In 1941, one of the United States recognized a state of war for a very technical reason, months before the country formally entered the second World War.
Oscar was adopted by a nursing home to be a therapy cat. But staff noticed that whenever he chose to sit next to somebody, that somebody soon became a body.
Today in 1943, Norman Rockwell's painting "Rosie the Riveter" was on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. But that's not the image that we think of today as Rosie, and just as there were multiple depictions of the character, there were multiple real-life inspirations for those depictions.
This month in 1941, a dog in the UK became a hero in a very strange way, stopping a bomb by answering the call of nature.
Today in 1943, the US announced it would start rationing shoes to save rubber and leather for the troops in World War II. People on the home front found ways to make shoes out of alternative materials.
It's National Banana Day, so we've got the story of people in the UK who went to great lengths to simulate having bananas when the real deal was off limits during World War II.
Today in 1943, the US government tried to help the war effort in a way that did NOT go over well. They tried to halt the sales of sliced bread.
Today in 1943, a US Navy ship almost caused a gigantic tragedy, by inadvertently launching a torpedo at the president of the United States. Plus: this month in 1932, the UK’s Home Office got a complaint about ancient drawing known as the Cerne Abbas Giant and his “impassioned obscenity.”
For Veterans Day, the story of the Comanche Code Talkers, 17 veterans of the second World War who created an unbroken code in their native language that saved lives and helped the US military effort.
On this day in 1943, an interesting headline in the New York Times: “Sicily Vying With Hawaii To Become 49th U.S. State.”
![Riveting team working on the cockpit shell of a B-25 [i.e. C-47] bomber at the plant of North American Aviation, Inc., Inglewood [i.e. Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach], Calif. Photo by Alfred T. Palmer via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division/Wikicommons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter#/media/File:Riveting_team2.jpg](https://www.bradycarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/20240529riveter-80x63.jpg)
