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Bretton Woods Conference
Bretton Woods Conference, formally the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire (July 1–22, 1944), during World War II to make financial arrangements for the postwar world after the expected defeat of Germany and Japan. The conference was attended by experts noncommittally representing 44 states or governments, including the Soviet Union. -
San Francisco Conference
San Francisco Conference, formally United Nations Conference on International Organization, international meeting (April 25–June 26, 1945) that established the United Nations. The basic principles of a worldwide organization that would embrace the political objectives of the Allies had been proposed at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 and reaffirmed at the Yalta Conference in early 1945. The conference was attended by delegations from 46 nations. -
Potsdam Conference
The Allied conference of World War II was held at Potsdam, Berlin (July 17–August 2, 1945). The chief concerns of the Big Three were the immediate administration of defeated Germany, the demarcation of the boundaries of Poland, the occupation of Austria, the definition of the Soviet Union’s role in eastern Europe, the determination of reparations, and the further prosecution of the war against Japan. Churchill particularly was suspicious of Stalin’s motives and unyielding position. -
Nürnberg Trials
Nürnberg trials, Nürnberg also spelled Nuremberg, series of trials held in Nürnberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1946, in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal. The indictment lodged against them contained four counts: (1) crimes against peace, (2) crimes against humanity, (3) war crimes, and (4) “a common plan or conspiracy to commit” the criminal acts listed in the first three counts. -
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Greek Civil War
Greek Civil War (December 1944–January 1945 and 1946–49). In 1946 a full-scale guerrilla war was reopened by the communists. The commitment to defending Greece became too much for Great Britain, and it was taken on by the U.S. government, with the announcement of the Truman Doctrine. Massive military and economic aid from the United States was much needed, for by the end of 1947 the communists had proclaimed a provisional government in the northern mountains. -
Sinew of Peace - Iron Curtain Speech
Iron Curtain speech, a speech delivered by former British prime minister Winston Churchill in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946, in which he stressed the necessity for the United States and Britain to act as the guardians of peace and stability against the menace of Soviet communism, which had lowered an “iron curtain” across Europe. -
First Indochina War
The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina on December 19, 1946, and lasted until July 20, 1954. Fighting between French forces and their Việt Minh opponents in the south dated from September 1945. -
Paris Peace Treaties
The Paris Peace Treaties were signed following the end of World War II in 1945. The Paris Peace Conference lasted from 29 July until 15 October 1946. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of peace treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland. The treaties allowed the defeated Axis powers to resume their responsibilities as sovereign states in international affairs and to qualify for membership in the United Nations. -
Truman Doctrine
Truman Doctrine, the pronouncement by U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman declared immediate economic and military aid to the governments of Greece, threatened by communist insurrection, and Turkey, under pressure from Soviet expansion in the Mediterranean area. As the United States and the Soviet Union struggled to reach a balance of power during the Cold War that followed World War II, Great Britain announced that it could no longer afford to aid those Mediterranean countries. -
Independence of India and Pakistan
The partition of India in 1947 divided British India into two independent dominions: India and Pakistan. -
Creation of Cominform
Cominform, formally Communist Information Bureau, or Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, agency of international communism founded under Soviet auspices in 1947 and dissolved by Soviet initiative in 1956.
The Communist Information Bureau was founded at Wilcza Góra, Pol., in September 1947, with nine members—the communist parties of the U.S.S.R., Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, and Italy. T