Thank you for braving the elements and joining us this evening. I am the president of the Massachusetts Historical Society. As our members and regular attendees know [laughter] that is wonderful, i have not done anything yet. We provide workshops, run National History day, convene academic seminars and mount exhibitions. More than anything, what we do is hold an amazing collection of almost 14 million items, and we provide to historians and researchers for free. In our holdings we have the equivalent of 2. 5 president ial libraries. We have the papers of john adams, John Quincy Adams, and personal papers of Thomas Jefferson. That is important to mention because we have a special program with a special connection. We will hear about the publication the president s, in which noted historians rank the president s in a variety of categories. Persuasion of the public, leadership, moral authority and more. If theres anything we like to talk about more than president s, it is historians talki
Senior means age, not rank. They review the manuscripts and make a recommendation to the director of the book program, and then the wheels start rolling. The negotiation with the publisher goes on between the book Program Director and the author himself. Weve got a nice stable of printing houses, universities, and other organizations that produce our books. As a bit of history, in the audience in the back, dr. Roger cirillo, who was really the genesis, start of this years book program. A number of years ago when it came under attack, we brought roger in and he resolved it and kept it running. Roger is a colonel in the regiment. If you are a tanker, you know what regiment im talking about. Im not a tanker. Im an engineer. In the last row, and some of you have heard this story before, is a retired general, but in the opening days of world war ii, this individual was stationed in greenland as an army weatherman. Back then i think you were a tech sergeant, who had launched the balloons. He
Who and where were those who once had said the american was no soldier, that he would not fight . World, events were swiftly gaining momentum. Army dropped armydays later, the first occupied cologne. That, 300 of our fortresses of our forces lasted tokyo. Blasted tokyo. By the 17th of the same month, general Pattons Third Army had taken. The next day, and half a world away, our troops invaded the island in the central philippines. That, the third army crossed the rhine. Four days later, the eighth army was landing in the philippines. [explosions] less than a week after that, on april 1, 1945, the u. S. 10th army invaded okinawa. On the 11th of the same month, the Second Armored Division of the night army reached 63 miles from berlin. Thir on the 12th of april, president Franklin Delano roosevelt had yet to see the triumphant advances of american arms but fate denied him the satisfaction the final victory would bring. Afterhan a month president roosevelts death, germany surrendered. Was
To a political solution, a political agreement to end the war. In this battle, the largest that has ever been fought by the United States army in its history, better than 600,000 better than 600,000 americans were engaged. And you can see, our lines famously bulged but they did not break. However, you have the story of the siege that is going to be depicted here. Most famously, George Patton is going to come up and save the town from the south after they had been surrendered. This was an incident that Many Americans will recognize from where thepatton, Commanding Officer was asked by the germans to surrender and he famously said to them one word, nuts. In this case here, you get a sense of how logistics are so important in war, particularly with things like gasoline up here. We have a german gas tank where you can actually see the sf markings on the side. Germans were running out of gasoline. We, however, are going to also not only have to deal with moving mechanical vehicles, tanks, a
Because our museum was originally founded back in the 1990s as the National Dday museum. By a congressional charter, we would charge telling the story of the entire american experience. In this gallery we get to the big moment where United States and allies had to win this particular day. Dday june 6, 1944. Behind me is our film narratedded by narrated by tom brokaw. This is an exhibit case, a long thin line of language column. Ernie pile, walked the beaches at normandy. Where the American Forces landed. And he saw big everything from war, left over by troops who had been killed on the beach. What we have in this case, is artifacts, and send from utah and omaha beaches. Pile writes about what he found. You can see he talk about shoe polish, showing kids diaries, bibles, hand grenades, toothbrushes razors. He particularly singles out in his column writing paper. He talks about how young men who gave their lives at normandy, intended to write a lot of letters back home. The other thing t