From time to time while working in the records, NARA staff find documents that provide new perspectives on events through which they lived.  I recently had that experience. I remember well the terrible humanitarian disaster that befell local populations as Yugoslavia ripped itself apart during the 1990s.  I remember, too, how many commentators expressed surprise [...]

In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago today, agencies of the U.S. government swung into action.  The Army and Navy immediately went on a war footing as did American diplomats in the Department of State and at embassies and consulates around the world.  Since the formal outbreak of war [...]

Thanksgiving is considered by many to be the quintessential American holiday.  As Thanksgiving 1918 approached, American had more reason than the usual to give thanks.  On November 11, 1918, Germany signed the armistice that brought World War I to an effective end.  In the wake of that event, the United States made an attempt to [...]

To assist researchers interested in records of the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies, the most heavily used records in the National Archives, the Textual Archives Services Division has launched a newly revamped set of pages on the Archives’ website for providing an introduction to foreign affairs records. The conduct of foreign affairs [...]

Today’s post is written by David Langbart, a senior processing archivist in College Park. Sometimes records long thought to be lost find their way home. One such occurrence took place recently. The U.S. embassy in Germany received from the German government some files from the U.S. consulate in Dresden. The records had been found among [...]

Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart, who works primarily with diplomatic records. Researchers who use Department of State records may be interested to know a bit more about the types of documents used by Foreign Service Posts to communicate with the Department of State.  This is the fifth, and final, in a series [...]

Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart, who works primarily with diplomatic records. Researchers who use Department of State records may be interested to know a bit more about the types of documents used by Foreign Service Posts to communicate with the Department of State. This is the fourth in a series of postings [...]

Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart who works primarily with diplomatic records. Researchers who use Department of State records may be interested to know a bit more about the types of documents used by Foreign Service Posts to communicate with the Department of State. This is the third in a series of postings [...]

Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart who works primarily with diplomatic records. Researchers who use Department of State records may be interested to know a bit more about the types of documents used by Foreign Service Posts to communicate with the Department of State. This is the second in a series of postings [...]

Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart who works primarily with diplomatic records. Researchers who use Department of State records may be interested to know a bit more about the types of documents used by Foreign Service Posts to communicate with the Department of State.  This is the first in a series of postings [...]