A chapter of geopolitics. Hitler is able to take over the Rhineland, Austria and Czechoslovakia with impunity, and the appeasers oblige him. Only when he invades Poland does the real war begin.

The Nazis occupy Denmark and Norway, outflank the Maginot line and seize France, and drive the British into a corner at Dunkirk. A major theme here is how unprepared the democracies were for this onslaught.

Fruit production in the Niagara Region is featured. Young women dubbed “Farmerettes” love the job of fruit picking. Their demeanor suggests nothing of the exploitation discussed in Carmela Patrias’s work on the Niagara Fruit Region on the period. Fresh fruit is sold at market, while some is proce...

Just after WWI, the Curtiss NC-4 "Nancy" was the first American aircraft to cross the Atlantic. Join the US Navy and Smithsonian as they look back on this pioneering achievement 50 years later.

Enjoy the program transferred to 4K and sound sweetened for your enjoyment.

The RAF vs. the Luftwaffe. Capra’s own synopsis: “Showing the gallant and victorious defense of Britain by the Royal Air Force, at a time when shattered, but unbeaten, British were the only people fighting Nazis."

The Borscht Belt was a thriving vacation destination in New York's Catskill Mountains. Dozens of grand resorts, bustling summer camps, and packed nightclubs created a cultural hub that shaped comedy, music, and American Jewish life. Today, most of those legendary hotels sit abandoned - crumbling ...

This is quite an epic, running nearly an hour and a half for both parts. Considerable time is given to a description of Russia and its many peoples, and its implacable resistance to previous invaders through history. Wartime politics being what they were, such things as Stalin’s nonaggression pac...

Like the Russian installment, we are given a good deal of information about the vastness and complexity of China and the character of its people. Much of the emphasis is on the brutality of the Japanese invasion. One of the few major inaccuracies in this series is the emphasis in the so-called “T...

The Henry Ford celebrates trailblazers like Amelia Earhart, who defied gender barriers in pursuit of her dreams. In this video, Curator of Transportation Matt Anderson discusses Earhart’s life and legacy, including her skills, accomplishments and fearlessness that continue to inspire us today.

Released in 1943, this newsreel shows West Point during the stewardship of Major General Francis Bowditch Wilby (April 24, 1883 – November 20, 1965). Wilby served as the 39th Superintendent of the United States Military Academy from 1942 to 1945, during World War II. Many of the Cadet Corps athl...

Inspired by our 20-year celebration of The Henry Ford’s Candy Cane collection, you’ll learn about the chemistry of glass, colorants used and the history of cane-making specific to the glassmaking process, directly from The Henry Ford’s Glass Shop Supervisor, Chris Hofmann. From sourcing materials...

The British and Polish airborne and airlanding men engaged at the tip of the Market Garden spear - Arnhem. Let's explore the range of small arms they carried, and use those weapons to meet several of the men who served in this great struggle from World War II.

On December 1, 1955, a soft-spoken African-American seamstress named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, as dictated by existing segregation laws. She was neither the first African American, nor the first woman to challenge the segregation laws within a public transportation sy...

Injuries and fatalities are a serious issue at an electrical utility. Management thinks it is due to worker carelessness. A lineman named Jim is planning to marry on this day but “won’t take safety seriously”. He lives in a boarding house, is late for work and is not yet married. The more fastidi...

Capra produced this film as a follow-up to the Why We Fight series. At the time it came out it was regarded very highly. Capra was most fastidious about avoiding cliches about black people that had dogged most Hollywood product from the beginning. Like the Why We Fight pictures, this one was inte...

Digitally remastered in HD; Photographic Intelligence for Bombardment Aviation (1943) was produced by the U.S. Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit, and was designed to demystify a then rapidly evolving technique.
The present 24 minute film relies a little heavily on jargon and abbreviation...

In 1992, Austin Van Dyke's father bought a 1968 Pontiac GTO from a local man who told him that he couldnʼt believe it was a “numbers matchingˮ car. After completely restoring and falling in love with the car, he was forced to sell it in order to take care of his growing family. In 2021, Austin Va...