Opening scene shows some German infantry surrendering with hands raised. Next scene shows people thronging Times Square in Manhattan, New York City, celebrating VE Day, or Victory in Europe Day, on May 8, 1945, when Germany surrendered to end World War II, in Europe. Image of the first atomic explosion (Trinity) on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico, United States. Scene shifts to deck of the U.S. Battleship, USS Missouri, where Japanese foreign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, is seated and signing the instrument of surrender., on September 2, 1945. Closeup profile of General Douglas MacArthur. Another glimpse of Mamoru Shigemitsu signing. Next, MacArthur is seen signing the document. He turns and presents the pen to Lieutenant General Jonathan M. Wainwright , who is standing behind him alongside British Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival. Brief glimpse of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center with flag appearing to be at half staff and a long awning extending from its entrance to the sidewalk. View of representatives at the first United Nations meeting there . Views of audience in auditorium shows many notables. Closeups of Soviet Ambassador, Andrey Gromyko and Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov.. Next, President Harry S. Truman is seen broadcasting a greeting to the delegates, from the Capitol, Washington, DC, on April 25, 1945. The delegates are seen listening to the broadcast and then applauding.
NASA Project Mercury candidate Captain James W. Wood, USAF, undergoes psychological and stress test at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Doctors measure candidate's pulse and blood pressure before and after a "Flack" test. The subject must blow continuously into a tube to maintain a column of mercury at a specified level for as long as possible.
Construction of the Panama Canal connecting the Caribbean Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. Views of abandoned and failed first attempt by French team led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, with scenes of Panama natives cutting vegetation with machetes. Scene of abandoned canal work area. Scenes of United States work to build the canal beginning in 1903. Steam shovels digging and moving earth. Laborers construct railroad for use in canal building. General Glen Edgerton talks about the construction difficulties from malaria, and the worker prescription of quinine three times daily. Views of British and French workers on the site working and arriving by rail to work. Dynamite explosion removes rumble for railroad construction. View of locks under construction 1000 feet long and 110 feet wide. Excerpt from interview with former Canal Zone Governor and Congressman Maurice Thatcher, who characterizes the project as the greatest liberty that man had ever taken with nature. (Thatcher was honored when the first bridge connecting both sides of the Panama Canal was named after him as "Thatcher Ferry Bridge". In 1979 the name was officially changed to the Bridge of the Americas.) Clip next shows 1970's aerial view of the Panama Canal. Ships moving through the Panama Canal.
Bell Telephone television advertisement depicts the cost of telephone calls over years from 1915 to 1970. Pictures of streets and houses in Boston. Portrait of Alexander Graham Bell. The cost of telephone from 20.70 dollars in 1915 reduced to 70 cents in 1970. Rapid paced montage of images (some still and some motion) from 1915 to 1970. Poster reads 'Japan at War'. Man and woman dance. Missile launched from launch pad. Aircraft parked on runway. The cost of long distance telephone charges reduced over the years. Different types of telephones seen in 1970.
German civilians forced by U.S. Army soldiers in World War 2 to dig mass graves for Nazi atrocity victims of the Gardelegen Massacre, in Gardelegen, Germany. Bodies of slave laborer political prisoners on the ground, including Russians, Poles, and French, many of whom had come from the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp and the Hannover-Stöcken Concentration Camp . A large barn in the background on the Isenschnibbe estate, showing evidence of fire damage, where many victims were found by the U.S. Army 102nd Infantry Division on April 14, 1945, after having been locked in the barn which was then set on fire on April 13, 1945. German civilians uncover nearby existing hastily dug mass graves containing piled victims. Dead bodies placed in new graves and covered with dirt. Civilians under U.S. Army direction dig long, mass grave trenches to bury the dead.
Fire fighting tools kept handy by forest service. Man takes out shovel and a rod from wooden box. Tools in a long tool box. Forest official questions a worker for felling half grown tree.
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