The average age of survivors is now 80. In five years, very few of these first-hand witnesses will be around to remember the event. Many of their stories are in danger of being lost forever.
Tomiko Matsumoto, an 83-year-old A-bomb survivor, at the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima.
EPA/Kimimasa Mayama
John Hersey’s article Hiroshima (1946) is seminal in historical and literary terms: the shocking realities of the atomic bomb demanded a new way of writing.
On August 6, 1945, a crude bomb containing 60 kilograms of highly enriched uranium exploded 580 metres above Hiroshima.
EPA/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
Today’s nuclear arsenals are so powerful that dropping a Hiroshima-size bomb every two hours for 70 years would not exhaust their destructive capacity. The global disarmament regime is broken.
After World War II, Dr Seuss dedicated himself to creating art that would speak to a sense of fairness and justice that he believed only children possessed.
Steve James/flickr
What Pet Should I Get? stays true to Dr Seuss’ dedication to themes of universal appeal, and his deep aversion to prejudice.
The Nazis subjected Jews, political prisoners and other ‘undesirables’ to a range of experiments that resulted in death and disability.
tsaiproject/Flickr
The horror of the human experiments by Nazi doctors led to the Nuremberg Code but the international declaration it inspired was watered down for political purposes.
Physician Karl Brandt is sentenced to death for crimes including using prisoners for medical research.
Wikimedia Commons
On Human Experiments – The impact of World War II on the development of human research ethics often overshadows the fascinating history and evolution of what came before.
Prior to world war one, many more soldiers died of infection rather than combat.
Navy Medicine/Flickr
Rupert Brooke was commissioned in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as a Sub-Lieutenant. Without seeing combat, he died aboard a French hospital ship, from a mosquito bite that turned septic.
The Duke of Windsor inspecting SS soldiers in 1937.
Aktuelle-Bilder-Centrale, Georg Pahl (Bild 102)
Karina Urbach, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Members of the British royal family were far closer to Nazi Germany during World War II than has previously been recognise, Russian and Spanish archives suggest.
Epic story of courage? Or dangerous shambles?
Imperial War Museum
For most British people the Dunkirk evacuation between May 26 and June 4 1940 was the most significant early event of World War II. And in the 75 years since those momentous events it has come to occupy…
Laying wreaths in front of the Freedom Wall in Washington on V-E Day 2015.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
On Memorial Day, reflecting on the meaning of the ‘liberation’ of Europe 70 years on.
Canadian Artillery gunners read the Victory issue of the Maple Leaf newspaper in Germany after Germany surrenders.
REUTERS/Lieut. Donald I. Grant /Canada Department of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada/PA-150931
During World War II the US military forged partnerships with industry and academia that translated laboratory findings into working products at an unprecedented pace.
Members of the Night Wolves visit the Russian monument in Vienna.
Herbert P. Oczeret/EPA
Henry Irving, School of Advanced Study, University of London
VE Day came after a week of frustrating rumour and failed to meet the expectations put upon it.
When Vladimir Putin reviews the troops marking the 70th anniversary of Russia’s victory of Nazism, he won’t have many leaders of democratic nations to accompany him.
EPA/Alexey Druzhinin/ RIA NOVOSTI
Victory over Nazi Germany is one unambiguously positive accomplishment of the 20th century; and yet, constructing a positive narrative about the Soviet second world war has proven hard – largely because there are some stubborn facts to contend with.
Discovering the other is in the Albert Hall?
freenerd/flickr