Happy V-E Day

Never in the field of human conflict
was so much owed by so many to so few
--Winston Churchill

Liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence,
of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life
--Justice Anthony Kennedy, Planned Parenthood v. Casey

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Today is the 65th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) -- the end of World War II in Europe.

The History Channel has a new series on WW II and has an online interactive companion broken down regionally (Asia, Europe and Africa and North America), featuring the social, economic, military and technological developments during the war.

Click here to view.

From Winston Churchill's address to the House of Commons 18 June 1940, after the fall of France:

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

Here's to broad, sunlit uplands.

[From Wired's Danger Room, a bit on active-duty U.S. troops marching in a parade in Red Square celebrating Victory Day (День Победы).]