World War II

Marking the December anniversary of the 1941 Soviet offensive at the Battle of Moscow, associate professor of history Matthew Lenoe writes in the Washington Post about Russian sacrifice and loss during World War II.

In many ways, life on campus would continue as it did before. But the four years following Pearl Harbor would be among the most challenging, heartbreaking, and sobering in University history.

On December 7, 1941, the lives of Rochester faculty and students were immediately changed, and a sleepy campus by the Genesee River was transformed into a vital hub for the war effort.

By the time the United States formally entered World War II, Brian O’Brien and his colleagues at the Institute of Optics had “essentially initiated the whole science of night warfare.”

Tiffany Miller '00 and her family worked for years to overturn a ruling that prohibited World War II Women Airforce Service Pilots—known as WASPs—from being buried at Arlington National Cemetery. President Barack Obama signed their bill into law last week.

Mary Louise Roberts talk, “The Leroy Henry Case: Sexual Violence and Allied Relations in Great Britain, 1944,” takes place on Thursday, March 31, 2016, at 5 p.m. in the Hawkins-Carlson Room.

Combat GIs dominate the history of Americans abroad during World War II. But these soldiers constituted only a small fraction of the unprecedented millions of Americans who mobilized for war. Brooke Blower, a Boston University historian, explores the backstories of a diverse group of noncombatants and their paths into global war.