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