Dynamic Directory - May 31, 2025

Exactly eight months to the day, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, 11,000 American Marines land on a Pacific island called Guadalcanal. They are about to commence the first Allied offensive against the Empire of Japan.

This image depicts Philip Johnston visiting members of the Navajo Nation at their hogan.

Robert Leckie and other U.S. Marines fight the Japanese during the Battle of Guadalcanal. It is a fearsome time for such young men.

Embedded with American forces on Saipan, W.

After the war was over, and Robert Leckie returned from his tour of duty in the Pacific, he married Vera Keller.

Lt. General Holland Smith - pictured here, second-from-left and known to the men on Saipan as "Howlin' Mad" - was extremely proud of "my Marines.

As U.S. infantry troops took their positions on the 6th of July, 1944, they were unaware that opposing forces were about to engage in a mass attack, using their own bodies as weapons.

Thomas Hobbes, a British philosopher who was born in "the philosophy town" of Malmesbury, in 1588 (during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I), believed that if people live "in a state of nature," they would be fearful and prone to violence.

General Saito, commanding Japanese forces on the island of Saipan, believed his troops could not hold the island if they did not have air power over it.

Gudea was a Prince of Lagash who lived during the troubled period following the end of the reign of Naram-Sin (who had led the Akkadian Empire to its zenith).

Susa, an important city in the ancient world (when it was the capital of Elam), is located in Iran. It is one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities of the world.

Virginia Clemm - a first-cousin to Edgar Allan Poe - became his wife in the spring of 1836.

Edgar Allan Poe published a poem entitled "Imitation," in 1827.

A pillory was a place where individuals who were punished for various crimes could be at risk for more than public humiliation.

In the 12th century, the King of England was vexed by Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anne Hutchinson - and some of her children - died unfortunate deaths of mistaken identity in the summer of 1643.

Heinrich Karl Bukowski - better known as Charles Bukowski (or "Hank," to his friends and family) - was born in Andernach, Germany on the 16th of August, 1920.