Postwar World

Nature and Americans

1945: World at War

Pacific War

Yalta,
February 1945

April 12, 1945

United Nations, April 15, 1945

VE Day
May 8, 1945

Potsdam, July 1945

Trinity Test
July 16, 1945

Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

Japan Surrenders, September 2, 1945

Nuremburg war trials, 1945-46

Winston Churchill, the “Iron Curtain,” 1946

“Containment”

¢ Political component

— Greece threatened, 1947

— Truman Doctrine: “scare hell out of the American people”

¢ Economic component

— Marshall Plan, 1948: $17 billion to Europe

¢ Military component

— Test: Berlin blockade, 1948-9

— North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 1949

— Soviets test an atomic bomb, 1949

Cold War in Asia

¢ China “lost,” 1948-49

— Mao Zedong vs. Chiang Kai-Shek

— Chiang flees to Taiwan

¢ Korean War

— North Korea attacks, 1950

— UN fights back & invades North

— 300,000 Chinese attack

— Truce, 1953; 33,000 American deaths

— About 3 million Koreans die; 150,000 Chinese

¢ Fears confirmed, containment achieved

¢ Precedent: President sends troops without declaration of war