Filmmaker Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick debate the bombing of Hiroshima in a new documentary titled The Bomb. Although most people believe that the bomb was necessary to end World War II, Stone and Kuznick think that it wasn’t, explaining their reasoning using recently unclassified documents and archival findings. The showing of the documentary will take place on Friday, February 22, 2013, in the Lane History Corner, Stanford University. Click here for more information.

The United States Department of Defense currently maintains over 60 libraries on military bases around the world. Base libraries are now a familiar sight to American soldiers, but it was not always so. The first base libraries were established in 1917 by the American Library Association’s War Service. Developed by the Librarian of Congress, the War Service sought to “brighten the dull hours of American soldiers and sailors” with the latest books and periodicals. This private initiative later gained government support when General Pershing allotted the ALA 50 tons of cargo space per month for books on military transports to Europe.