Posts tagged: World War II

Marlene Dietrich is glam and beautiful in a slinky embroidered gown. She stands between two slicked-back men in tuxedoes who are staring intently at each other. All three are holding cocktail glasses in some kind of fancy mansion or hotel lobby.

Marlene Dietrich and Champagne: She Didn’t Quite Say That

Here’s a story about Hollywood legend Marlene Dietrich, Champagne, and a bad quote. The actress liked her sparkles, that much is clear. A supposed Marlene Dietrich quote about Champagne is …..

Anne Frank looks up from her school desk and smiles, in a dark dress with a white collar

Anne Frank May Not Have Been Betrayed After All

For years the question has been: Who betrayed Anne Frank? Nobody has ever known for sure how the Frank family was discovered in their upstairs hideaway in Amsterdam in August of …..

All America is an Insane Asylum

Poet Ezra Pound said “All America is an insane asylum,” after being released from an American insane asylum in 1958.

World Goes Nuts Over Bad Jerry Lewis Movie

Yes, it’s redundant to say “bad Jerry Lewis” movie, but footage of his famously bad clown-in-a-concentration camp movie has been released. That is, footage from the making of it.

Hitchcock’s Story in Pictures for LIFE Magazine

Alfred Hitchcock “directs” this series of photos in 1942, telling the wartime story, “Have You Heard,” a bit of Allied propaganda whose message is “loose lips sink ships.”

Archduke Ferdinand, Animal Killer

 Spiegel Online reports on a newly-published diary by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the man whose assassination sparked World War I.  He killed a lot of animals. A lot of animals.

Dorie Miller Biography: New!

 One of the first American war heroes of World War II was an African-American named Doris Miller. Heard of him?

Channeling Churchill

When historian William Manchester died before finishing his massive bio of Winston Churchill, a novice stepped into the breach.

No Orwell Statue for the BBC

 There will be no statue of George Orwell at the headquarters of the BBC. Because he was too far left?

Tito Doing Stuff

Former Yugoslavian dictator Tito has a Tumblr! See sample photos here!

Pappy Boyington Was Born 99 Years Ago

If he’d waited a few days he could have been born on December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day. Which would have been fitting. 

Fighting Nazis and Body Odor

This soldier is home on furlough, probably resting from fighting Nazis. But now he’s found an evil as bad as Hitler, right there under our own arms.

Benito Mussolini, Unhappy Birthday to You

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was born on this day in 1883. He caused plenty of havoc in the next 61 years. Benito Mussolini tends to be the Forgotten Fascist these …..

LIFE: Eva Braun’s Private Photos

Like me, you were probably just wondering, “how come I’ve never seen Adolf Hitler’s girlfriend in blackface?”

J.D. Salinger, War Hero

Something I didn’t know about J.D. Salinger: It’s hard to think of an American writer who had more combat
experience. He landed on Utah Beach on D-Day. Slawenski reports that of
the 3,080 members of Salinger’s regiment who landed with him on June 6,
1944, only 1,130 survived three weeks later.

Pearl Harbor Day Tribute: Chester Nimitz

Here’s a December 7th salute to Admiral Chester Nimitz.After the disaster of Pearl Harbor in 1941 (disaster for American forces, that is), Nimitz was the man appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to take over the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet and clean up the mess.

Was John Wayne a Draft Dodger in World War II? Not Exactly but Yes, Pretty Much

“Here for the first time is the first hard evidence that [John] Wayne volunteered for potentially dangerous service with the equivalent of today’s C.I.A., and the papers are not out of someone’s attic, but official government documents.”That’s the latest public defense of the World War II travails of John Wayne, courtesy of the politically conservative site Big Hollywood.