The Rainbow Beach Victory Garden is the last surviving veteran of Chicago’s contingent in a homefront brigade of World War II.

Galina Brok-Beltsova is the last surviving member of Stalin's three famous all-female air regiments and one of the dwindling cadre of World War II veterans in Russia — and among its wartime allies and foes.

The 1944 Dodge WC-57 Command Car 4x4 military vehicle, which is said to have been specifically modified for Gen. George S. Patton, will be sold with no reserve. However. vehicle lacks specific documentation confirming its authenticity.

Seventy-five years ago, throngs filled the streets of Paris, London, Moscow and New York to celebrate Victory in Europe Day, but on Friday as the world marks the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat the ceremonial pomp will be muted.

On Friday, the world marks the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II. We've rounded up some related images.

Veterans who were active military in posts around the world 50 years ago recall that when they heard about the Kent State shootings there was, among those in their unit, confusion and disbelief that American soldiers had fired upon citizens.

The 13-second burst of gunfire on May 4, 1970 – the culmination of four days of riots and tension between the Guard and protestors – changed Kent State, the anti-Vietnam War movement and the already deep generational divide in the United States.

The Allentown, Pa. school board tabled naming a new elementary school for Brig. Gen. Anna Mae Hays, the first female general in the Army, after community members expressed concern that the suggestion does not reflect the district’s diverse student body.

While the experience we’re living through now feels unprecedented, Crawford Scott’s letters to his then-girlfriend (and eventual wife) Minerva shine a light on the similarities people dealt with in the last major global pandemic.

COLUMN

With their first-ever draft pick in 1936, the Pittsburgh Steelers chose a bona fide celebrity, a dazzling Notre Dame man who’d thrown the winning pass in the greatest college game ever played. He never played a down in the NFL, but he did fight in the Battle of the Bulge.

Analysis

The New Deal's legacy still provides support today. Unemployment insurance. Retirement and disability income. Transparency in the stock markets. Infrastructure that ensures a steady flow of electricity and supply of water. Yet the coronavirus outbreak has also revealed how ill-equipped the government was to address the rapidly escalating fallout of 26 million job losses

It’s not every day you see a World Warr II-era ship lifted into the air and placed into a storage lot, but it was the position of this particular “Higgins Boat" on its way to being restored to its former glory.

No signs of the vessel that Jaclyn Urmey studied had been recorded since the 1980s, when the area was surveyed for highway and bridge projects for Interstate 295, and she was determined to find out if there was anything left.

Gilbert de la O fought in and survived one of the bloodiest and little-known early battles of the war -- Operation Abilene.

Video

Fifty years after Apollo 13 blasted into space, carrying Fred Haise Jr., Commander James Lovell Jr. and John Swigert Jr. to the moon, the "unlucky 13" seems to be at work again. The new coronavirus pandemic ended the Apollo 13 commemoration before it began.

Attorney Stephen Jones was contacted two weeks after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and asked to represent one of the most infamous defendants in American history. He said he'd never been in a case that put his family or business associates in possible danger, so he asked for 24 hours to consult with them before deciding.

Seventy-five years ago today, famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle was felled by a Japanese machine gun on Ie Shima off Okinawa in the waning days of World War II.

The Army abandoned the 33-acre site in Woolwich Township and hundreds of others like it around the country in 1974. Now the New Jersey community hopes a commercial developer will buy it.

A tall, athletic and shy man who rarely speaks with the news media, Bill McVeigh said he thinks every day about the families in Oklahoma City who were devastated by his son’s act of hatred. He wishes he could change what happened, but knows it is impossible.

Author Matthew Rozell was planning to travel to Germany to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the train liberation near Magdeburg. “I’m supposed to be there right now,” said Rozell, who, due to the coronavirus pandemic, couldn’t travel to the small German town where Americans liberated a train of Jews 75 years ago on April 13, 1945.

Some 78 years after the Bataan Death March and Pvt. Hulon Lee Raper’s death in a POW camp, a genealogist working on behalf of the Army has reached out to Raper’s family members asking for DNA to verify that the remains the government has found are his.

All a reader had to do to understand how much World War II cost the United States — in lives and materials — was read a War Bonds advertisement published in the newspaper.

Cape Cod Airfield manager Chris Siderwicz estimated the damage to the two airplanes to be between $10,000 and $15,000. The parts to fix the planes are difficult to come by, he said.

The story of Camp Crane is a story worth revisiting, not only as evidence that isolation and distancing work to thwart the spread of infection, but as a reminder that the coronavirus pandemic, too, shall pass.

More than three years before the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy J. McVeigh sent up a red flag, a warning to all the world that he was considering an act of violence against the United States government.

On Monday, it will have been 75 years since George Mills’ liberation. Retired Army Lt. Col Michael Snyder, senior Army instructor of Decatur High JROTC, said even after three-quarters of a century, Mills’ experience remains worthy of reflection.

Japanese “hell ships” like the Oryoku Maru lived up to their name: Historians say they were crammed with hundreds or thousands of POWs — usually in dark, unventilated holds below deck. Most were denied medical care or fresh water.

Dan Sisson has spent more than three decades planning and building a replica of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's iconic home, in an isolated timberland in eastern Washington state.

John R. Weiler and other artillerymen didn’t get the glory of some other World War II veterans. But the shells his unit fired from as far as 10 miles away softened up the enemy and allowed those who were at the front to do their jobs.

During a walk through Spring Hill Cemetery last summer, Duncan Auter spotted a name that sounded familiar. Duncan, 12, had heard stories from Larry Weatherford, president of two historical groups, about Pvt. George McKibben, a Civil War veteran.

PHOTO GALLERY

On National Vietnam Veterans Day 2020, a collection of Stars and Stripes photos of veterans visiting the Vietnam Wall in Washington in recent years.

“Iwo Jima is a testament to what America was willing to endure to defend freedom and our way of life,” said Marine Corps History Division director Edward Nevgloski.

How did a trunk that once belonged to a decorated Montford Point Marine from New Jersey who fought at Iwo Jima end up in Connecticut? The mystery has the family of Gilmon D. Brooks scratching their heads.

Six 32-foot tall bronze giants adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., have helped ensure Americans never forget World War II Battle of Iwo Jima.

Although the coronavirus crisis has forced the postponement of Medal of Honor Day activities in the Washington, D.C., area to a later date, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society has announced the recipients of its annual Citizen Honors Awards.

After nearly 70 years listed as missing in action, Korean War veteran Army Cpl. Arthur Contreras Ramirez’s remains were laid to rest before family, friends and veterans on Thursday.

In the midst of the Revolutionary War, Mary Hays jumped on her cannon to continue her husband's job during the Battle of Monmouth. And Hays is celebrated each year in what is known as Molly Pitcher Day, said Lt. Col. Wayne Fogel, commander of 2nd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment.

Doctors had little defense against this mysterious disease. Its very name could ignite panic throughout the populace. Fears of the disease's spread could bring community affairs to a standstill. Sound familiar? The Savannah epidemic of 1876 "was the worst of its kind in coastal Georgia history," according to one historian.

The Museum of the Bible admitted Friday that 16 fragments displayed as pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known surviving copies of the original Hebrew Bible, were fakes. The fragments have been on exhibit at the Washington, D.C. museum since its opening in 2017.

The highly anticipated march was expected to draw more than 10,000 participants this year but was canceled after New Mexico's governor declared a public health emergency over the arrival of the COVID-19 virus on Wednesday.

In 2020, as sports officials here and elsewhere struggle to deal with the worldwide coronavirus outbreak, the influenza epidemic of a century ago might offer some clues. During that fall and winter, the flu killed an estimated 50 million worldwide, 675,000 in the United States.

The Navy’s investigation into the 1963 sinking of the USS Thresher resulted in a 1,700-page report; only 19 pages have been publicly released. Capt. Jim Bryant, a submarine skipper retired in Point Loma, wants the public to see the other 1,681 pages.

The 31st annual Bataan Memorial Death March around the desert terrain of White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico is still on for this Sunday, even as fears over COVID-19 have caused other mass gatherings to be canceled.

U.S. spy agencies were on the verge of an espionage breakthrough, closing in on the clandestine purchase of a Swiss company that could give American intelligence the ability to crack much of the world's encrypted communications. But the deal fell apart, done in by one of many behind-the-scenes battles between the CIA and the National Security Agency.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Thursday accused Land Commissioner George P. Bush of mismanaging state efforts to restore the Alamo. Patrick said in a written statement that the project in downtown San Antonio “is badly off track.”

Though the Civil War is remembered for its battlefield bloodshed and carnage, more soldiers died from typhoid fever and other infectious diseases than in battle.

NASA legend and native son Fred Haise will be honored in Biloxi, Miss., with a two-day celebration commemorating his flight aboard Apollo 13 in April 1970.

Visitors to the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center on Tuesday were treated to an impressive new addition to the museum's all-star lineup: The Columbia command module, in which Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins went to the moon in 1969.

For a year and a half, as much as 14 feet of murky river water filled the hull of the 312-foot long, 250-ton USS Ling after vandals flooded the boat. The water filled every corner and crevice of the submarine’s innards, damaging radio and electronic equipment.

One of the last surviving veterans of the infamous Bataan Death March has died, and his passing is a reminder that time makes no allowances — not even for one of the most important moments in recent history.

The Battle of Forks Road was a small, but pivotal, skirmish on Feb. 20 and 21, 1865, on the site that is now home to the Cameron Art Museum. More importantly, the Union's charge at the battle, which delivered the final blow to Wilmington's defenses, was primarily led by 1,600 U.S. Colored Troops.

An 8-ton Dahlgren gun has sat in a chemical bath at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News for several years. For the 140 years before that, it sat on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean about 17 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. And before that, it was in the rotating turret of the famed Civil War ironclad USS Monitor.

New Hampshire’s two U.S. senators have signed on to a bipartisan letter urging Defense Secretary Mark Esper to add the names of the 74 American sailors who died aboard the USS Frank E. Evans in 1969 to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

Gov. Mike DeWine has honored Col. Guion Bluford, who became an Air Force fighter pilot and the first black man to go to space, with the Ohio Distinguished Service Medal.

Frank Anderson, a former American spymaster who supervised clandestine CIA operations in the Middle East, including a smuggling initiative that supplied Afghan rebels with billions of dollars in weapons during their 1980s war against the Soviet Union, died Jan. 27.

To conserve steel during World War I, Mobile, Alabama, shipbuilders turned to an unlikely building material: concrete. On June 28, 1919, the first concrete-hulled ship built in Mobile, the USS Selma, was launched and prepared to aid Allied forces.

The nation's top military officer paid tribute Wednesday to thousands of U.S. Marines and Navy corpsmen who took part in what he called "the bloodiest campaign in American history, per square mile," the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima.

Retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Charles “Chuck” Pitman Sr., who risked his life and military career to help New Orleans police halt the Howard Johnson’s hotel sniper attack that claimed seven lives in 1973, died Feb. 13 following a lengthy battle with cancer.

Planning for the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II has taken a major step forward with authorization for the military to transport up to 24 World War II-era aircraft and their pilots to and from Pearl Harbor for the commemoration.

As a intelligence officer for his Marine battalion on Iwo Jima, Warren Musch traveled from command post to command post, making him a moving target.

On Sunday, Ken Potts and shipmate Lou Conter somberly talked by phone about the latest USS Arizona crewman to pass away. With the death of Don Stratton on Saturday, the 98-year-olds became the only two remaining survivors of the ship that was lost in the December, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

When the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, women suddenly took on pivotal roles supporting America’s war effort, whether working on factory floors, manning USO centers or joining the armed services.

When Thomas Downing died in 1866, the New York Chamber of Commerce closed, something it simply doesn’t do on a weekday. Its members, among them the most prosperous merchants in Manhattan, had decided they’d rather go to Downing’s funeral.

On at least one occasion during World War II, the U.S. government sided with the Nazis. German prisoners of war assigned as cooks at a MacDill Air Force Base hospital in early 1945 threatened to quit working unless injured black soldiers were moved to a separate mess hall.

For 77 years, Fort Ord near Monterey was a sprawling Army base thick with artillery pieces, wooden barracks and infantrymen taking target practice with rifles and machine guns. More than 2 million men and women served there between 1917 and 1994.

As Russia prepares to mark the 75th anniversary of the victory in World War II, President Vladimir Putin is stepping up his defense of Josef Stalin and digging in against calls to open up secret archives on the Soviet state's killing of millions of its own citizens.

One of the most beloved figures in San Diego Padres history spent only one season in the dugout — managing the 1980 team to a 73-89 record — and never played an inning for the team. Yet Jerry Coleman easily is the most heroic figure the franchise has ever known.

He's 95 now, and many of his Army comrades are gone. That makes retired Cpl. James W. Baldwin one of the last living black liberators, the African American soldiers who rolled into Holland in 1945 to fight the Nazis and helped free the Dutch from German occupation.

A decade of political transformation in his Pennsylvania district and partisan divide on the national level has occurred since the death of U.S. Rep. John “Jack” Murtha on Feb. 8, 2010.

After a torpedo hit the USAT Dorchester on Jan. 23, 1943, and it became clear that the ship was sinking, the chaplains tried to calm the men and organize an orderly evacuation. As life jackets were passed out, the supply ran out. The chaplains removed their own life jackets and gave them to others.

In 1951, Walter B. Dixon's family received the news that the 22-year-old had been killed in action in Korea. President Harry Truman sent a letter of condolence, and his wife eventually remarried. But there was just one catch: Dixon wasn't actually dead, he was a prisoner of war.

Pfc. Edward A. Nalazek had been buried in a trench with other Marines on Betio Island, where he fell. But the cemetery’s location was lost to history, and in 1949 the family was told that Nalazek’s remains could not be recovered. That changed last year.

The 1971 Sylmar earthquake killed 58 people. Forty-nine of them died at the Sylmar VA. Witnesses later told members of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs that two hospital buildings collapsed "in a cloud of dust" while the ground was still shaking.

U.S. Navy Fireman First Class Rex E. Wise is expected to be buried near his home in April, nearly right decades after he died in the Japanese attack on his ship, the USS Oklahoma, at Pearl Harbor.

The opening exhibit of Chattanooga's Charles H. Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center will feature a large collection of medals and the stories of their recipients, according to organizers of the museum's launch, which is set for Feb. 22.

A traveling exhibit at the Riley County Historical Museum is helping shed light on the role and lives of African American soldiers at Fort Riley in the late 1800s to early 1900s.

Obituary

Retired Gen. Erneido Oliva, who was second in command during the Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro and fought alongside fellow brigade members, died Thursday in Maryland. Oliva passed away following an illness. He was 87.

The collection contains several, gawk-worthy stops – rare items from England, the U.S. National Archives, Library of Congress and art commissioned by MacArthur “genius” grant-winner Titus Kaphar.

When relatives learned that the remains of Korean War veteran Army Cpl. Arthur Contreras Ramirez were found, a roller coaster of emotions broke loose.

The exhibit, titled, "So Ready for Laughter: The Legacy of Bob Hope," was created in 2018 and displayed at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Columbus is the start of a planned six-city tour.

Engines roared as the B-17 Flying Fortress steadily lifted off the runway. When he got the go-ahead, 94-year-old veteran Alfred Colbath walked through the narrow walkway in the bomb bay to get to the cockpit. Colbath then crawled into the nose for an unrivaled view of Lake County.

The Philippine Navy retired BRP Rizal, which began life in 1944 and was commissioned as the USS Murrelet.

Hundreds of photos of the notorious Sobibor death camp and other key sites in the Nazi extermination machine were stashed for decades in albums belonging to the camp's deputy commandant and in the attic and cupboards of the family home.

At age 23 in the spring of 1945, Guy Prestia was in the Army and fighting his way across southern Germany when his unit walked into hell on earth — the Nazi death camp at Dachau.