This Program from the Combat Studies Institute is designed to give military instructors ideas on presenting "Nuclear Weapons and the Cold War," lesson 12 in "Evolution of Modern Warfare." It offers suggestions for how to present the Cold War context, thinking on nuclear strategy and deterrence, and the post-WWII reorganization of the military and national security apparatus. Panelists show how the existence of nuclear weapons led to questions of whether...

Despite American victories at Trenton and Princeton, the Continental Army remained in dire need of funds and military support. Congress therefore dispatched Benjamin Franklin to France in hopes of creating an alliance that would provide both. This classic program follows Franklin to Europe while also tracking the Crown forces on their march on New England. The upshot? A crushing British defeat at Saratoga and an agreement by France to fight on the...

This World War II-era newsreel includes the following segments: 1. U.S. troops storm a beach in practice. 2. Anthony Eden and Lord Halifax converse with Secretary of State Hull. 3. A steel life raft is tested. 4. Snowplows clear roads in Canada. 5. Soldiers unload mules. 6. Destroyer escorts and tankers are launched. 7. Coast Guardsmen patrol beaches. 8. Lend-lease tanks are used in Australia. 9. A volcano buries a town in Mexico.

1932 was marked by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's election and Amelia Earhart's historic flight across the Atlantic. Year by Year also looks at Al Capone's sentence to jail.

This World War II-era newsreel includes the following segments: 1. The 6th Army lands on Wake Island; marine units advance in the Palau Islands. 2. The 92nd Division of the 5th Army advances in Italy; General Clark visits a hospital. 3. Wendell Willkie at the 1940 Republican Convention and with Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek. 4. Secretary of State Stettinius summarizes the results of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. 5. Chinese troops capture the city...

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin describes how past presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, mastered the technology of their times to bring their message to the masses.

"A book about the first year of the Biden Administration"--

Lorraine Zilner Rodgers was a member of The Women Airforce Service Pilots, known as the WASP, the first group of women pilots to serve the United States Army Air Force in WWII. Out of 25,000 women who applied to the program, Rodgers was one out of 1830 who were accepted. Given the task of ferrying aircraft across the country, to allow the men to be available for combat, Rodgers often had to deal with the stigma of being a woman pilot. The WASP did...

The motto for today's soldier in training seems to be "More Sweat, Less Blood." Training for soldiers in the Army is rugged for good reason: the better trained a man is, the better he will perform in actual combat. This episode of The Big Picture produced by the U.S. Army introduces viewers to the training camps and the maneuvers in the United States, Europe, and Alaska where combat is simulated. Video from the National Archives and Records Administration...

The story begins on June 25, 1950, when the 25th Infantry Division was still in Japan. As filmed by combat cameramen of the Army Signal Corps, this classic episode of the U.S. Army's The Big Picture television series tells the history of the "Tropic Lightning" Division in Korea, as they battle from a perimeter defense in the north near Sangju, advance 150 miles south to meet the Pusan-bent enemy, and back up the Korean Peninsula. This video from the...