Prologue: Pieces of History

When I voted to approve appropriations for the country’s highways, I didn’t think I’d have to build them! Last’s week winning caption goes to Marc, whose plowman did not expect to have quite such an active role in government. If you thought this looked like a victorious pursuit for these two well-dressed gentlemen, you would be [...]

The work the National Archives Preservation staff does every day is hardly “everyday.” A recent post about Hawaii’s petition for statehood on the Preservation Program’s Facebook page demonstrated this fact. This preservation project stemmed from a request from our Center for Legislative Archives. Each archival unit creates annual and long-term preservation plans, and the Center’s [...]

This week’s winner is Tommy R! His clever caption combines the discoveries of the atomic age with a nifty Latin neologism. Tommy, we’ll be sending you a 15% discount for the National Archives eStore. The original caption tell us that “Sister Mary Helene ven Horst, science instructor at Marycrest College in Davenport, Iowa, teaches students [...]

Monday is a federal holiday, but what holiday is it? So many ads on television and in print tell us it’s Presidents/President’s/Presidents’ Day. Images of Lincoln and Washington sometimes accompany these ads. But here at the National Archives, we know it’s still officially Washington’s Birthday. This year the holiday is actually close to GW’s birthday [...]

In the summer of 1942, the Allies’ war against Japan was in dire straits. China was constantly battling the occupying Japanese forces in its homeland, supplied by India via the Burma Road. Then Japan severed that supply artery. Planes were flown over the Himalayan mountains, but their payloads were too little, and too many pilots [...]