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President Franklin D. Roosevelt suddenly suffers a cerebral hemmorrhage and dies, leaving Vice President Truman to assume his presidency. He had only been vice president for a short amount of time and wasn't aware of all policies.
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US President, Truman, gives permission to the world's first military use of an atomic weapon agaisnt the Japanese city of Hiroshima in an attempt to bring the only remaing theatre of war from the Second World War in the Pacific to a swift closure.
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Idyllic Bikini Atoll, in the South Pacific, becomes the site of a series of giant nuclear weapon tests. Codenamed, Operation Crossrodes, these tests are a part of a study of radiological effects and are also shown to the Soviets as a demonstration of the weapons' power.
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In a speech made at Harvard University, Secretary of State, George Marshall, proposes the Marshall Plan, a $13 billion foregin aid package designed to help Europe recover from the devastation of World War II.
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Concerned about the possibility of a Communist victory in the upcoming Italian elections, the US government undertakes a campaign to get Italian-Americans to write letters urging their relatives in Italy to vote against the Communists. Italy's elections result in a landslide victory for the anicommunist Christian Democrats.
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Yugoslavia's Communist leader, Marshal Josip Tito, Refuses to bend to Stalin's will and breats with Moscow after years of an uneasy alliance.
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American voters reelect Democrat, Harry Truman, to serve another term as president. The unpopular Truman's narrow victory over Republican Thomas Dewey comes as a major upset.
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the Soviet Union forms the Warsaw Pact, a Communist Military alliance intended to counter the threat posed by the West's North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
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The Soviet Union detonates its first atmoic bomb, causing shock and fear in the United States.
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In reponse to the founding of West Germany, the Soviets declare the establishment of East Germany under the leadership of Communist Walter Ulbricht.
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American official, Paul Nitze, issues the National Secruity Council report NSC-68. The report predicts a Soviet nuclear attack and calls for greater defense spending.
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The Korean War begins as North Korean troops attack across the 38th parallel in an effort to "liberate" South Korea.
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Nearly seven years avter V-J Day, the United States ends its military occupation of Japan.
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The United States explodes its first hyrdogen bomb- a weapon hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945- at Enewetak in the South Pacific.
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Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, the famous World War II general, defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson in the American Presidential election.
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Soviet leader Josef Stalin dies, ending his 30-year stranglehold on power within the Soviet Union.
