Indonesia’s War For Independence From the Dutch Empire In 1940s Illuminated by ‘The East’ Movie

A 2020 Dutch war film, "The East," popped up on my recommendations to stream. It is set in the Dutch East Indies of 1946 during the Indonesian National Revolution, also known as the Indonesian War of Independence. A soldier, deployed to suppress post-WWII rebellion in Indonesia, finds himself torn between duty and conscience when he joins an elite …

Surrender and Occupation of Japan After WWII: American Narrative and Archival Footage

DocuEra: How Japan survived and was rebuilt after WWII. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUn07eYE45M

NATO’s 75th Anniversary: It Has Helped Stabilize Europe. Clifton Truman Daniel Recalls His Grandfather’s Momentous Act

If NATO existed in 1914 and 1939, European nations, Britain, and the U.S. abided by a collective security treaty -- that an attack on one of them would be treated as an attack on them all -- World War I and World War II would have been prevented, President Harry Truman contended. Indeed, since NATO …

Bonhoeffer: True Christian Martyrdom

The Incredible Journey: "Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian, is a Christian hero for many. Executed by the Nazis just days before the end of WWII for his participation in a plot to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer is hailed as a 20th-century martyr. But Bonhoeffer struggled with a moral dilemma – his religious views were in stark …

FDR’s Illness in Last Years of His Presidency Pose Lessons for Biden and Trump Campaigns

Franklin Roosevelt's declining health in 1943-45, as reported by the National Park Service, included poor memory and sometimes, disorientation. Yet few would argue in retrospect that the U.S. would have been better off with another president at the helm, and certainly not Thomas Dewey, the stiff and remote Republican governor of NY. The GOP at …

The Jim Crow Era: A Stain On America’s Past

Wondrium: "An African American named Homer Plessy predated Rosa Parks' famous refusal to comply with racist transportation laws by more than 60 years. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction for sitting in a whites-only train car in Plessy v. Ferguson, leading to the Jim Crow era. Discover hard history and how "separate but equal" was …

When History Doesn’t Do What We Wish It Would

In Ed Park’s new novel, Same Bed Different Dreams, "the past is slippery, elusive, and alive," writes Krys Lee in The Atlantic. Lee is a professor at Underwood International College in South Korea and the author of How I Became a North Korean. She received a MFA from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. Park is …

75 Years After the UN Declaration on Human Rights, The World Is Disappointed

Inspiring statement of ideals and principles or a miserable failure? On December 10, 1948, led by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the United Nations General Assembly passed an International Declaration of Human Rights, designed to protect every human on the planet from genocides and the kinds of egregious violations that occurred during WWII, which was …

FDR’s Eloquent ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ Speech

Steve Schmidt points out how Joe Biden's Oval Office address from the Resolute desk pointing to the necessity to defend both Ukraine and Israel echoes Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech on December 29, 1940. Read and watch FDR on the American Rhetoric website. Schmidt's analysis is called "In Defense of Freedom."

1948 Arab-Israeli War: Israeli Victory Led to Wide Recognition, But Nakba Was Minimized Until Recently

"The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war." Wikipedia. It began immediately following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine on May 14, 1948. The Israeli Declaration of Independence was issued that day by …