Descended from a long line of military men, Patton graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 1909. He represented the United States in the 1912 Olympics-as the first American participant in the pentathlon. He did not win a medal. He went on to serve in the Tank Corps during World War I, an experience that […]

The Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Autumn Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a “bulge” around the area of the […]

After departing from RAF Twinwood Airfield in Bedfordshire, UK, a single-engine aircraft carrying trombonist and bandleader Glenn Miller goes missing over the English Channel. Miller was traveling to France for a congratulatory performance for American troops in Paris. Miller, the biggest star on the American pop-music scene in the years immediately preceding World War II, set […]

Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict. The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a war against the United States, he was uncertain as to how the war would be […]