This accession consists of records documenting the World War 2 National Capital Flyover, an event marking the 70th anniversary of V-E (Victory in Europe) Day on May
8, 2015. To honor the 16 million who served in the United States (U. S.) armed forces during World War 2 and to spotlight the essential role that aircraft played in U. S.
victory, the General Aviation Manufacturers' Association led an effort to bring one of the largest privately owned collections of World War 2 airplanes ever assembled (known
as the "Arsenal of Democracy") to fly over the National Mall in Washington, District of Columbia, in fourteen formations. The "Smithsonian" and "Air and Space" magazines jointly
served as the media sponsor for the event.
This accession includes the section of the "Air and Space" magazine website created to publicize the event as it existed on May 5, 2015. It includes information about viewing
the event and about the airplanes themselves as well as a plane-spotting guide and links to articles about the event and about World War 2 in general found elsewhere on the
website (this accession also includes many of those articles).
In addition, this accession includes a sample of social media content related to the event. Over 14,000 Tweets using the hashtag "#WW2Flyover" were captured from the microblogging
service Twitter during the period of April 28 through May 11, 2015. The hashtag was used by official Smithsonian Institution accounts as well as external organizations and
the general public.
Materials are in electronic format.
