Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher. The National Archives of the United Kingdom has many interesting record series titles.  One of my favorites is “Mussolini’s personal files (the ‘Handbag’ files).”  This series consists of the papers that Mussolini was carrying in two handbags when he was captured in April 1945.  Likewise, the National [...]

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher. Seventy-years ago, on November 9, 1942, forty-nine year old Allen W. Dulles arrived in Bern, Switzerland to head up the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operations in Switzerland.  Dulles was lucky to be in Switzerland.  His train passed from Vichy France into Switzerland only minutes before the Germans [...]

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher. Nancy Yeide, head of the Department of Curatorial Records at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C., in December 1997, began doing provenance research on the NGA’s holdings to ascertain whether any of the works of art had provenance problems.  In the wake of the revelations [...]