Person1884 – 1972
Harry S. Truman
33rd US president (1945–1953) who ordered the atomic bombings, set the policy of containment with the Truman Doctrine and sent US forces to the Korean War
Where they went
4 related events
- 1
Truman, Stalin and Churchill (later Attlee) settled the treatment of defeated Germany at Potsdam. During the conference the US, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender.
- 2
The United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More than 200,000 people died in the two cities that year, and Japan surrendered soon after.
- 3
The United States declared a policy of containing communism (the Truman Doctrine) and offered massive aid to rebuild Western Europe (the Marshall Plan). The Cold War began in earnest.
- 4
When the Soviet Union cut road, rail and water routes to West Berlin, the US and Britain supplied the city by air for eleven months (the Berlin Airlift). The next year Germany split into East and West.
People who appear alongside
- Joseph Stalin1878 – 1953
General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party who ruled the USSR from the late 1920s until his death, led the war against Germany and drew Eastern Europe into the Soviet bloc
- Winston Churchill1874 – 1965
British prime minister (1940–1945, 1951–1955) who led Britain’s resistance through the Battle of Britain and named the “Iron Curtain” in 1946
- George C. Marshall1880 – 1959
US Army Chief of Staff in the Second World War and Secretary of State (1947–1949) who proposed the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan); Nobel Peace Prize 1953
Themes this person appears in
- World War II1939 – 1945
From the invasion of Poland to the surrender of Japan — the largest war in human history, across Europe, Asia and the Pacific
- The Cold War1945 – 1991
From Yalta to the dissolution of the Soviet Union — half a century in which two blocs led by the US and the USSR divided the world