On June 24, 1948, Soviet forces began a blockade of West Berlin, severing all land connections between the city and western Europe. In response, U.S. and British Commonwealth Forces launched the Berlin Airlift (aka “Operation Vittles” for the Americans) to supply their garrisons and the population of Berlin, with the first flights beginning on June 26, 1948.
At its height, the airlift delivered 5000 tons of supplies daily, including food, milk and coal, with aircraft arriving at Berlin every 30 seconds (at multiple airports). The blockade was eventually lifted on May 12, 1949.
The amphibious invasion to reclaim the Aleutian island of Attu from the Japanese began 75 years ago on May 11, 1943. Japanese forces had first occupied the island, the westernmost of the Aleutian island chain, in June 1942. The only land battle to occur on incorporated U.S. territory during World War II, the Battle of Attu would last for 2 weeks of heavy fighting before the Japanese occupiers were overcome. Read more at The Japanese Invasion of America.
Also featured in this United News newsreel, the capture of the city of Tunis by British forces during the Battle of Tunisia on May 7, 1943.
Japanese attempts to check Allied advances in New Guinea during World War II were frustrated when their convoy of reinforcements was intercepted and destroyed by coordinated air assaults by American and Australian forces during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea on March 2-3, 1943.
Have you been following this year’s Winter Olympic Games at
PyeongChang? Check out some highlights from the 1964 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck in this Universal Newsreel from February 10, 1964:
Can you identify this gull? It was among many other bird species being observed by former President Teddy Roosevelt along a beach in this ca. 1915 stock newsreel footage (viewable in the @usnatarchives catalog):
![Can you identify this gull? It was among many other bird species being observed by former President Teddy Roosevelt along a beach in this ca. 1915 stock newsreel footage (viewable in the @usnatarchives catalog):
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