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The article focuses on the 1943 American military operation "Operation Vengeance," which sought to kill Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto during the Solomon Islands campaign of World War II. The author discusses how Allied codebreaking was in jeopardy because of this mission and examines several published works that reflect on or avoid the event, including "Islands of Destiny," by John Prados, "Operation Vengeance," by Dan Hampton, and "We Killed Yamamoto," by Si Sheppard.

This article explores the campaign by Italian military and civilian authorities following the 8 September 1943 armistice to whitewash the war crimes committed by Italian units from 1940 to 1943 in occupied Europe. This campaign followed a two-pronged strategy: first, the transformation of the Italians from perpetrators to victims by distinguishing the Italians from their former German allies and highlighting war crimes against them; and second, the use of fictitious trials to whitewash the records of military commanders. This concerted effort was finally sanctioned by the Western Allies in the increasingly confrontational climate of the Cold War to bolster one of their main partners, whom they needed to contain the spread of communism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the racialization of venereal disease during World War II at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the installation with the largest number of African American troops, arguing that medical and law enforcement surveillance overlapped in venereal disease prevention efforts in ways unique to the post's location and racial demographics. It analyzes how military and civilian agencies attempted to limit venereal disease and how Black officers and enlisted men and women responded to and influenced these policies. The U.S. Army used statistics to construct venereal disease as a racially specific problem and developed venereal disease education efforts at the post. Gendered effects of venereal disease control policy included a proposal to quarantine civilian women within the post hospital. As the army tried to maintain racial, gender, and geographic boundaries, the biomedical and carceral technologies used to police venereal disease grew more similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of sport has developed within and been intricately involved in the critique of neoliberalism. While important, there are certain limitations to this scholarship that are related to the nature of Western liberalism and academia. This paper attempts to argue a role for Marxist–Leninist thought in the sociology of sport. Historically excluded from academia after World War II, this bias is part of what Gabriel Rockhill has described as the "Global Theory Industry," that decries socialism while remaining favorable to Western liberal capitalism. The anti-communism of the theory industry means that much of the work on neoliberalism and Marxism in the sociology of sport has ignored the experiences and efforts of socialist countries, as well as theorists from the Global South. This article broadly critiques existing neoliberal and Marxist studies of sport while arguing that a Marxist–Leninist approach may give those in the field a better account of sport and its relationship to domestic and global politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "U.S. Army's Special Organizations" were unusual, little-known units within the U.S. military during World War II designed to segregate and monitor potentially disloyal soldiers. The existence and composition of these units pointed at the nationalist and ethno-racial tensions afoot in the United States at the time, reflecting both wartime undemocratic hysteria and social changes, along with long-standing concerns about U.S. national identity. The continued suspicion and large-scale internment of Japanese-American servicemen stood in contrast to the smaller numbers of other servicemen of enemy alien origin similarly interned (German- and Italian-Americans). The internal social dynamics within these units mirrored the fraught relationship among the Axis partners and the socio-cultural issues between the Japanese, German, and Italian national communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the Allies' grand strategy for the defeat of Japan in Southeast Asia usually focus on the discussions over Burma. This article examines the roles envisioned for the Bay of Bengal. It argues that operations within and based on the Bay of Bengal formed the basis of Allied strategy in Southeast Asia, but plans quickly diverged. The U.S. and China pushed for amphibious operations as part of the broader Burma campaign. Britain, however, wanted to use the Bay of Bengal as a springboard for operations into broader Southeast Asia. No party got what it wanted. Scrutinizing these strategic developments, however, provides a clearer understanding of the evolution of Southeast Asia's place in the Allies' grand strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Japan attacked European and U.S. possessions in the Asia-Pacific region in December 1941, the Australian government had on order more combat-ready operational aircraft from American firms than from Australian and British industries combined. The U.S. was thus critical to the equipping and expansion of the Royal Australian Air Force. This article demonstrates that the framework of imperial defense provided a means by which the Australian government sought to secure American supply, although pressures on U.S. industry ultimately delayed the Australia air force's modernization and expansion program in 1940-1941. The war with Japan nonetheless created the potential for a more direct Australian-American relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite popular images that depict World War II paratroopers in idealized terms, the U.S. Army's creation of these units unleashed a culture of masculinity predicated on aggressive elitism with significant side effects on the battlefield. This article examines American efforts to create airborne units in World War II and the concomitant effects on these units' treatment of prisoners and sexual violence. The article discusses the difficulty of using fragmentary and inconclusive sources in reconstructing the dark side of warfare. It also offers a reconsideration of popular memory by restoring the harsh reality of war to narratives of American involvement in World War II and the paratroopers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the impact of World War II on California. Topics include the Battle of Los Angeles in 1942, highlighting the fear and response to a perceived air raid that turned out to be a weather balloon; California's role in wartime production, particularly in aircraft and shipbuilding; and the societal and economic changes during the war, the involvement of women in the workforce and the challenges faced by minority groups, such as Mexican Americans and African Americans.

The article presents a lecture which is based on the book "Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front: American Airmen behind the Soviet Lines and the Collapse of the Grand Alliance" by Serhii Plokhy, and it mentions various aspects of the Grand Alliance between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain during World War II. American airmen in the war are examined, as well as the late Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin and U.S. air bases in Ukraine.

The Olympic Games of 1940 were due to be organized in Tokyo, Japan, but because of the Sino-Japanese war, the event was hastily re-scheduled to be organized in Helsinki, Finland. The Second World War however interrupted the preparations. Instead of 1940, the Games were organized in Helsinki in 1952. It thus became necessary to prepare twice for the same event. During the 12 years that had passed, the political situation had become significantly different, while also views concerning architecture and urban planning had changed. The postponed Helsinki Olympics represent an intriguing case in the history of Olympic Games, that has remained relatively little researched. This paper proposes that this 12-year 'Olympic gap' brings to view on one hand the need to prepare twice, and on the other hand, the processual, slow nature of building and planning, which continued almost uninterrupted. A close reading of period newspaper articles, history of urban planning and architecture, as well as studies of the Olympic Games reveals tensions between architecture, planning, and politics on local, national, and international level, as they unravel in the context of preparing for the Helsinki Olympics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the port planning dynamics of the neighbouring ports of Koper (Slovenia) and Trieste (Italy) since the Second World War. Through an analysis of port-related planning documents, it offers insights into how geographical proximity, divergent geopolitical circumstances, and a unique border context have shaped the development trajectories of these two ports. We argue that their spatial planning is somewhat idiosyncratic because the presence of a border did not necessarily condition unrelated planning efforts and vice versa. Max Fabiani was the only urban planner to propose a joint development plan for both port cities in the immediate post-war period. The port and local authorities pursued separate planning paths for the two port cities after the Yugoslav–Italian border was established in 1954. As the border became more permeable, a certain relatedness can be seen in the spatial planning of both ports. The port authorities worked toward a unified port system at the turn of the millennium, but the persistence of phantom borders prevented this. In recent decades of European borderless integration, there are fewer obstacles to planning cooperation. Currently, both ports are planning similar development, such as the expansion of container terminals, which is leading to their increased competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the Roman Catholic Church in Poland navigated the enormous increase in church buildings at its disposal at the end of the Second World War. This expansion was largely due to the mass acquisition of post-German churches in lands transferred from Germany to Poland. But rapid reconstruction of most of the churches destroyed during the war as well as the resumption of new construction also played a role. Although access to increased worship space might seem to have been a boon for Poland's postwar Catholic Church, the appropriation, reconstruction and completion of thousands of church buildings presented the church with an array of challenges. Refounding local Polish religious life in post-German, and often post-Protestant, houses of worship raised difficult questions about how various constituencies in newly formed communities could be made to feel at home in their new surroundings. Trade-offs between the expectations and customs of divergent groups were exacerbated by the prominence within the postwar church of Catholics who were themselves post-German, having spent the war categorized as German before being recategorized as Polish after 1945. Close attention to how Polish Catholics encountered new sacred spaces and one another reveals the complex negotiations and balancing acts required to form an ostensibly homogeneous religious-national community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article centres on the cultural politics behind the feverish construction of new houses of worship in West Germany, as well as the restoration of damaged cathedrals and churches, in the first two decades after 1945. At issue is how and why ecclesiastical architecture took on heightened cultural significance at the time, attracting a star-studded group of international architects. After the war, church-building resumed its leading historical role from before the Industrial Revolution as the avant-garde of innovative international architecture, although its comeback has been largely overlooked by architectural and cultural historians alike. While these changes reflected broader international trends, the German situation took on special significance in light of the Nazi legacy of defeat, destruction and dislocation, as well as the pressing need to fabricate new churches for survivors and the millions of expellees arriving in western Germany. Discussions of ecclesiastical architecture therefore touched on broader issues of German history, identity and Christian renewal, and the very form of these houses of worship reflected a unique blend of avant-garde architecture and Christian theology in the aftermath of war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religious overtones of the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) resonated in particular in multiconfessional towns and cities like Augsburg. Not only were churches destroyed, desecrated or reassigned in deliberate acts of war, but the military supremacy of one side or the other could mean a permanent end to the ability of a portion of the city's inhabitants to practise their religion. In 1648 the Peace of Westphalia recognized the existence of multiple confessions and clarified ownership of church properties, allowing minority confessions to rebuild their churches and schools. In some multiconfessional towns such as Heidelberg and Hanau, Lutheran congregations took advantage of the provisions of the peace to build elaborate churches where none had existed before. Lingering fear of confessional annihilation drove postwar fundraising efforts for the building or rebuilding of churches. The memory of the trauma of war was expressed in confessionally specific ways until the significance of religious coexistence in German history was reassessed after the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the development of psychiatric interest in the Ainu people of Hokkaidō Island within the socio-political context of Japan's colonial expansion and the eugenics movement from the late nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War. Japanese researchers reinterpreted data on the Ainu – particularly as this related to racial categorization and blood-mixing – in reaction to the passing of the 1940 National Eugenics Law and the Japanese Empire's geographic expansion. Their studies negated colonial reality and attributed psychiatric degeneracy to a racialized Ainu constitution, building off and reinforcing preexisting anticipated futures for Ainu people. The article ends by raising questions about the impact of eugenics ideology, its practices, and related laws on minoritized groups in the post-war period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the transformation of public employee pension investment in the United States, from investing public funds in public infrastructure before the 1950s, to investing public funds in private securities in the years after. Three factors drove this change. First, motivated financial professionals convinced states to adopt the "prudent man rule," a legal investment standard that emphasized professional management and maximum financial returns. Second, declining bond yields during World War II led public pension managers to reconceptualize the political goals of pension investment, from balancing retiree returns against low-cost public infrastructure, to maximizing employee benefits by achieving maximum returns in financial markets. Third, public officials hired private asset managers to undertake new investment strategies. These professionals then used their influence to pursue further pension liberalization. Ultimately, US financialization was not a break, but a continuous process through which government officials intentionally used financial markets to enhance public social provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, historians have become increasingly fascinated by the question of what enabled the emergence of a stable model of democracy in post-war Western Europe, characterized by the persistence of pre-war elites and top-down forms of decision-making. This article reveals the importance of the British occupations during and after the Second World War in fostering this model of democracy. It does so by comparing and weaving together British occupation strategies in Germany and Italy between 1943 and 1949. Based on a novel examination of archival sources, it demonstrates that British ruling strategies influenced the form of democracy that emerged in these two states. As such, the article reveals the centrality of 'indirect rule' practices and their multifaceted impact. Building on imperial precedents, the occupations were primarily run through pre-existing local elites who commanded authority and influence amongst the population. The article argues that this choice explains why the British produced, first, functioning occupation regimes and, subsequently, contributed to the emergence of remarkably stable democracies. At the same time, however, this ruling strategy aided the creation of political regimes that were elite-led and that strongly limited popular participation, leaving many democratic aspirations unfulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representing neither the glory of World War II, nor the anguish of the Vietnam War, the Korean War continues to occupy an obscure place in American history and culture. Similarly, those who fought in this conflict – including African Americans – have been overshadowed by the combatants who served before and after. Yet the Korean War was enormously significant, not least because it was the first conflict fought by a racially integrated American fighting force. For the first time, black and white soldiers ate, slept, and fought side by side. Films about the Korean War made during the 1950s explored this new racial dynamic. Focusing on the representation of African Americans in The Steel Helmet (1951) and Pork Chop Hill (1959), this article examines the ways in which screen representations both reflected and challenged popular attitudes regarding African American military service during the Korean War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many will be familiar with the British traitor William Joyce who, as Lord Haw-Haw, became infamous for his radio broadcasts to Britain on behalf of Nazi Germany during the Second World War, much less widely known and studied is the work of Büro Concordia, an organisation created by Joseph Goebbels to broadcast 'black' propaganda from Berlin to Britain. Between 1940 and 1945 five secret radio stations posed as the voice of British dissident, anti-war organisations operating within the United Kingdom, broadcasting a stream of propaganda which aimed to demoralise the British people and undermine its support for the war. While they can be credited with some limited success, they fell far short of what Goebbels had hoped and expected from them. These stations were launched by the Reich Propaganda Ministry, but the two dozen writers and speakers who produced these broadcasts from studios in Berlin were British citizens. This study evaluates these 'British renegades' and the system that identified, recruited and trained them, and concludes that whatever potential there might have been to influence the course of the war, the employment of people so wholly unsuited to the work ensured that Concordia was bound to fail from its inception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, many countries established wastewater (WW) surveillance to objectively monitor the level of infection within the population. As new variants continue to emerge, it has become clear that WW surveillance is an essential tool for the early detection of variants. The EU Commission published a recommendation suggesting an approach to establish surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants in WW, besides specifying the methodology for WW concentration and RNA extraction. Therefore, different groups have approached the issue with different strategies, mainly focusing on WW concentration methods, but only a few groups highlighted the importance of prefiltering WW samples and/or purification of RNA samples. Aiming to obtain high-quality sequencing data allowing variants detection, we compared four experimental conditions generated from the treatment of: i) WW samples by WW filtration and ii) the extracted RNA by DNase treatment, purification and concentration of the extracted RNA. To evaluate the best condition, the results were assessed by focusing on several sequencing parameters, as the outcome of SARS-CoV-2 sequencing from WW is crucial for variant detection. Overall, the best sequencing result was obtained by filtering the WW sample. Moreover, the present study provides an overview of some sequencing parameters to consider when optimizing a method for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants from WW samples, which can also be applied to any sample preparation methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II police officers in Marseille and Algiers relentlessly hunted Algerian black market operatives. Hundreds of reports from these two cities detail the actions taken to prevent individuals from selling contraband goods, exceeding fixed market prices, or ignoring rationing protocols. Long-standing colonial stereotypes had labeled Algerians as prone to theft and violence, but the economic restrictions of war created a new category of the imagined Algerian criminal: the black market trafficker. In police reports the figure of the Algerian profiteer is omnipresent, but internal communications acknowledged that Europeans profited from the black market, too. Why, then, the fixation on Algerians? This article argues that police developed a narrative of Algerians as "internal enemies" of France. Their underlying suspicion of Algerians endured throughout World War II even as governments rose and fell in France and loyalties of the entire nation shifted. In treating Algerians as threats to national security, the police justified a system of control that homogenized the Algerian community along racial lines. The racialized policing of "anti-French" Algerian traffickers built not just on visual codes of race but also on how police practice mapped ideas of race onto the space of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the Second World War, local authorities across West Germany implemented Sperrbezirke, or restricted areas for prostitution. These restricted areas became a central element of Germany's system of managing commercial sex. This article considers both the legacies of former systems of state-regulated prostitution in the development of Sperrbezirke and regional variations in restricted-area regulations since the 1960s. It examines their relation to red-light districts through regulations on brothels and tolerance zones, as well as the common associations of Sperrbezirke with vice in popular culture. The article then uses prostitutes' responses to restricted-area regulations to assess their impact in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PEN International's 1948 charter and its accession to NGO status made it one of the most globally recognisable institutions promoting and securing freedom of expression for writers and artists as a fundamental human right. PEN's transition from dinner club to NGO involved a post-war reckoning with how to respond to institutional abuses of power and how to secure rights for those who had lost the traditional protections of the state. George Orwell and Stefan Themerson, writing on the 1944 PEN conference, offer insight into the political challenges PEN faced after the Second World War regarding state power and the rights of refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to contribute to research on the international relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Spain after World War II, when the Franco dictatorship experienced a process of rehabilitation. In order to gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, we need to complement existing studies on the history of diplomatic relations with approaches to the sphere of cultural imaginaries. This article, intended as a particular case study, analyzes the resignification of Francoism in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) via the heritage and tourist narratives associated with one historical figure shared by both nations: Charles V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metaphors that compare the computer to a human brain are common in computer science and can be traced back to a fertile period of research that unfolded after the Second World War. To conceptualize the emerging "intelligent" properties of computing machines, researchers of the era created a series of virtual objects that served as interpretive devices for representing the immaterial functions of the computer. This paper analyses the use of the terms "artificial" and "virtual" in scientific papers, textbooks, and popular articles of the time, and examines how, together, they shaped models in computer science used to conceptualize computer processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, a renewed history of foreign immigration in Italy, focusing on the very first migration flows after the Second World War, has offered a more appropriate periodisation of the phenomenon. Women have been at the forefront of these flows, which were initially determined by the new postcolonial setting of the former Italian colonies (Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia). Subsequently, the immigrants came from various other countries (Spain, Cape Verde, Portugal, El Salvador, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ceylon, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan). At the same time, the majority of them were employed in a specific sector of the labour market: domestic work. This article focuses on female immigrants who were employed as domestic workers, their presence in public discourse in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s, and government policies in this area. Drawing on statistical data and surveys, press and audiovisual materials, and feminist theory and practices, it aims to analyse the construction of paradigms – visibility, invisibility, subalternity, rights and racialisation – associated with female immigration and domestic work as a specific sector of employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report is about the ASMI Summer School held in Pisa on 22–23 June 2023. The conference focused on twentieth-century history issues: gender studies, cultural studies, resistance studies, fascism studies and mafia studies, with the addition of a round table and two keynote lectures, which discussed the profession of the modern historian and the history of racism in Italy from the Second World War to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article gives an interesting picture of how the Soviets viewed the propaganda war in Iran during the second half of the 1940s. It is mainly based on documents from the USSR's Ministry of Interior, the use of which is considered an innovation in the existing literature on the subject. Most of the attention of the Soviet sources discussed concerns the propaganda war, which began in 1943 between the three Allied powers that had invaded Iran during WWII, taking on the character of a combined struggle when the competition for Iranian oil was woven into the mix. To a large extent, this continued well into the years after WWII when, toward its end, it became even more intense. The main promoter of pro‐Soviet propaganda was the Tudeh party, and it was very successful in promoting the Soviet agenda in Iran, at least until the middle of 1946, mainly at the expense of British interests. In the remaining years until the end of the 1940s, the USA began to prevail in the struggle, and this was quite clear to all, including the Soviets, who admit to this openly in their situational assessment from the beginning of 1950. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kein anderer deutscher Emigrant, der 1933 ins amerikanische Exil gegangen war und nach der Ausbürgerung aus Deutschland und dem Erwerb der amerikanischen Staatsbürgerschaft zum Emigranten wurde, ist nach dem Ende des zweiten Weltkriegs so oft nach Deutschland zurückgekehrt wie Paul Tillich. Auch wenn er die Remigration auf den Frankfurter Lehrstuhl ablehnte und auch Rufen an die Universität Hamburg und die Freie Universität Berlin nicht folgte, lehrte er als Visiting Professor an mehreren deutschen Universitäten. Auch hielt er vor zahlreichen Hörerinnen und Hörern Hunderte von Vorträge in westdeutschen Städten und im Westteil der einstigen deutschen Hauptstadt Berlin. Tillich wurde zu einer Projektionsfigur, zum Idealbild des guten Deutschen. Dies bezeugen auch die zahlreichen Ehrungen und Orden, mit denen er ausgezeichnet wurde. Die folgende Edition dokumentiert die Quellen, die zur Ehrung Tillichs mit dem „Großen Verdienstkreuz (Halskreuz)" Federal Order of Merit 1956 und fünf Jahre später, zu seinem 75. Geburtstag, mit dem „Großen Verdienstkreuz mit Stern" führten. No other German emigrant, who went into exile in America in 1933 and became an emigrant after expatriating from Germany and acquiring American citizenship, returned to Germany as often as Paul Tillich after the end of the Second World War. Even though he refused to remigrate to the Frankfurt chair and did not accept calls to the University of Hamburg and the Free University of Berlin, he taught as a visiting professor at several German universities. He also gave hundreds of lectures to numerous listeners in western German cities and in the western part of the former German capital Berlin. Tillich became a projection figure, the ideal image of the good German. This is also evidenced by the numerous honors and medals with which he was awarded. The following edition documents the sources used to honor Tillich with the „Great Cross of Merit (Neck Cross)" of the Federal Order of Merit in 1956 and five years later, on his 75th birthday, with the „Großen Verdienstkreuz mit Stern". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In large-scale naval battles during World War II, sailors sometimes sustained serious lower limb injuries when explosion blast of sea mines was transmitted from underneath through the metal deck of the ships. Some of these sailors were thrown in the air due to the blast and sustained axial trauma of the spine when they landed on the hard deck, which was thus called a deck slap by Captain Joseph Barr in 1946, among others. Nowadays, this peculiar mechanism has shifted to the civilian setting. Tourists unaware of the danger may sustain spine compression fractures when they sit at the bow of speed boats while underway on a calm sea. When the craft unexpectedly crosses the wake of another ship, tourists are thrown a few feet in the air before suffering a hard landing on their buttocks. This historical vignette is presented as a preventive message to help to reduce this poorly known yet avoidable "summer wave of vertebral fractures." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II, clothing and textile shortages led to a culture of reusing and repairing items. The Board of Trade issued "Make Do and Mend" leaflets that provided guidance on how to remake and adapt clothing. Sewing skills were essential for maintaining a wardrobe, and women's magazines emphasized the importance of looking stylish and fashionable. Clothing rationing was introduced, and the Utility Clothing Scheme aimed to provide attractive garments within the restrictions of wartime. People used creative methods to obtain fabric, such as repurposing architectural drawings and utilizing unconventional materials like coffin lining and rabbit fur. The resourcefulness extended to household items as well, with knitted washing up cloths and improvised shoelaces for hair styling. The article discusses the practice of "make do and mend" during World War II, where people repurposed and repaired clothing due to shortages and rationing. Tips and tricks for altering clothes were featured in women's magazines, and individuals were encouraged to learn sewing and repair skills through evening classes and women's organizations. Parachute silk became a popular fabric for making underwear, slips, blouses, and wedding dresses. The practice of recycling and reusing clothing continued even after the war ended. The article emphasizes the importance of sustainability and recycling in the present day. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: The main purpose of the paper is to offer a personal view on the development of documentation/information and documentation (IuD) in Germany, while pointing out the need to further investigate the specific features of its development paths. The methodology is based on critical review of the available literature sources in the German language. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses the method of critical review of published documents in journals (especially in Nachrichten für Dokumentation), books and reports of state and provincial administrations that are directly related to monitoring and/or encouraging the development of the young field of documentation. Findings: The paper offers a review and interpretation of the most significant development phases, the contributions of individuals and the influence of the official state and information policy based on the consulted sources. Research limitations/implications: This research is limited to the literature written in German language. Practical implications: The paper could be of interest to researchers and professionals who are interested in the development of documentation. Social implications: The paper covers the period after the World War II until the end of 1980s that is especially interesting from the social point of view in divided Germany. Originality/value: To the author's knowledge, there is no comprehensive history of documentation in German-speaking countries written in English. This paper is the result of a research project started three years ago with colleagues from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, that aims to cover all phases of the appearance and development of information science in German-speaking countries and could be understood as a kind of introduction to papers planned to follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have long remarked upon the political significance of the Allied armies from Continental Europe which were established on British soil during the Second World War. Much less attention has been devoted to the implications of maintaining and expanding these forces amid the very particular circumstances of wartime exile. This article examines three aspects of the tension between the imperatives to secure as many men as possible for military service while maintaining the distinctly 'national' character of the force as a whole. The failure to mobilize emigrants and expatriates is examined in the first section, while the second section shows how soldiers could use national identities to their own advantage and pass between foreign armies. The final section examines the far-reaching political consequences of the often-obscured ethnic diversity within the ranks, focusing particularly on Jewish soldiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an interview with Christophe Gobin, a mineral collector and dealer. Gobin's father, Christian, started collecting minerals in Morocco and eventually became a full-time dealer. Christophe and his brother, Brice, joined their father in the business and continued it after his passing. Gobin discusses the changing market for minerals, noting that they are undervalued compared to other collectibles. He also emphasizes the uniqueness and aesthetic beauty of minerals, and encourages collectors to continue pursuing their passion. The article includes photos of Gobin and some of the specimens in his collection. [Extracted from the article]

The purpose of this paper is to examine Takada Shinji's (1893–1975) view of the 'Mandate of Heaven (天命 tenmei)'. Takada understood the 'Imperial Way (皇道 kōdō)' as one of two axes, the 'Mandate of Heaven' and the 'Rectification of Names (正名 seimei)', together they made possible a theoretical systematization of the 'Imperial Way' discourse as well as its concrete political embodiment. It is undeniable that the ideas of the 'Imperial Way' received heavy criticism after WWII. Because it was used as a problematic ideology in Imperial Japan. Nonetheless, it is necessary to grasp its original meaning as understood by its theoretical founder and innovators. This paper thus turns to examine Takada's unique understanding of the 'Mandate of Heaven' from the belief that such an examination should precede before starting a more systematic and comprehensive discussion of the 'Imperial Way' discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Undesirables: A Holocaust Journey to North Africa" is a graphic novel by Aomar Boum and Nadjib Berber that tells the story of Hans Frank, a fictional character who embarks on a transnational journey during World War II. The novel explores the intersections of antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and colonialism in North Africa under French rule. Through its blend of historical and fictional elements, the novel sheds light on a lesser-known aspect of the Holocaust and offers a cinematic approach to understanding this complex history. It serves as an entry point for readers interested in learning about World War II, the Holocaust, and North Africa. [Extracted from the article]

In 1905-1906, Edgar Thurston (Superintendent, Madras Museum, 1885-1908) sowed the seeds for a marine aquarium in Madras, because of Madras's coastal proximity. This effort eventuated as the Madras Marine Aquarium (MMA) in 1909. Directed by the superintendents of Madras Museum during its initial days, the MMA was handed to the Department of Fisheries, Government of Madras, in 1919. Frederick Nicholson, James Hornell and B. Sundara Raj superintended the MMA in 1909-1918, 1918-1924 and 1924-1942 respectively. From 1919, a research thrust was envisaged. Consequently, reasonable research progressed at MMA utilizing the organisms held in captivity. With the World War II (1939-1945) threatening India, Madras especially, the MMA was shut down in 1942. It reopened in 1955 but more as a freshwater aquarium, disengaging from its original concept of a marine centre. This article clarifies the pioneering efforts made by Nicholson, Hornell and Sundara Raj in bringing organisms live from sea for the common person of Madras to see, enjoy their colours and forms, and learn from them. Efforts made by Nicholson, Hornell and Sundara Raj instilled a sense of what we today refer to as 'biological diversity' and 'phenotypic variation'. The MMA was the spark that ignited the fire of setting up similar educational-cum-scientific institutions elsewhere in India in later years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents interpersonal relations and mutual influences between German logician Heinrich Scholz and Polish scholars, first of all Jan Łukasiewicz. The background for presenting these relationships consists of reflections on the development of logic in Poland and various conceptions of how to apply logic to philosophical issues. Firstly, Jan Łukasiewicz's program of logicisation of philosophy and his search for allies is presented. Secondly, the forms of cooperation between Łukasiewicz and Scholz, as well as contacts between the latter and other Polish scholars are sketched. Finally, forms of Scholz's help to Polish friends during the tumultuous period of World War II are examined. The article provides also some reflections on the approach to logic in various European centers of analytic philosophy and historical comments on the continuity of philosophical and logical schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper demonstrates the utility of ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) to inform forensic archaeology recovery efforts of missing service members from historic conflict‐related aircraft crash sites. This approach is becoming more common and improving recovery strategies by pinpointing potential subsurface anomalies prior to excavation. Two examples of recovery efforts at WWII aircraft crash sites are presented, revealing the diversity of landscape upheaval signatures that result from aircraft impacts. In both situations, the GPR successfully located feature boundaries and identified aviation impacturbation. The landscape signature varied in both cases due to factors including the trajectory and velocity of the aircraft crash and the topography of the impacted landscape. Notably, a ‘halo’ effect was identified in association with one crash site, revealing the force of the impact on sandy soils. Recognition of these anthropogenic signals is important to promote effective recovery strategies, thus saving time, labour and funds, particularly in historic sites where postincident taphonomic conditions have severely altered the morphology of the landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the normalization of violence in present-day Russia and its impact on society. It emphasizes how many Russians choose to ignore the violence in Ukraine and instead focus on trivial matters. The Russian state produces entertainment content that distracts citizens from the reality of war and promotes a romanticized view of the Soviet past. The article also discusses the normalization of domestic violence and the glorification of violence in media, particularly among young people. It raises concerns about the erosion of empathy, insight, and kindness in Russian society and emphasizes the importance of confronting uncomfortable truths. [Extracted from the article]