Dec. 7. 1936 is the third issue of LIFE and the magazine is taking note of a new sport in America, skiing. Europe is 20 years ahead of the U.S., and the pictures in this edition are mostly taken at the half-a-dozen resorts in the high Alps like St. Moritz and Davos. Photographers discover that skiing makes beautiful pictures and that even the clumsiest person looks like an expert when standing still on a pair of long boards in the midst of the French Alps. Movie stars soon capitalize on this revelation.

Hitler is featured in LIFE for the first time as he is “being hailed by the Fatherland’s press as the Revivalist who will awaken all Europe and save the world from Communism.” “Today, more than any other man alive, Adolf Hitler is the fulcrum on which peace or war for Europe teeters,” says LIFE. The magazine is inspired to include an aerial picture of London and show where the Germans might bomb the city if war comes, as indeed they did almost four years later. We see young German boys, members of the Nazi Colonial League, studying Germany’s “lost colonies.” The Treaty of Versailles made Germany surrender 1,760,000 square miles of territory after WWI. The Colonial League had their own uniforms and became part of Nazi pageantry. The organization was disbanded in 1943.

The striking and penetrating color photograph by Edward Steichen is of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pianist  and Composer. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the best pianists of his time and among the last great Russian composers. The 1917 Russian Revolution caused the Rachmaninoff family to flee to the U.S. where he immediately embarked on a concert tour that continued until his death in 1943. LIFE describes him as having “steel strong hands,” as he begins his 1937 concert tour to play forty two times in forty two U.S. cities.

Edward Steichen is the best known and highest paid photographer in the world at this time. He works for Vogue and Vanity Fair as well as the major advertising agencies. He served in the U.S. Army in WWI and the U.S. Navy in WWII commanding military photography units. After WWII Steichen served as Director of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art until his retirement in 1962. Steichen’s sister, Lillian, married Carl Sandburg in 1907. Carl and Edward remained lifelong friends, and Lillian went on to become a household name in the world of dairy goats.

In the early years of LIFE the magazine includes two-three page spreads titled, “LIFE on the American Newsfront.” The “National Enquirer” and “People” magazine come to mind based on the content of this section. We see a picture of Filipinos Simplicio and Lucio Godina, the only set of adult male Siamese twins. They were joined at the hip by a band of muscle and fiber eight inches in diameter. In spite of this, they were excellent dancers and roller skaters. In 1928 they married identical twin sisters in an extravagant public wedding in Manila. On Nov. 24, 1936 Lucio died from rheumatic fever and within the hour a New York surgeon separated them. LIFE reports the freed Simplicio is in “favorable condition.” Sadly, he died 12 days later, from meningitis. An interesting legal matter had arisen several years earlier when Lucio was arrested for drunken driving. He was sentenced to five days in jail, but dodged the sentence on the grounds that innocent Simplicio would also be imprisoned.

Here we see the first pictures of London in September, 1940 as the Germans begin their ‘Blitz” of Britain which lasted until May, 1941. More than one million London homes were damaged or destroyed while 20,000+ civilians lost their lives in the largest city on earth at this time. LIFE reports that German “reserves of planes and pilots seemed inexhaustible.” And, “The charge across the Channel by the Nazi armada seemed very close.” The bombing of London did not achieve its goal of demoralizing the British. And the bombing throughout Britain did not significantly slow their war production. As it turned out the German Luftwaffe was not armed in depth and not organized to carry out a long-term strategic air campaign. And its intelligence of British war production sites was poor.

Cecil Beaton captured the picture of London war victim Eileen Dunne on this September 23, 1940 LIFE cover. Beaton was renowned as an English fashion photographer in the 1920′s and 1930′s, and worked for Vogue and Vanity Fair before joining the Ministry of Information for the duration of the war. He covered fighting in both Africa and East Asia, but this photograph of little Eileen Dunne was his most significant. The picture is said to have moved American public opinion to speak out in favor of helping Britain, which in turn influenced Americans to support Roosevelt’s Lend Lease Program. After the war Beaton went on to design costumes and sets for theatre and film. He won Academy Awards for his work in “Gigi” and “My Fair Lady.”

Things were quiet in sleepy Hyde Park, NY, home of FDR. This portrait of the village is like stepping back in time with its Colonial history, great 19th Century estates and town characters. Hyde Park “sprang up as a community of farmhands, craftsmen and tradesfolk serving the great estates.” By 1940 the Depression had taken its toll on the large estates and heavy taxes left most languishing. In fact, only the Roosevelts’ and the Huntingtons’ estates were still occupied by their owners. The gentry in Hyde park had a strong sense of responsibility towards the village, were active on boards, and “looked out for their retainers’ illnesses and troubles, pensioned them off in old age, made bountiful gifts in season.” At Christmas Mrs. Vanderbilt jumped into her Russian sleigh and handed out $10 bills to all comers.

Among the several characters pictured here is Gracie Hall Roosevelt, Eleanor’s young brother by seven years. Both parents died by the time Gracie was three and Eleanor acted as a mother towards him in fulfillment of a death bed request to her from her father. Gracie was a brilliant student with many academic achievements, including a Masters in engineering from Harvard. His two marriages ended in divorce and produced six children. Alcoholism began to dominate his life and jobs rapidly came and went. He died at age 50, one year after the above picture was taken.

The bittersweet taste of war and victory is in the air as America transitions into peace on Nov. 19, 1945. Vivacious Rita Daigle is on the LIFE cover displaying wide belts on her 21 inch waist. Just 18 years old, Rita graduated from convent school the prior year and soon became a GI Pin-Up girl autographing 200,000 pictures of herself.

British wartime brides of American servicemen are running out of patience at the end of 1945 and take to the London streets to demonstrate. They all want to get to America and settle down. Some have not seen their husbands in two or three years, are short on money and have babies. Almost all come from working class families, are very young, and have experienced harrowing wartime bombing. Parliament studied the matter, decided gravely it was a U.S. problem, and ran for cover. It wasn’t until February, 1946, that the exodus of almost 70,000 brides (and a few grooms) began. For the next five months 20 converted American war ships were in perpetual motion across the Atlantic carrying a procession of brides. During the war British troops have mixed feelings about American boys taking “their” girls away, saying Americans are, “overpaid, oversexed and over here.” Americans troops counter by saying Brits are, “underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower.”

As the brides arrived in the U.S. most slip into their new lives and are forgotten. Many form social clubs that serve for decades to offer emotional support. The cost of travel back to England or even long distance calling to England is prohibitive for most brides. It is inevitable that some brides arrived to find their husbands were now in another relationship, or living in some God-forsaken place that they find untenable. In anticipation of this, the U.S. Government offered brides free return passage to England for up to one year after arrival. However, brides whose children were American citizens, a permanent return to England could mean losing custody in a U.S. divorce. As the years go by and the brides move and die, many social clubs morph into British heritage clubs welcoming men and others of British heritage that did not experience the war. Although it is difficult to determine, it appears that these War Bride marriages were very successful and some estimate that less that 10% broke up.

During most of the war and just after, West Point had the best football team in the country. Led by their spectacular backfield of “Doc” Blanchard (Mr. Inside) and Glenn Davis (Mr. Outside), Army rolled to a record of 30-0-1 over the course of four years. They didn’t just win they crushed opponents. It wasn’t until late October, 1947 that Army’s unbeaten string was broken 21-20 by a surprising Columbia University team.

Here we see in full color the first atomic bomb blast in the New Mexico desert. The fury of the fireball is captured as the earth trembles and the scientists dance for joy. What was theoretical is now a reality. This test was delayed for almost two weeks because of unusual desert rain. Even before this first bomb was exploded, a second bomb was secretly sent to the Pacific for an Aug. 6, 1945 attack at Hiroshima. The New Mexico bomb released more power than 20,000 pounds of TNT and is visible for more than 200 miles.

Japan’s Army is flexing it’s muscles on Jan. 11, 1937 and is actually running the government. The Army’s strength now is 250,000 men and 13,000 officers. According to LIFE, “No soldier in the world takes so readily to discipline. He can march 50 miles a day on a diet of fish and rice. He will commit suicide in action.” In just a few short years Allied forces would be on the receiving end of these personal qualities. LIFE concludes that the Japanese “are gluttons for exercise and clean-living.”

Miners in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania had been experiencing hard times since the mid 1920′s when coal companies introduced new machinery that displaced many men. And when the depression arrived people and towns were becoming more desperate every day.  Miners used the skills acquired on the job to secretly mine coal on company land to heat their homes. Then they used it as barter for food and other services. As the depression continued these illegal operations expanded to the point where thousands of tons were being mined each day. The coal companies had been attempting to cartelize the industry for decades and were strongly opposed to this competing production. By 1936 400,000 tons of stolen coal was being sold to New York City alone, LIFE states. Local juries would not convict the bootleggers, and local, state and federal officials would not pursue the issue. Government officials knew that unemployment was up to 75% in some PA towns and but for bootleg coal many faced starvation. Mining coal illegally was also very dangerous work. Timbers are required for support and miners used whatever timber was available nearby which was often inadequate. Many collapsed and children were at risk of falling in them. As a consequence of years of illegal mining, fires like those in the Centralia, PA mines…started in 1962…continue to burn today. Bootleg mining declined during WWII as men were sent to war. Alternate fuel sources like oil and gas greatly expanded after WWII and bought an end to this activity.

In the early days of LIFE pictures of pretty women in baths or bathing suits were often featured. In this issues we learn that a wax bath to remove two pounds of excess weight cost $10, and it involved 50 pounds of hot wax being applied on each female patron. In London a Thames River mud bath was popular with the fashionable set. A 15 cent bottle of powdered milk was all that was necessary for American women at home to enjoy a milk bath cherished by the Romans since 100 BC.

Dec. 28, 1936 presents LIFE in it’s sixth week of existence. Already LIFE is selling 600,000 copies a week and squeezing the existing presses dry trying to meet demand. This high-caliber printing job is done on heavily enameled paper almost at newspaper speed by R.R. Donnelley & Sons in Chicago. LIFE is clearly a “picture magazine” at this point and doesn’t delve into the subject matter with much narrative. It will take another year or so for the magazine to find it’s “voice.”

Dancing was the rage in 1936 and “…people of all ages and sizes are dancing as never before.” And Arthur Murray’s dancing school was booming. The Murray building in New York City had 128 studios occupying eight floors. A loudspeaker phonograph system offered a constant choice of four kinds of dance melodies. Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. had two Murray instructors come to their home three times a week for two hour sessions. It was an ambition of every amateur to some day dance like Fred Astaire, whose amusing, wry expression is as familiar as his flying feet to millions of movie goers. The Lindy Hop was Harlem’s favorite dance which is sort of a strut plus fox-trotting and several improvisations thrown in.

LIFE Publisher Henry Luce’s parents were missionaries in China where he was raised before being sent to boarding school in England and then America. He introduces Chiang Kai-Shek to America in this issue and declares him “Hero of the week.” Luce stuck with this corrupt and ruthless politician and military leader until the bitter end in 1949. In 1927 Chiang split with the Communist wing of the Nationalist party and set up the Nationalist Government in Nanking. As the above pictures illustrate, captured Communists were executed on the spot by the Nationalists. “Strangest paradox in Chinese character is its mixture of tenderness and cruelty,” rationalizes Luce. In addition to the Chinese Civil War in 1936, China was also resisting the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Note the above picture of Japan’s gigantic electric trumpets to serve as ears for detecting enemy planes.