmakers rushed to figure out this new medium. Among those was the British stage hypnotist George Albert Smith, who got his first camera in 1896 or 1897, according to victorian-cinema.net, and by the end of 1897 had made a whopping 31 movies. The next year, he began experimenting with special effects—superimposition and clever editing, mostly—and created Santa Claus, the very first Christmas-themed film. It’s a simple (and silent) tale in which a familiar Saint Nick, in white-trimmed robe and long beard, descends a chimney to deliver gifts to two adorable Victorian tots. It’s only a minute and 17 seconds long, so give it a watch right here:

In Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb (W.W. Norton, 2022), author James M. Scott writes about the incendiary bombing raids on Japan—especially Tokyo—that the United States military carried out in the spring of 1945. Following the initial failure of daytime precision bombing raids by Boeing B-29 Superfortresses, Major General Curtis LeMay was reassigned from Europe to the Pacific Theater to take command of the attacks on the Japanese mainland. LeMay decided to shift from daytime raids that attempted to pinpoint enemy industry to nighttime raids with incendiary bombs that would set Japanese cities ablaze and break civilian morale. It was a drastic change in tactics and LeMay realized that targeting civilians was bound to be controversial. “If we lose the war, we’ll be tried as war criminals,” he said. The bombing raids were indeed devastating. The firestorm from the initial raid on March 9-10, 1945, destroyed much of Tokyo and killed some 100,000 people, and that was just the beginning of the bombing campaign. In his book, Scott describes in harrowing detail the horrors on the ground, but he also examines how LeMay was willing to do anything that would end the war as soon as possible and save American lives. Scott talked to Tom Huntington, the editor of Aviation History and World War II magazines, about the book.

Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb

by James M. Scott, W.W. Norton, 2022

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I find World War II North Africa one of military history’s most fascinating arenas. Egypt’s Western Desert, with its infinite horizons, is a source of infinite inspiration to me — in fact, getting “lost” in that desert when I was younger is how I first encountered Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel. They were both very different leaders, and I have spent a great deal of time studying them and continue to do so today. I have written books about both men which I hope will contribute to history, and have more projects about them in the works. I was glad to have the opportunity to share some of my takes on the desert war — and Monty and Rommel’s leadership in particular — with WW2TV on YouTube. The first video is my analysis of Monty and Rommel’s face-off at El Agheila in late 1942. Learn more about:

• Monty & Rommel’s different methods of fighting & leadership
• The battle that scared both of them (yes, I said scared — watch to find out)
• The role of politics and media in the desert war
• How the “tables turned” on both generals
• And more…

The second is a panel, in which we all reflected on takeaways from the war in North Africa, with a particular focus on Monty and Rommel. Of course given the controversies about these two leaders, we gracefully disagreed with each other (which should tell you that everybody follows their own path when it comes to the desert!) In short, if you think you’ve heard all there is to hear about Monty and Rommel in North Africa, chances are you haven’t! Watch and enjoy.(And before I forget to shock you — three cheers for Monty! Yes, I’m actually an admirer of Britain’s notoriously unruly Field Marshal. Check out the videos to learn some more about why!

Was outlaw Kid Curry (the alias of Harvey Logan) really the deadliest of the gang that came to be known as the Wild Bunch?

That question is considered by historian Michael Bell, who first took a great interest in the Wild Bunch at age 13 in England, when he watched the classic Hollywood Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Bell shares his expertise on Curry/Logan in this video made for the Wild West History Association, which has shared it with Wild West and HistoryNet.

That same question is considered by Mark T. Smokov, author of “He Rode With Butch and Sundance: The Story of Harvey ‘Kid Curry’ Logan,” in his article “How Deadly Was Kid Curry?” which will appear in the Winter 2023 issue of Wild West (on sale Nov. 8, 2022).

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Welcome to HistoryNet, the comprehensive look at history by historians and historical experts!

It can be daunting to dive right into our tens of thousands of features, articles and analyses of historical events over nine widely esteemed magazine titles and more, so we’ve put together this dandy video on how to use HistoryNet for your research project, term paper or just for fun.

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On Dec. 30, 1941, not long after the United States had entered the war, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed Canada’s parliament in Ottawa. He was tasked with steeling the Commonwealth nation for the fight against the Nazis to come.

Addressing the legislators of the House of Commons and the thousands of Canadians who had thronged the streets to seem him, Churchill noted that, in 1940, French Marshal Philippe Pétain had warned him that Adolf Hitler‘s armies would tear through British armies within three weeks, wringing the British empire’s neck like a chicken and taking the British Isles.

“Some chicken!” Churchill said with impeccable timing. “Some neck!”

(“Neck” was English slang meaning “nerve” or “gall” — he was mocking Pétain for his audacity in making such an outlandish prediction.)

Churchill had requested that his speech be televised even though parliamentary proceedings typically forbade cameras. It was a canny move: The speech electrified Canada, Britain and the other Commonwealth nations. On his next visit to Canada, in late 1943, the momentum was on the side of the Allies.

Watch Churchill’s “Some Chicken, Some Neck” speech below, then read the full transcript.

The transcript of Churchill’s ‘Some Chicken, Some Neck’ Speech

It is with feelings of pride and encouragement that I find myself here in the House of Commons of Canada, invited to address the Parliament of the senior Dominion of the Crown. I am very glad to see again my old friend Mr. Mackenzie King, for fifteen years out of twenty your Prime Minister, and I thank him for the too complimentary terms in which he has referred to myself. I bring you the assurance of good will and affection from every one in the Motherland. We are most grateful for all you have done in the common cause, and we know that you are resolved to do whatever more is possible as the need arises and as opportunity serves. Canada occupies a unique position in the British Empire because of its unbreakable ties with Britain and its ever-growing friendship and intimate association with the United States. Canada is a potent magnet, drawing together those in the new world and in the old whose fortunes are now united in a deadly struggle for life and honour against the common foe. The contribution of Canada to the Imperial war effort in troops, in ships, in aircraft, in food, and in finance has been magnificent.

The Canadian Army now stationed in England has chafed not to find itself in contact with the enemy. But I am here to tell you that it has stood and still stands in the key position to strike at the invader should he land upon our shores. In a few months, when the invasion season returns, the Canadian Army may be engaged in one of the most frightful battles the world has ever seen, but on the other hand their presence may help to deter the enemy from attempting to fight such a battle on British soil. Although the long routine of training and preparation is undoubtedly trying to men who left prosperous farms and businesses, or other responsible civil work, inspired by an eager and ardent desire to fight the enemy, although this is trying to high-mettled temperaments, the value of the service rendered is unquestionable, and I am sure that the peculiar kind of self-sacrifice involved will be cheerfully or at least patiently endured.

The Canadian Government have imposed no limitation on the use of the Canadian Army, whether on the Continent of Europe or elsewhere, and I think it is extremely unlikely that this war will end without the Canadian Army coming to close quarters with the Germans, as their fathers did at Ypres, on the Somme, or on the Vimy Ridge. Already at Hong Kong, that beautiful colony which the industry and mercantile enterprise of Britain has raised from a desert isle and made the greatest port of shipping in the whole world — Hong Kong, that Colony wrested from us for a time until we reach the peace table, by the overwhelming power of the Home Forces of Japan, to which it lay in proximity — at Hong Kong Canadian soldiers of the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers, under a brave officer whose loss we mourn, have played a valuable part in gaining precious days, and have crowned with military honour the reputation of their native land.

Another major contribution made by Canada to the Imperial war effort is the wonderful and gigantic Empire training scheme for pilots for the Royal and Imperial Air Forces. This has now been as you know well in full career for nearly two years in conditions free from all interference by the enemy. The daring youth of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, with many thousands from the homeland, are perfecting their training under the best conditions, and we are being assisted on a large scale by the United States, many of whose training facilities have been placed at our disposal. This scheme will provide us in 1942 and 1943 with the highest class of trained pilots, observers, and air gunners in the numbers necessary to man the enormous flow of aircraft which the factories of Britain, of the Empire and of the United States are and will be producing.

I could also speak on the naval production of corvettes and above all of merchant ships which is proceeding on a scale almost equal to the building of the United Kingdom, all of which Canada has set on foot. I could speak of many other activities, of tanks, of the special forms of modern high-velocity cannon and of the great supplies of raw materials and many other elements essential to our war effort on which your labours are ceaselessly and tirelessly engaged. But I must not let my address to you become a catalogue, so I turn to less technical fields of thought.

We did not make this war, we did not seek it. We did all we could to avoid it. We did too much to avoid it. We went so far at times in trying to avoid it as to be almost destroyed by it when it broke upon us. But that dangerous corner has been turned, and with every month and every year that passes we shall confront the evil-doers with weapons as plentiful, as sharp, and as destructive as those with which they have sought to establish their hateful domination.

I should like to point out to you that we have not at any time asked for any mitigation in the fury or malice of the enemy. The peoples of the British Empire may love peace. They do not seek the lands or wealth of any country, but they are a tough and hardy lot. We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.

Look at the Londoners, the Cockneys; look at what they have stood up to. Grim and gay with their cry “We can take it,” and their war-time mood of “What is good enough for anybody is good enough for us.” We have not asked that the rules of the game should be modified. We shall never descend to the German and Japanese level, but if anybody likes to play rough we can play rough too. Hitler and his Nazi gang have sown the wind; let them reap the whirlwind. Neither the length of the struggle nor any form of severity which it may assume shall make us weary or shall make us quit.

I have been all this week with the President of the United States, that great man whom destiny has marked for this climax of human fortune. We have been concerting the united pacts and resolves of more than thirty States and nations to fight on in unity together and in fidelity one to another, without any thought except the total and final extirpation of the Hitler tyranny, the Japanese frenzy, and the Mussolini flop.

There shall be no halting, or half measures, there shall be no compromise, or parley. These gangs of bandits have sought to darken the light of the world; have sought to stand between the common people of all the lands and their march forward into their inheritance. They shall themselves be cast into the pit of death and shame, and only when the earth has been cleansed and purged of their crimes and their villainy shall we turn from the task which they have forced upon us, a task which we were reluctant to undertake, but which we shall now most faithfully and punctiliously discharge. According to my sense of proportion, this is no time to speak of the hopes of the future, or the broader world which lies beyond our struggles and our victory. We have to win that world for our children. We have to win it by our sacrifices. We have not won it yet. The crisis is upon us. The power of the enemy is immense. If we were in any way to underrate the strength, the resources or the ruthless savagery of that enemy, we should jeopardize, not only our lives, for they will be offered freely, but the cause of human freedom and progress to which we have vowed ourselves and all we have. We cannot for a moment afford to relax. On the contrary we must drive ourselves forward with unrelenting zeal. In this strange, terrible world war there is a place for everyone, man and woman, old and young, hale and halt; service in a thousand forms is open. There is no room now for the dilettante, the weakling, for the shirker, or the sluggard. The mine, the factory, the dockyard, the salt sea waves, the fields to till, the home, the hospital, the chair of the scientist, the pulpit of the preacher — from the highest to the humblest tasks, all are of equal honour; all have their part to play. The enemies ranged against us, coalesced and combined against us, have asked for total war. Let us make sure they get it.

That grand old minstrel, Harry Lauder — Sir Harry Lauder, I should say, and no honour was better deserved — had a song in the last War which began, “If we all look back on the history of the past, we can just tell where we are.” Let us then look back. We plunged into this war all unprepared because we had pledged our word to stand by the side of Poland, which Hitler had feloniously invaded, and in spite of a gallant resistance had soon struck down. There followed those astonishing seven months which were called on this side of the Atlantic the “phoney” war. Suddenly the explosion of pent-up German strength and preparation burst upon Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium. All these absolutely blameless neutrals, to most of whom Germany up to the last moment was giving every kind of guarantee and assurance, were overrun and trampled down. The hideous massacre of Rotterdam, where 30,000 people perished, showed the ferocious barbarism in which the German Air Force revels when, as in Warsaw and later Belgrade, it is able to bomb practically undefended cities.

On top of all this came the great French catastrophe. The French Army collapsed, and the French nation was dashed into utter and, as it has so far proved, irretrievable confusion. The French Government had at their own suggestion solemnly bound themselves with us not to make a separate peace. It was their duty and it was also their interest to go to North Africa, where they would have been at the head of the French Empire. In Africa, with our aid, they would have had overwhelming sea power. They would have had the recognition of the United States, and the use of all the gold they had lodged beyond the seas. If they had done this Italy might have been driven out of the war before the end of 1940, and France would have held her place as a nation in the counsels of the Allies and at the conference table of the victors. But their generals misled them. When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, “In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.” Some chicken; some neck.

What a contrast has been the behaviour of the valiant, stout-hearted Dutch, who still stand forth as a strong living partner in the struggle! Their venerated Queen and their Government are in England, their Princess and her children have found asylum and protection here in your midst. But the Dutch nation are defending their Empire with dogged courage and tenacity by land and sea and in the air. Their submarines are inflicting a heavy daily toll upon the Japanese robbers who have come across the seas to steal the wealth of the East Indies, and to ravage and exploit its fertility and its civilization. The British Empire and the United States are going to the aid of the Dutch. We are going to fight out this new war against Japan together. We have suffered together and we shall conquer together.

But the men of Bordeaux, the men of Vichy, they would do nothing like this. They lay prostrate at the foot of the conqueror. They fawned upon him. What have they got out of it? The fragment of France which was left to them is just as powerless, just as hungry as, and even more miserable, because more divided, than the occupied regions themselves. Hitler plays from day to day a cat-and-mouse game with these tormented men. One day he will charge them a little less for holding their countrymen down.

Another day he will let out a few thousand broken prisoners of war from the one-and-a-half or one-and-three-quarter millions he has collected. Or again he will shoot a hundred French hostages to give them a taste of the lash. On these blows and favours the Vichy Government have been content to live from day to day. But even this will not go on indefinitely. At any moment it may suit Hitler’s plans to brush them away. Their only guarantee is Hitler’s good faith, which, as everyone knows, biteth like the adder and stingeth like the asp.

But some Frenchmen there were who would not bow their knees and who under General de Gaulle have continued the fight on the side of the Allies. They have been condemned to death by the men of Vichy, but their names will be held and are being held in increasing respect by nine Frenchmen out of every ten throughout the once happy, smiling land of France. But now strong forces are at hand. The tide has turned against the Hun. Britain, which the men of Bordeaux thought and then hoped would soon be finished, Britain with her Empire around her carried the weight of the war alone for a whole long year through the darkest part of the valley. She is growing stronger every day. You can see it here in Canada. Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of our affairs is aware that very soon we shall be superior in every form of equipment to those who have taken us at the disadvantage of being but half armed.

The Russian armies, under their warrior leader, Josef Stalin, are waging furious war with increasing success along the thousand-mile front of their invaded country. General Auchinleck, at the head of a British, South African, New Zealand and Indian army, is striking down and mopping up the German and Italian forces which had attempted the invasion of Egypt. Not only are they being mopped up in the desert, but great numbers of them have been drowned on the way there by British submarines and the R.A.F. in which Australian squadrons played their part.

As I speak this afternoon an important battle is being fought around Jedabia. We must not attempt to prophesy its result, but I have good confidence. All this fighting in Libya proves that when our men have equal weapons in their hands and proper support from the air they are more than a match for the Nazi hordes. In Libya, as in Russia, events of great importance and of most hopeful import have taken place. But greatest of all, the mighty Republic of the United States has entered the conflict, and entered it in a manner which shows that for her there can be no withdrawal except by death or victory.

Et partout dans la France occupée et inoccupée (car leur sort est égal), ces honnêtes gens, ce grand peuple, la nation française, se redresse. L’espoir se rallume dans les coeurs d’une race guerrière, même désarmée, berceau de la liberté révolutionnaire et terrible aux vainqueurs esclaves. Et partout, on voit le point du jour, et la lumière grandit, rougeâtre, mais claire. Nous ne perdrons jamais la confiance que la France jouera le rôle des hommes libres et qu’elle reprendra par des voies dures sa place dans la grande compagnie des nations libératrices et victorieuses. Ici, au Canada, où la langue française est honorée et parlée, nous nous tenons prêts et armés pour aider et pour saluer cette résurrection nationale.

[English translation: And everywhere in France, occupied and unoccupied, for their fate is identical, these honest folk, this great people, the French nation, are rising again. Hope is springing up again in the hearts of a warrior race, even though disarmed, cradle of revolutionary liberty and terrible to slavish conquerors. And everywhere dawn is breaking and light spreading, reddish yet, but clear. We shall never lose confidence that France will play the role of free men again and, by hard paths, will once again attain her place in the great company of freedom-bringing and victorious nations.]

Now that the whole of the North American continent is becoming one gigantic arsenal, and armed camp; now that the immense reserve power of Russia is gradually becoming apparent; now that long-suffering, unconquerable China sees help approaching; now that the outraged and subjugated nations can see daylight ahead, it is permissible to take a broad forward view of the war.

We may observe three main periods or phases of the struggle that lies before us. First there is the period of consolidation, of combination, and of final preparation. In this period, which will certainly be marked by much heavy fighting, we shall still be gathering our strength, resisting the assaults of the enemy, and acquiring the necessary overwhelming air superiority and shipping tonnage to give our armies the power to traverse, in whatever numbers may be necessary, the seas and oceans which, except in the case of Russia, separate us from our foes. It is only when the vast shipbuilding programme on which the United States has already made so much progress, and which you are powerfully aiding, comes into full flood, that we shall be able to bring the whole force of our manhood and of our modern scientific equipment to bear upon the enemy. How long this period will take depends upon the vehemence of the effort put into production in all our war industries and shipyards.

The second phase which will then open may be called the phase of liberation. During this phase we must look to the recovery of the territories which have been lost or which may yet be lost, and also we must look to the revolt of the conquered peoples from the moment that the rescuing and liberating armies and air forces appear in strength within their bounds. For this purpose it is imperative that no nation or region overrun, that no Government or State which has been conquered, should relax its moral and physical efforts and preparation for the day of deliverance. The invaders, be they German or Japanese, must everywhere be regarded as infected persons to be shunned and isolated as far as possible. Where active resistance is impossible, passive resistance must be maintained. The invaders and tyrants must be made to feel that their fleeting triumphs will have a terrible reckoning, and that they are hunted men and that their cause is doomed. Particular punishment will be reserved for the quislings and traitors who make themselves the tools of the enemy. They will be handed over to the judgment of their fellow-countrymen.

There is a third phase which must also be contemplated, namely, the assault upon the citadels and the home-lands of the guilty Powers both in Europe and in Asia. Thus I endeavour in a few words to cast some forward light upon the dark, inscrutable mysteries of the future. But in thus forecasting the course along which we should seek to advance, we must never forget that the power of the enemy and the action of the enemy may at every stage affect our fortunes. Moreover, you will notice that I have not attempted to assign any time-limits to the various phases. These time-limits depend upon our exertions, upon our achievements, and on the hazardous and uncertain course of the war.

Nevertheless I feel it is right at this moment to make it clear that, while an ever-increasing bombing offensive against Germany will remain one of the principal methods by which we hope to bring the war to an end, it is by no means the only method which our growing strength now enables us to take into account. Evidently the most strenuous exertions must be made by all. As to the form which those exertions take, that is for each partner in the grand alliance to judge for himself in consultation with others and in harmony with the general scheme. Let us then address ourselves to our task, not in any way underrating its tremendous difficulties and perils, but in good heart and sober confidence, resolved that, whatever the cost, whatever the suffering, we shall stand by one another, true and faithful comrades, and do our duty, God helping us, to the end.

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On Sept. 26, 1960, American politics changed forever as television carried a presidential debate for the first time in history.

Massachussets Sen. John F. Kennedy faced off against Vice President Richard M. Nixon in what proved to be a pivotal moment in American politics. Some two-thirds of the adult population of the country, or about 70 million people, tuned in. From then on, a new factor became key to winning a national election: optics.

Watch the first Kennedy-Nixon presidential debate in its entirety below.

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Each year, the Royal Air Force holds a Battle of Britain Thanksgiving Service at London’s Westminster Abbey to remember the defense of England against the German Luftwaffe in the summer and fall of 1940. (The 2022 service was scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 18, but Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral at the abbey on Sept. 19 forced its cancellation.) Starting in July, the pilots of the RAF’s Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes held out against an onslaught of German aircraft that aimed to bomb Britain into submission and open the doors for a Nazi invasion. In August 1940, even as the battle was being waged in the skies over England, Prime Minister Winston Churchill saluted by RAF by saying, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

The battle was also commemorated in the epic 1969 film “The Battle of Britain,” which was directed by Guy Hamilton, included some of the best aerial battle scenes ever shot for the movies and starred a slew of big-name actors, among them Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Robert Shaw and Christopher Plummer. Less well known is a true labor of love inspired by the original movie. The 20-minute “Battle of Britain 1.72” is a stop-motion film featuring 1:72 scale models and tiny human figurines and props. It was made by Jerónimo Martínez Molina of Escorpio Pictures and Entertainment in Madrid, Spain. The original production searched high and low to find aircraft for its cameras, and found its Me-109s — actually the Hispano Aviación HA-1112 Buchón — in Spain.

A model maker since childhood, Molina built all the airplanes himself and received some help from family and friends to construct the sets and props. He was motivated to make the film by a passion for World War II, as well as photography and cinema. He says he loved the original 1969 Battle of Britain film because it featured actual World War II airplanes and included the conversations of pilots during combat. It took him about four years of work to complete the film, which he finished in 2013 but did not upload to social networks until 2020.

While it may lack the widescreen sweep of the original and is almost two hours shorter, the 1:72 version deserves recognition.

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The late Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on June 2, 1953, though she was technically queen of the United Kingdom as soon as her father, King George VI, died on Feb. 6, 1952.

The coronation was a remarkable event in that it was publicly televised in full, offering the world a glimpse into what had previously been a somewhat mysterious affair — though it displayed all the expected pomp. The decision to televise the event was Elizabeth’s, and she even overruled the advice of her prime minister, Winston Churchill, in so doing.

The coronation was filmed in both black and white and color by the BBC, with both broadcast separately. Here is the original black-and-white broadcast, followed by the color version.

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On June 4, 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave a speech that would set the tone for the British resistance against Nazi Germany for the rest of the war. Known as the “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” or “Never Surrender” or Dunkirk speech, it solidified his legacy as one of the 20th century’s greatest orators and political leaders — and cemented his reputation as a man of great moral courage.

It wasn’t an easy task: The Brits had just been handed a devastating defeat, essentially ceding the entire country of France to Adolf Hitler, and Germany looked poised to wrap up the war within weeks. Churchill had to brace Britons for a potential invasion of their island and yet convince them that suing for peace would be the wrong call — and he had to do it as the British military was in shambles, having just been trounced at the Battle of Dunkirk, in which the Brits were forced to hastily evacuate the Continent.

His speech to the House of Commons instantly electrified listeners and steeled the British public for the fight ahead, and is widely considered to be one of the high points of Churchill’s career.

Below is Churchill reciting his speech in 1949 — the original 1940 speech was never recorded, but his words were spread throughout the country by newspaper and word of mouth. (The most famous section starts at around 11 minutes, 10 seconds.)

Text of Churchill’s ‘Never Surrender’ Speech

When, a week ago today, I asked the House to fix this afternoon as the occasion for a statement, I feared it would be my hard lot to announce the greatest military disaster in our long history. I thought-and some good judges agreed with me-that perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 men might be re-embarked. But it certainly seemed that the whole of the French First Army and the whole of the British Expeditionary Force north of the Amiens-Abbeville gap would be broken up in the open field or else would have to capitulate for lack of food and ammunition. These were the hard and heavy tidings for which I called upon the House and the nation to prepare themselves a week ago. The whole root and core and brain of the British Army, on which and around which we were to build, and are to build, the great British Armies in the later years of the war, seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into an ignominious and starving captivity.

That was the prospect a week ago. But another blow which might well have proved final was yet to fall upon us. The King of the Belgians had called upon us to come to his aid. Had not this Ruler and his Government severed themselves from the Allies, who rescued their country from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the French and British Armies might well at the outset have saved not only Belgium but perhaps even Poland. Yet at the last moment, when Belgium was already invaded, King Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient Army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his Ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command, surrendered his Army, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat.

I asked the House a week ago to suspend its judgment because the facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest Army his country had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the British and two out of the three corps forming the First French Army, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed impossible that any large number of Allied troops could reach the coast.

The enemy attacked on all sides with great strength and fierceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous Air Force, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon Dunkirk and the beaches. Pressing in upon the narrow exit, both from the east and from the west, the enemy began to fire with cannon upon the beaches by which alone the shipping could approach or depart. They sowed magnetic mines in the channels and seas; they sent repeated waves of hostile aircraft, sometimes more than a hundred strong in one formation, to cast their bombs upon the single pier that remained, and upon the sand dunes upon which the troops had their eyes for shelter. Their U-boats, one of which was sunk, and their motor launches took their toll of the vast traffic which now began. For four or five days an intense struggle reigned. All their armored divisions-or what Was left of them-together with great masses of infantry and artillery, hurled themselves in vain upon the ever-narrowing, ever-contracting appendix within which the British and French Armies fought.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, with the willing help of countless merchant seamen, strained every nerve to embark the British and Allied troops; 220 light warships and 650 other vessels were engaged. They had to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of artillery fire. Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from mines and torpedoes. It was in conditions such as these that our men carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always men whom they had rescued. The numbers they have brought back are the measure of their devotion and their courage. The hospital ships, which brought off many thousands of British and French wounded, being so plainly marked were a special target for Nazi bombs; but the men and women on board them never faltered in their duty.

Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force, which had already been intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from home bases, now used part of its main metropolitan fighter strength, and struck at the German bombers and at the fighters which in large numbers protected them. This struggle was protracted and fierce. Suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment-but only for the moment-died away. A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all. The enemy was hurled back by the retreating British and French troops. He was so roughly handled that he did not hurry their departure seriously. The Royal Air Force engaged the main strength of the German Air Force, and inflicted upon them losses of at least four to one; and the Navy, using nearly 1,000 ships of all kinds, carried over 335,000 men, French and British, out of the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to the tasks which lie immediately ahead. We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. It was gained by the Air Force. Many of our soldiers coming back have not seen the Air Force at work; they saw only the bombers which escaped its protective attack. They underrate its achievements. I have heard much talk of this; that is why I go out of my way to say this. I will tell you about it.

This was a great trial of strength between the British and German Air Forces. Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans in the air than to make evacuation from these beaches impossible, and to sink all these ships which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands? Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and significance for the whole purpose of the war than this? They tried hard, and they were beaten back; they were frustrated in their task. We got the Army away; and they have paid fourfold for any losses which they have inflicted. Very large formations of German aeroplanes-and we know that they are a very brave race-have turned on several occasions from the attack of one-quarter of their number of the Royal Air Force, and have dispersed in different directions. Twelve aeroplanes have been hunted by two. One aeroplane was driven into the water and cast away by the mere charge of a British aeroplane, which had no more ammunition. All of our types-the Hurricane, the Spitfire and the new Defiant-and all our pilots have been vindicated as superior to what they have at present to face.

When we consider how much greater would be our advantage in defending the air above this Island against an overseas attack, I must say that I find in these facts a sure basis upon which practical and reassuring thoughts may rest. I will pay my tribute to these young airmen. The great French Army was very largely, for the time being, cast back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of armored vehicles. May it not also be that the cause of civilization itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen? There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past-not only distant but prosaic; these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that:

Every morn brought forth a noble chance
And every chance brought forth a noble knight,
deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue ready to give life and all for their native land.

I return to the Army. In the long series of very fierce battles, now on this front, now on that, fighting on three fronts at once, battles fought by two or three divisions against an equal or somewhat larger number of the enemy, and fought fiercely on some of the old grounds that so many of us knew so well-in these battles our losses in men have exceeded 30,000 killed, wounded and missing. I take occasion to express the sympathy of the House to all who have suffered bereavement or who are still anxious. The President of the Board of Trade [Sir Andrew Duncan] is not here today. His son has been killed, and many in the House have felt the pangs of affliction in the sharpest form. But I will say this about the missing: We have had a large number of wounded come home safely to this country, but I would say about the missing that there may be very many reported missing who will come back home, some day, in one way or another. In the confusion of this fight it is inevitable that many have been left in positions where honor required no further resistance from them.

Against this loss of over 30,000 men, we can set a far heavier loss certainly inflicted upon the enemy. But our losses in material are enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle of 21st March, 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns — nearly one thousand-and all our transport, all the armored vehicles that were with the Army in the north. This loss will impose a further delay on the expansion of our military strength. That expansion had not been proceeding as far as we had hoped. The best of all we had to give had gone to the British Expeditionary Force, and although they had not the numbers of tanks and some articles of equipment which were desirable, they were a very well and finely equipped Army. They had the first-fruits of all that our industry had to give, and that is gone. And now here is this further delay. How long it will be, how long it will last, depends upon the exertions which we make in this Island. An effort the like of which has never been seen in our records is now being made. Work is proceeding everywhere, night and day, Sundays and week days. Capital and Labor have cast aside their interests, rights, and customs and put them into the common stock. Already the flow of munitions has leaped forward. There is no reason why we should not in a few months overtake the sudden and serious loss that has come upon us, without retarding the development of our general program.

Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonizing week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster. The French Army has been weakened, the Belgian Army has been lost, a large part of those fortified lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining districts and factories have passed into the enemy’s possession, the whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck almost immediately at us or at France. We are told that Herr Hitler has a plan for invading the British Isles. This has often been thought of before. When Napoleon lay at Boulogne for a year with his flat-bottomed boats and his Grand Army, he was told by someone. “There are bitter weeds in England.” There are certainly a great many more of them since the British Expeditionary Force returned.

The whole question of home defense against invasion is, of course, powerfully affected by the fact that we have for the time being in this Island incomparably more powerful military forces than we have ever had at any moment in this war or the last. But this will not continue. We shall not be content with a defensive war. We have our duty to our Ally. We have to reconstitute and build up the British Expeditionary Force once again, under its gallant Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort. All this is in train; but in the interval we must put our defenses in this Island into such a high state of organization that the fewest possible numbers will be required to give effective security and that the largest possible potential of offensive effort may be realized. On this we are now engaged. It will be very convenient, if it be the desire of the House, to enter upon this subject in a secret Session. Not that the government would necessarily be able to reveal in very great detail military secrets, but we like to have our discussions free, without the restraint imposed by the fact that they will be read the next day by the enemy; and the Government would benefit by views freely expressed in all parts of the House by Members with their knowledge of so many different parts of the country. I understand that some request is to be made upon this subject, which will be readily acceded to by His Majesty’s Government.

We have found it necessary to take measures of increasing stringency, not only against enemy aliens and suspicious characters of other nationalities, but also against British subjects who may become a danger or a nuisance should the war be transported to the United Kingdom. I know there are a great many people affected by the orders which we have made who are the passionate enemies of Nazi Germany. I am very sorry for them, but we cannot, at the present time and under the present stress, draw all the distinctions which we should like to do. If parachute landings were attempted and fierce fighting attendant upon them followed, these unfortunate people would be far better out of the way, for their own sakes as well as for ours. There is, however, another class, for which I feel not the slightest sympathy. Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand, and we shall use those powers subject to the supervision and correction of the House, without the slightest hesitation until we are satisfied, and more than satisfied, that this malignancy in our midst has been effectively stamped out.

Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

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Our 9 best-selling history titles feature in-depth storytelling and iconic imagery to engage and inform on the people, the wars, and the events that shaped America and the world.

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