JFK Announces Peace Corps Formation
President Kennedy proposed the Peace Corps as a means to improve America's global image and leadership in the Cold War. Established within three months of Kennedy's 1960 election, the Peace Corps garnered both bipartisan and popular support, particularly...
Little Rock Voters Close Public Schools
In September 1958, Gov. Orval Faubus closed all Little Rock, Arkansas public high schools for one year rather than allow integration to continue, leaving 3,665 black and white students without access to public education. Source: Library of Congress.
US Supreme Court Orders End to Racial Segregation
https://youtu.be/TTGHLdr-iak With its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka unanimous (9–0) decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional, even if the...
Brown v. Board of Education
In the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. The case became one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement,...
UCLA Red Cell
With the rise of anti-Communist rhetoric reminiscent of the post-WWI Great Red Scare, the University of California system was accused in the late 1940s of harboring Communist infiltrators. In 1949 the Regents of the University adopted a policy requiring all faculty...
Race-Based Education USA
In 1946 A US district court case in Orange County, Ca., Mendez vs. Westminster, ruled that race-based public school enrollment was illegal. During the trial, the Mendez family's attorney presented social science evidence that segregation resulted in feelings of...
Fulbright Scholarship
Aug 1, 1946 President Truman signed the Fulbright Program into law, establishing the scholarships named for Arkansas Sen. William J. Fulbright. After WWII, Senator J. William Fulbright proposed that the U.S. government sell surplus war property to fund an...
Our Job in Japan
https://youtu.be/fEZW_6EM1Ms Our Job in Japan, a training film for American soldiers assigned to occupation forces in Japan, begins with a description of the Japanese brain that has been duped by military leaders. The film details Japanese barbarity during the war and...
The German War
Using German archival records and letters and diaries of both civilians and soldiers during WWII, The German War - A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945 by Nicholas Stargardt is a fascinating book that illustrates the strong civilian support for Germany's armed forces right...
Food Rationing Germany
Rationing was introduced in Germany shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939. Initially, clothing, shoes, leather, soap and most foodstuffs were rationed. Many homes and apartments were heated with steam radiators that required coal burning hot water heaters....
▶Food is Ammunition
This WWII government film, with very explicit recommendations, emphasizes good nutrition as a weapon of war. "Eventual victory in this war may depend on what we eat." Although rationing was imposed in the USA, food insecurity was never an issue for Americans during...
Private Snafu
https://youtu.be/siEK24Pq2xc Private Snafu was a WWII US Army cartoon character in a series of War Department short subjects produced from 1943-1945. The films were intended to teach military personnel about security, sanitation, booby traps etc....
Youth in the Third Reich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVUAIPMsZ60 After gaining control of the government in the early 1930s, the Nazis radically altered Germany's educational system. History was re-written along the intolerant lines of Aryan beliefs. Old texts, non-conforming...
Education in Imperial Japan
After opening to the West in the late 19th century, Imperial Japan created a public school system based closely on the American model with additional emphasis on traditional Japanese values. Reflecting Confucian principles, a social hierarchy, with the Meiji state at...
Great Japan Youth Party
The Great Japan Youth Party (大日本青年党), later known as the Great Japan Sincerity Association (大日本赤誠会), was founded in 1937 with a structure similar to Nazi Germany's Hitler Youth. The stated aim of the organization was to teach Japanese youth basic survival skills,...
Hitler Youth
From 1933-1945, the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) was the sole official youth organization in Nazi Germany. This quasi-paramilitary organization was made up of: - Hitlerjugend proper) for male youth aged 14-18 yrs. - Deutsches Jungvolk (German Youth) for boys 10-14...
HEIMAT
This excellent 11-part mini-series, filmed for German television in 1984, relates the stories of people living in a small village in the Hunsrück Rhineland-Palatinate region of Germany through the years 1919-1982. The series follows the citizens of the fictional...
Aryans – Herrenvolk
In the late 19th century, the concept of an "Aryan" race proposed that the descendants of Indo-European language speakers constituted a distinct sub-race of Caucasians. Although originally intended only as a linguistic classification, proponents of white supremacism...
Produce Now for Victory!
Excerpt from War facts: a handbook for speakers on war production was published in 1942 by the Office for Emergency Management, an office established by administrative order, May 25, 1940 to assist the President in clearing information on defense measures. It...
Militarized Sports in Japan
In 1925 the Imperial Japanese Ministry of Education and the Department of War began to attach military officers to public schools to establish a military training system. In 1931 instruction in budo, the traditional martial arts of Japan, became compulsory for all...
Japanese-American Teachers Forced to Resign
In February 1942, pressured by the press and a petition circulated by a group of white mothers, the Seattle School Board forced the resignation of 27 employees who were American citizens of Japanese ancestry. The dismissed teachers, at the insistence of James...
Shifting View of Japanese History
Japan’s conservative government is considering a requirement that school history textbooks nurture patriotism and include nationalist views of World War II, a departure from the current mainstream texts. A Shifting View of Japanese History - NYTimes.com.
American High School Girls
WavingGirls1940; Wikimedia Commons. In contrast to their Japanese counterparts, these American school girls on the way to a WPA camp in Louisiana wore no uniforms.
Japanese Schoolgirl Uniform
Japanese school uniform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Fashioned after Western style naval uniforms in the late19th century, many such uniforms are still worn in Japan today.
Town Meeting of the Air
From 1935-1956, NBC's America's Town Meeting of the Air reached ~ 3 million listeners and more than 1,000 discussion groups debating the issues across the nation. Listen here