World War II Foundation “Historian-in-Residence”

Daniel Martinez, Historian and TV personality, is one of the founders of the International Military History Institute. Daniel is a noted Pacific War and World War II historian.

Dan is a well-known television personality. He was the host for 36 episodes of Unsolved History for Discovery Channel. Daniel has also appeared on numerous documentaries for The History Channel, National Geographic, The Military Channel and CBS, NBC, ABC, CSPAN and PBS.

Recently, he led our tour that retraced the footsteps of John F. Kennedy and the assassination in 1963.

Dan has appeared in many of the films produced by the World War II Foundation, lending an important historical perspective to the events and people caught up in both the Pacific and European theaters of WWII.

His background in battlefield interpretation is acknowledged nationally. He has led tours to the fields of Gettysburg, Antietam, Little Big Horn, Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Tinian, and Midway Island. He is an author and contributor of several books and contributes to leading publications on military history.

Dan’s grandfather worked as a foreman at the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked there in 1941. “There was this identification with history, and I think that was indelible,” he says.

Growing up, Daniel’s interest in history grew as his family went on cross-country trips to Florida from their home in Los Angeles, California. Along the way, they would stop at historic sites, including the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, and Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi.

Later on, he majored in history and communications at California State University-Dominguez Hills in Carson, California. Daniel worked as a seasonal from 1979-84 for the National Park Service at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Crow Agency, Montana before joining the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.

“I have the privilege from time to time to take people of importance on a tour of the memorial,” Daniel says, including five presidents: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Walker Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.”