Flagship Series
What happened in the 24 hours after history's most decisive battles — and why it mattered as much as the fight itself.
With North Vietnamese forces in control of South Vietnam's capital city, the nation's remaining military and civil leadership faced an uncertain future. The boat people exodus would begin immediately; re-education camps would detain hundreds of thousands. The longest war of the American century had
As crowds celebrated in the streets of Paris, London, and New York, the machinery of occupation and disarmament swung into motion. Eleven thousand soldiers had been killed or wounded in the final morning before guns fell silent. Peace had come, but the negotiation of its terms had not yet begun.
While local Belgians and camp followers looted the blood-soaked field, the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal Blücher met briefly to formalize their victory. Napoleon fled toward Paris, his army disintegrating, the Hundred Days ending in catastrophe.
As General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia retreated across the flooded Potomac River on the anniversary of American independence, the town of Gettysburg and the surrounding countryside faced the overwhelming human and material cost of the Civil War's largest battle.
Two days after German General Helmuth Weidling surrendered the city to Soviet forces, the red flag flew over the Reichstag and Soviet administrative authority was establishing control. The Third Reich had ended; the occupation was beginning.
As President Roosevelt addressed Congress and America declared war, the battle expanded across the Pacific. The USS Nevada's burning hull epitomized the scale of devastation, while American military leadership moved to mobilize a nation for global conflict.
While British, Canadian, and American forces consolidated their precarious Normandy foothold, German counterattack forces mobilized for a desperate attempt to push the invaders back into the sea. The battle for France had only just begun.
As Japanese military and scientific officials struggled to comprehend an unprecedented weapon, survivors overwhelmed makeshift medical facilities and international broadcasts revealed a weapon unlike any in history. The atomic age had begun, but few grasped what it meant.
