April 16, 2006
This page lists Internet video, audio and podcast interviews and stories that relate history to current events -- or history that politicians and pundits repeatedly allude to when commenting on current events. Also included: interviews with historians about new books. Prominent audio history sites include Talking History, NPR and BBC Radio 4. Week of 8-1-05 VJ DAY 60TH ANNIVERSARY August 7th 1945: In the 5th of the 12-part series "August 1945," marking the 60th anniversary of VJ Day, reporter Chris Lowe recalls events in Hiroshima -- and in Los Alamos, New Mexico -- the day after the Enola Gay dropped the first atom bomb. (BBC Radio 4, Broadcasting House, RealPlayer 3min) Hiroshima revisited: This weekend marks the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II. Fiction writer Naomi Hirahara's parents were there. One parent talks about it and the other one thinks it's better to forget. Weekend America host Bill Radke talks with them about dealing with the past and their responsibility to future generations. (APM, Weekend America, RealAudio 11min) Diaries tell story of Japan's war at home: Relatively little attention has been paid to the diaries of ordinary Japanese people during World War II. Samuel Hideo Yamashita, a historian of modern Japan at Pomona College, tells Scott Simon about his book, Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies. It translates the diaries of eight people who endured the war. (NPR, Weekend Edition Saturday, RealPlayer & Windows Media Player 11min) 60th anniversary of Hiroshima bomb comes at watershed time for Japan: The Japanese city of Hiroshima is marking the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city by a U.S. military aircraft in the closing days of World War II. More than 50,000 people attended a somber ceremony on Saturday, and, elsewhere in the city, international groups met to renew vows to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Thousands of elderly survivors of the bombing, joined by Japanese and foreign dignitaries, bowed their heads at 8:15 a.m. -- the exact moment of the attack -- offering silent prayers for world peace and for the souls of those who died in the atomic detonation. Those who addressed the crowd at the hypocenter of the atomic explosion repeated their annual vow of no more Hiroshimas. (Voice of America, RealPlayer 3min). Hiroshima today: Sandi Toksvig -- solicitor, novelist, traveller, raconteur -- discusses the 60th anniversary of one of the most notorious bombings in history, and its legacy on the vibrant modern Japanese city of Hiroshima. Her guests are Hiroko Kawanami, an anthropology lecturer in religious studies at Lancaster University, who visited Hiroshima just over 3 years ago; and BBC producer Stephen Walker, author of Shockwave: The Countdown to Hiroshima, in which he focuses on the three weeks that led up to the attack and on the stories of individuals, policymakers, diplomats, physicists, soldiers, airmen and residents of Hiroshima. (BBC Radio 4, Excess Baggage, RealPlayer 21min
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