Returning home

from World War II, the GIs of Athens, Tennessee, found that the democracy they had fought for abroad was noticeably absent from their own town. They determined to defeat their corrupt local officials at the ballot box; the officials determined to ensure that this could not possibly happen; and the result was a surprisingly violent confrontation that seemed, in its way, as much a test of freedom as had been the war overseas.

Fine American antiques

were hardly appreciated in 1905 when a Lithuanian immigrant named Israel Sack opened his first shop; today they fill museums and are a very big business—and Sack’s firm, now run by his sons, remains at the top. Rebecca Martin traces the intertwined growth of Israel Sack, Inc., and the transformed field that it leads.

Shortly before D-day

a routine training exercise by Allied invasion forces in the English Channel became a major military disaster, one that cost some seven hundred and fifty lives—far more than we lost at the Utah Beach landing for which the forces had been preparing. The catastrophe was immediately shrouded in secrecy, which lasted for years. Here, the whole grim story is told for the first time.

Plus…

Former United Auto Workers chief Douglas Fräser, in an interview, examines the fortunes and misfortunes of organized labor…Coley Taylor recalls his childhood years, when one of his neighbors was an old man named Samuel Clemens … Robert Uhl introduces an engrossing portfolio of marine paintings … We present a new feature, a column on American business by Peter Baida… and much, much more.