Christmas 1941 was not the first time that Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had met in person, nor would it be the last. But the meeting over the first holiday season as allies in the largest war in human history was, perhaps, the most consequential, and, quite possibly, the most important Christmas ever at the White House.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.