Harry S. Truman Timeline

1884	May 8: Harry S. Truman is born in Lamar, Missouri.
1917	April 4: The U.S. enters World War I as President Wilson declares war on Germany. November: Bolshevik (Lenin) Revolution in Russia (U.S., British, and French troops will later fight for the White Russian Army in a civil war against Lenin/Red Russian Army)
1918	July 11: Truman sees combat action shortly before WWI ends (in command of artillery regiment). November 11: World War I ends.
1932	November 8: Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected president.
1933	January 30: Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany.
1934	May: Truman files as a Democratic candidate for the U. S. Senate. November 6: Truman elected to the Senate
1939	September 1: Germany invades Poland.
1940	August 6: Truman re-elected to the Senate
1941	December 7: The Japanese attack the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. U.S. enters World War II.
1944	November 7: Truman is elected vice president of the United States.
1945	Feb 4-11: FDR, Stalin, and Churchill meet at Yalta to work out details in Europe after Germany surrendered. Germany is to be divided in British, French, American, and Soviet sectors. Berlin, in the middle of the Soviet sector, will be similarly divided. Stalin agrees to hold free elections in Eastern European countries under control of his army. Basics of the UN (United Nations) agreed upon – FDR looks to the future UN to deal with his concerns about Stalin in Eastern Europe. April 12: Harry Truman becomes 33^rd president of the U.S. upon the death of FDR. May 7: Germany surrenders to the Allies. June 26: Truman signs the United Nations Charter in a ceremony at San Francisco July 17-August 2: Truman attends a conference at Potsdam, Germany to discuss the post-war treatment of Germany with Stalin of Russia and Churchill of Great Britain. Churchill replaced by Attlee on 29 July. Truman learns of first test of the atomic bomb while at the conference. August 6: dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan by the Enola Gay. Aug. 8: An American B-29 drops the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. WWII ends shortly thereafter.
1946	Feb 22: Kennan’s telegram about U.S.S.R. sent to Washington – “containment policy” begins to take shape as the U.S. seeks to block growth of communism throughout the world. March 5: In a Fulton, Missouri, speech, Winston Churchill warns of an “iron curtain” descending over Eastern Europe Sep 12: Secretary of Commerce Wallace’s “peace” speech Sep 20: Wallace fired by Truman for speech (even though speech approved by Truman)
1947	Use of the term “Cold War” becomes a common expression for the tension between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. (Lippman’s essays/writings criticizing “containment policy” accomplish this) March 12: Truman proposes the Truman Doctrine – economic and military aid to countries facing possible Communist takeover. (requests $400 million from Congress to fight the spread of communism in Greece and Turkey). June 5: Secretary of State George C. Marshall announces the Marshall Plan at Harvard University commencement (see April, ’48)
1948	Feb: Communists seize control in Czechoslovakia April: $5.3 billion dollars approved by Congress – Marshall Plan is activated. July 24: Berlin Crisis begins: Soviet Union blockades all land access to Berlin. Nothing in…nothing out.