{"id":514629,"date":"2026-03-04T22:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T22:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/514629\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T22:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T22:27:08","slug":"tom-hanks-wwii-documentary-series-sets-memorial-day-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/514629\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Hanks’ WWII Documentary Series Sets Memorial Day Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn the brin<\/a>k<\/a> of World War III<\/a>, let\u2019s look back at World War II.<\/p>\n

\n\tWWII historian and sometimes actor<\/a> Tom Hanks<\/a> has a new documentary series set at History channel reexamining the Second World War through a modern lens. Across 20 episodes (in 200 territories and 40 languages), World War II with Tom Hanks will offer \u201ca sweeping and definitive retelling\u201d of the deadliest war in history. There are probably spoilers.<\/p>\n

\n\tHistory channel\u2019s D-Day, the series\u2019 premiere date, is appropriately set for Memorial Day.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to Hanks, the WWII series is executive produced by Gary Goetzman and Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Jon Meacham. Production houses are Nutopia (EPs: Ben Goold, Jane Root and Steve Condie) and A+E Factual Studios Group (EPs: Sharon Scott, Steve Ascher, Matt Pearl and Andy Seestedt) in association with\u00a0Motion Entertainment (EP: Chet Fenster). History channel executive prodcers are Eli Lehrer, Mary E. Donahue and Jennifer Wagman.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana is also involved in the production. And there are some pretty good fact-checkers there, I\u2019d imagine.<\/p>\n

\n\tWWII ended more than 80 years ago, but evidently, there are still stories to tell \u2014 and narrator Hanks is here to tell them. (He\u2019s already told a bunch through HBO\u2019s Band of Brothers and The Pacific, and Apple\u2019s Masters of the Air and Greyhound.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWorld War II With Tom Hanks \u201cspans the global conflict from the opening shock of Germany\u2019s invasion of Poland through the rise and fall of the Axis powers, capturing the ferocity of battles fought on land, sea, and air \u2014 from Stalingrad and Normandy to the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the jungles and islands of the Pacific,\u201d the synopsis reads.<\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s the rest:<\/p>\n

\n\tThe series explores the human cost of total war, including the Holocaust, civilian resistance, and life on the home fronts, while also revealing the hidden wars of espionage, codebreaking, and industrial might that shaped the outcome of the conflict. Blending the actions and decisions of pivotal wartime leaders \u2014 among them Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Erwin Rommel, Joseph Stalin, Hideki Tojo and Adolf Hitler \u2014 with the experiences of soldiers and civilians across continents, the series culminates in the dawn of the atomic age and the uneasy aftermath that transformed wartime allies into Cold War adversaries, offering a comprehensive and deeply human portrait of the conflict that reshaped the modern world.<\/p>\n

\n\tWorld War II With Tom Hanks is part of the History Honors 250 campaign, which culminates on the next American Patriotism holiday, the Fourth of July 2026, which will be our 250th birthday \u2014 the United States Semiquincentennial.<\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s the World War II With Tom Hanks trailer:<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the brink of World War III, let\u2019s look back at World War II. WWII historian and sometimes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,11270],"class_list":{"0":"post-514629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tom-hanks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}