Seventy-five years ago this month, Franklin Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to leave American soil during wartime when he traveled to Casablanca, Morocco, to confer with Britain’s Winston Churchill. Their purpose: mapping out the Allies’ World War II military strategy for the coming year. The plan: concentrate on Germany in hopes of drawing its forces away from the Eastern Front and reducing pressure on Russia’s Red Army.

They also agreed on this: Postwar peace depended on nothing less than the Axis' unconditional surrender.

Gates Brown, an assistant professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, discusses the eventful 10-day meeting in 1943, which was kept under wraps until the participants left Morocco on January 27. The presentation launches a new Library series commemorating the 75th anniversary of key World War II events.