JAIME HOLGUIN pairs archival photos with historians' insight to shed light on some turning points in U.S. history.
Since the beginning, the history of the United States has been rooted in war. From the American Revolution to the war in Iraq, the nation's military might has, for better or worse, steered the course of modern history.
At times the justifications for going to war have been clear cut; at others times, those reasons have been more nuanced. Depending on who you ask, the U.S. has assumed all kinds of roles during wartime -- liberator, aggressor, protector, instigator.
Just as the reasons for going to war have been open to interpretation, so too have their outcomes. Some wars' conclusions have been clearly defined, as with the dropping of the atomic bomb at the end of World War II. At the other extreme is the Korean War -- no peace treaty was ever signed, so the two Koreas technically remain at war, more than a half-century after the end of fighting.
asap dug into the AP archives and found a treasure trove of photographs showing the battles and other events that marked the ends of four major wars -- all fought long before the start of another war, in Iraq, whose end is yet to come.
Take a look at the video slideshows in this interactive to see the images and to hear historians' reflections on how each war came to an end.
See the video interactive here.
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Jaime Holguin is an asap reporter based in New York.
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