Topic: War & Peace
Originally known as Hanford Engineer Works, the Hanford Nuclear Site was built in the early 1940s to produce fuel for nuclear weapons, including the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, an...
Hanford's N Reactor, designed to produce both plutonium for weapons and electricity for the public, was the ninth and final reactor to be constructed at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, located along ...
Harbor Island is a manmade feature of Seattle’s Elliott Bay. After its construction in 1909 it became a hub of ship-related work, including building or converting vessels for World War I. World ...
In a remarkable show of personal courage, Seattle native Gordon Hirabayashi was one of handful of Japanese Americans nationwide to defy U.S. government curfew and "evacuation" orders issued in 1942 (i...
George Hirahara was 5 years old when he left Japan with his mother to join his father in Washington. At the age of 19, his parents sent him to Japan to wed Koto Inoue in an arranged marriage. The coup...
Jack Hanley, a Junior at Seattle Prep, won first place in the Senior Division of the 2007 History Day competition with this essay on Bainbridge Island's Japanese American internment.
Kylie Heintzelman was a 10th Grade student at Mt. Spokane High School when she won the HistoryLink.org award for her Senior Division Paper in the 2011 state competition for National History Day. Her a...
Rebecca Smith, a 9th Grader at Canyon Park Junior High School, won First Prize in the 2006 Washington State History Day competition for Senior Historical Papers with this discussion of the San Juan Is...
The commentary below was published on HistoryLink.org's "This Week in History" front page on September 11, 2001.
Jack Holsclaw was a significant military figure from Washington. During World War II he flew as a Tuskegee airman. The Tuskegee Airmen were an all-black pursuit squadron formed during the era of a seg...
During the Cold War Washington state served an important role in defending the United States and in deterring attacks. Eighteen intercontinental ballistic missiles installed near Moses Lake and Spokan...
In this People's History, Irene (Borlaug) Wilson recounts her memories of the Igloo Restaurant and World War II in Seattle. HistoryLink's Heather MacIntosh interviewed her in Seattle in May 1999.
The Isaacson Iron Works Plant No. Two/Jorgensen Forge facility, located at 8531 E Marginal Way S in Tukwila, is bounded on the east by Boeing Field and on the west by the Duwamish Waterway. The proper...
Located on the eastern shore of Tacoma's Thea Foss Waterway, the J. M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corporation built pleasure boats, fishing vessels, and an assortment of ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast G...
Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson was one of the most successful and powerful politicians in the history of Washington state. Jackson was born and died in Everett, Snohomish County, the rough-edged industrial ...
In late 1953 the United States Navy came to Jim Creek Valley in Snohomish County and built the most powerful radio transmitter the world had yet seen. It was designed by the Radio Corporation of Ameri...
A lawyer by trade, Jim Ellis (1921-2019) was a civic activist who helped transform Seattle and King County with his work to clean up Lake Washington, create Metro, and push for passage of Fo...
Ida Nakauchi was born in 1918 in rural King County, the daughter of Japanese immigrant tenant farmers with eight children who led a hard-scrabble life farming vegetables. When Ida finished high s...
A first-generation American born to poor German immigrants, Henry John Kaiser worked hard and studied hard, taking advantage of every opportunity to better his situation until he became one of the cou...
During World War I Americans of all ages were asked by the United States government to knit wool socks, sweaters, and other garments to warm American soldiers at home and abroad. Most of this knitting...
On the home front during World War II (1941-1945), knitting to help the war effort and to keep American soldiers warm was a major preoccupation of Americans, particularly women. The November 24, 1941,...
Washington performed a significant role in the Korean War. The Second Infantry Division stationed at Fort Lewis in Pierce County was the first stateside division to reach Korea. It arrived at the end ...
Located in Houghton (now part of Kirkland), the Lake Washington Shipyards began in the 1870s as a small boat landing owned by boat builder Frank Curtis, who launched his first steamship there in 1901....
In November 1942 the United States Army established a training airfield at Moses Lake in central Washington's Grant County. The base became inactive at the end of the war but the airfield, with its lo...