﻿ History of America - The Later Years (1945-50)
1945 - 1950
Big Three carve up world at Yalta U.S.S.R. Feb. 11, 1945
Premier Stalin was more than the host today as he bade farewell to his guests in the Crimea. As Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt adjourned their difficult meeting at the Livadia Palace here, it seemed apparent that Stalin was also the victor. His stunning successes on the battlefield has strengthened his hand at the bargaining table, and Stalin got almost everything he wanted. The Western leaders reluctantly adopoted Stalin’s view that Germany be divided and harshly punished when the war is over. Reparations could run as high as £20 billion, and the Soviet Union will receive half the amount. Stalin did agree to allow France to be the fourth occupying power in Germany, but the French zone will be carved out of the territory controlled by the Americans and British.
Beloved FDR dies; Truman steps in.  Warm Springs, Georgia Apr. 12, 1945.
A shocked nation is in mourning tonight for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The President died this afternoon at the “Little White House” in this small Georgia town. Vice President Harry S. Truman was on Capitol Hill when the President died. He was rushed to the White House, where he offered his condolences to Mrs. Roosevelt before he was sworn in as the 32nd President of the United States.
Americans and Russians meet at the Elbe. Germany Apr. 25 1945
General Courtney Hodges of the United States 1st Army and Marshal Ivan Konev of the 1st Ukraine Army met at the Elbe River near Leipzig today and shook hands. The meeting symbolised the further collapse of the Third Reich, which has now been split in half by the conquering armies. After the Allies crossed the Rhine, the Americann 9th Army and the 1st Army invaded the Ruhr industrial basin, encircling the Wermacht and trapping 300,000 men, two dozen generals and an admiral.
Victory in Europe: Germans surrender; Hitler dead. Berlin May 7
Adolph Hitler is dead, his Thousand Year Reich is destroyed, and the war in Europe is over. The beginning of the end for Germany was the Russian drive that began on April 16. Soviet troops reached Berlin by the 22nd and surrounded the city a few days later. Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun, the Goebels family and a few followers remained in an underground bunker where the  Fuehrer played with non-existent armies on a large war map.
Above ground the Russian Army was blasting into rubble what Allied planes had failed to destroy. On May 1, as the last fanatical resistance was being eliminated, Hitler married Miss Braun and the two of them, followed by Joseph Goebels and his family, committed suicide. SS troops burned the bodies with petrol.
Atomic bombs unleashed on Hiroshima, Nagasaki August, 1945.
The B-29 bomber Enola Gay, named after its commander’s mother, dropped a single terrible weapon on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, and ushered in the Atomic Age. The bomb destroyed 80% of the buildings in Hiroshima and severely damaged the rest. At least 70,000 to 80,000 people were killed, many of them within a second of the explosion and its accompanying firestorm.
Sixteen hours after the bomb was dropped, President Truman called upon the Japanese government to surrender and thus avoid a “rain of ruin” from the air. Japan did not respond, and two days later Nagasaki suffered the same fate as Hiroshima. This time 35,000 people were killed, 60,000 injured and more than 5, 000 vanished. The entire city was flattened and, at ground zero, directly below the bombs detonation, nothing at all remained standing. At Hiroshima, the bomb exploded 1,850 feet above Shima hospital, vaporising the hospital and all its patients instantly. Of the people within 1,500 feet, 88% died in that first moment. Tempreatures at the centre reached 5,432 degrees Farenheit at once.
Japan surrenders. Tokyo Sept. 2, 1945.
Aboard the new battleship Missouri today, two Japanese officials in formal morning dress and top hats surrendered to representatives of the Allied powers, led by General Douglas MacArthur, thus ending the worst war the world has ever seen. In a brief address, MacArthur said that  with the signing “Men can walk upright in the sunlight.”
The Eagle Ascendant. 1946 - 1988
Early in 1945, as the Allied powers neared victory in Europe and the Pacific, Winston Churchill told the House of Commons “America stands at this moment at the summit of the world.” In an earlier time, such a pronouncement from a prime minister of Great Britain would have seemed extraordinary. But in 1945, it was simply a statement of the  obvious. For the United States of America had emerged from World War II not just victorious, but supreme. As the columnists Walter Lippman wrote that year, “What Rome was to the ancient world, what Great Britain has been to the modern world, America is to be to the world of tomorrow.” In many respects of course, the United States had been the world’s most powerful nation for many years before World War II. But until the 1940‘s that power had not often been accompanied by a recognition of international responsibilities. The war produced a momentous change. In its wake most Americans no longer viewed their power as a vehicle for insulating themselves from the problems of other nations; they considered it a mandate to become actively involved in trying to resolve those problems.
The nation did not, it soon became clear, have much choice in the matter. One reason was nuclear weapons, which America had brought into the world and of which it held (for a time) a virtual monopoly. Even more important was the new rivalry with the Soviet Union. That contest, eventually known as the Cold War, soon overshadowed every other consideration in international affairs, and to a great extent, in American domestic affairs.
La Guardia “Ticker tape ain’t spaghetti” New Jersey Mar. 29, 1946
“People are hungry, and it is our responsibility to feed them,” said Fiorello H .La Guardia today as he agreed to head the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. In a passionate address here, he promised to take whatever actions are needed to feed a war ravaged world. The fiery mayor of New York implored Americans “not to overeat, not to waste” adding that “in my own city we waste enough food to feed a city of 350,000.. I know because I picked up that garbage for 12 years.”
Computer manages 5,000 steps at once, Philadelphia, February 1946.
At 30 tons, the new ENIAC computer seems a far cry from the abacus or slide rule. Designed by J.P. Eckert and J.W. Maunchly of the University of Pennsylvania, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator has 18,000 vacuum tubes and adds, multiplies, divides and computes square roots accomplishing 5,000 steps a second.
Mother Cabrini is first American Saint. Vatican July 7, 1946
The late Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini has been canonised as a saint. She is the first American to be so honoured, but countries around the world take pride in the event, for Mother Cabrini established convents and orphanages in Paris, Madrid, London, Turin and many cities in Latin America. Born in 1850, in Lombardy, Italy, she became a naturalised American citizen in 1909 and died in 1917.
Nazi leaders hanged for crimes against humanity Nuremberg, Germany, Oct.16 1946.
Nine of Hitler’s Nazi henchmen were hanged early this morning for committing viscous war crimes . During their trial, the defendants claimed that they were only following orders, but they showed little remorse today. Julius Streicher, the editor once wrote, “Jewish rabble will be exterminated like weeds and vermin” shouted “Heil Hitler” as the noosed was fastened around his neck. Joachim von Ribbentrop, trhe foreign minister, said, “My last wish is that German unity is maintained.” Herman Goering escaped execution by swallowing poison in his cell. During his trial he boasted “In 50 or 60 years time, there will be statues of Herman Goering all over Germany
Marshall unveils plan to aid Europe Mass., June 5, 1947
Secretary of State George Marshall warned warned today that Europe’s slow recovery from the war threatened international political stability, and he urged a massive American aid programme to rebuild the continent. Marshall spoke this afternoon at Harvard after the university had granted him an honorary degree. “The remedy” Marshall said “lies in breaking the viscous circle and restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of....  Europe as a whole.”. Marshall’s speech was short on details, and he daid the initiative for recovery must come from Europe itself.
Yeager breaks barrier. California Oct. 14, 1947.
A sonic boom thundered across the desert here this morning, as Captain Chuck Yeager became the first man to shatter the sound barrier. Piloting a top-secret bullet-shaped Bell X-1 rocket plane, Yeager hit a speed of 700 mph, or Mach 1.06 at an altitude of 43,000 feet. The X-1 with its fuel tanks loaded with explosive liquid oxygen, was carried aloft in the bomb-bay of a B-29. As the 4-engined bomber droned along at 20,000 feet, the bright orange X-1 nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis” after Yeager’s wife, fell free then shot forward as the 6000 pound thrust rockets were fired. Other planes suffer severe buffeting when approaching Mach speed but the aerodynamically sleek X-1 sailed smoothly through the barrier. Yeager 24, was one of the army’s hottest fighter pilots in Europe. But as the X-1 programme is shrouded in secrecy, few people knew about his test-pilot activities.
H.U.AS.C. Investigation into Hollywood ends with 10 blacklisted. Washington Nov. 25, 1947.
An investigation into the alleged Communist infiltration of the movie industry was launched last month by the House Un-American Committee. Today, in an unprecedented act of self-censorship, the film industry itself voted to bar 10 professionals who had been held in contempt of Congress. One of the first people called before the panel was writer Ayn Rand, a friendly witness, who declared the movie “Song of Russia” propaganda. Adolph Menjou also proved very co-operative. To the panel..
Soviets blockade Berlin West Germany June 26, 1948.
Operation Vittles is under way. The West has launched a massive airlift of food to Berlin in response to the Soviet blockade of the Allied sections of the city. The blockade began two days ago when the Russians stopped all rail road and barge traffic from the Western zone of Germany into Berlin, citing “technical difficulties” as the cause. A more likely reason is Soviet anger at the introduction by the Allies of a new currency into the Eastern zone to prevent the Russians from flooding it with counterfeit money, as they had been doing. According to an Allied estimate, 2,500 tons of food a day will have to be flown into Berlin to prevent the population from starving.
Alger Hiss indicted for perjury as Whittaker Chambers talks. New York. Dec. 15, 1948.
Whittaker Chambers led a group of investigators and reporters to a pumpkin patch on his Maryland farm earlier this month, where he produced evidence that has resulted in the Grand Jury indictment today of alger Hiss for perjury. This sordid tale of espionage and backstabbing has Republicans excited and Democrats embarrassed.
The sorry tale starts in 1937, when Chambers, a Soviet agent at the time, is alleged to have received secret State Department documents from Hiss, then a department official. Chambers, now an editor at Time magazine, told the House Un-American Activities Committee that Hiss provided the documents and other strategic data.as part of a pre-war communist spy ring.
Truman defeats Dewey. Washington Nov. 3, 1948.
The Chicago Tribune’s headline screamed “Dewey defeats Truman.”  This early report was dead wrong as Harry S. Truman won a full term in the White House yesterday in one of the biggest political upsets in American history.
’Give em Hell Harry and his running mate Alben Barkley, defeated the heavily favoured Thomas E. Dewey, Governor of New York. Democrats also also regained control of Congress, sweeping in on the President’s coat-tails. Truman pulled out the election ith his whistle-stop tour of the nation. On it he was at his best. The vistory is even more remarkable in that the Progressive and Dixiecrat Parties each took over a million votes from the Democrats.
McDonalds opens
California Dec. 1948.
Taking their cue from self-service retail stores, Richard and Maurice McDonald have opened a hamburger drive-in ith no car-hops and no options on the burgers which cost 15 cents french fries are a dime milk shakes 25. The idea has yet to attract a public
Kinsey sex report. Bloomington, Ind. 1948.
Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey specialises in insects. But his study of humans has made the University of Indiana professor a household name. It began in 938, when Kinsey began compiling dossiers about the sexual practices of American males. He eventually interviewed some 5,000 men who related details about their preferences.
Champ for 11 years Louis calls it quits. March 3, 1949.
Joe Louis, boxing’s popular and durable heavyweight champion, is hanging up his gloves. The “brown Bomber, who limited his boxing to exhibition tours for the past eight months, said he is retiring after 11 years as champ. Since beating Billy Conn in a rematch that drew one of the richest gates in history, Louis knocked-out Tami Maurillo in 1946 and defeated Joe Walcott twice, but he is obviously losing the blinding jab and lethal hook that won him world fame. The 35-year-old Louis, who is in dire need of money to pay back taxes, said he would box  exhibition matches in an effort to pay his debts.
World-circling flight sets 94-hour record. Texas Mar. 2 1949
Another air record was set here at 10.31 a.m. Today when Captain James Gallagher landed his Boeing B-50, Lucky Lady II. On the same runway at Carswell Airforce Base from which he had taken off 94 hours and 1 minute earlier. In the meantime, Captain Gallagher had completed the first non-stop round-the-world flight ever attempted. Travelling eastward, Lucky Lady II was refulled in flight four times during the 23,452 mile journey
Lady wrestlers, roller derby and pizza USA 1949
Some nice things for women this year.: prepared cake-mixes, Pillsbury “Bake-offs,” Revlon’s “Fire and Ice,” ripping needles for sewing machines, boned bras, decolletage bras, scented bras etc..  For men: roller derbies, pyramid clubs, Sara ee cheesecake and Lady wrestlers. Nice things for couplels: LP records catalogues, canasta and the pizza pie. An article in the Atlantic Monthly says, “You can eat it, usually sitting in a booth in a bare, plain restaurant, with a mural of Vesevio, a duke box and a crowded bar.
Soviets detonate bomb. Washington Sept. 23, 1949.
A major shift in the balance of power between the Soviet Union and the West was disclosed today with the announcement by President Truman that the Russians were working on an atomic weapon, it was generally believed that they were at least three years from their goal. The news means that the United States can no longer rely on its exclusive ownership of nuclear weapons to counterbalance the Soviet advantage in conventional weapons and land forces. The problem is not immediate, because the United States has a substantial stock pile of atomic weapons under the control of the Atomic Energy Commission, but its monopoly is now at an end.
McCarthy flaunts “subversives” list. Washington Feb. 22 1950
“I have here in my hand” announced the junior Senator from Wisconsin, “a list of 205 names that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” The ladies of the Wheeling, West Virginia, Republican Women’s club were shocked. Joe McCarthy barrelled ahead. “The bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths, ” he observed, “are....the worst,” and they are led by Secretary of State Dean Acherson, a pompous diplomat in striped pants with a phoney British accent.“ McCarthy always excelled at self-promotion. As a campaigner, he called himself ”Tail-gun Joe“ though he spent most of his time pushing paper in the marines.
Truman declares state of emergency. Washington Dec. 16, 1950
Because of deepening strain on both military and economic resources brought about by the Korean War , President Truman has declared a state of national emergency. In a broadcast to the American people last night, Truman said that he needed extraordinary excessive powers to overcome the great crisis now facing the country. He promised that the United states would continue to fight to preserve the ideals of the United Nations
Census 150 milion. Washington DC, 1950
The first census since World War II shows the American population at 150.6 million. Urbanites make up 64%  of that figure while there only 5.4 million family farmers. The nation’s newest war effort, in Korea, has decreased the number of unemployed to fewer than 2 million, and on another economic note, the average weekly wage in industry has hit a new high of $60.53. Illiteracy has dropped to 3.2 % , a new low, Germans and Italians are the biggest immigrant groups.
Chinese flood across the Yalu into Korea Dec. 5 1950
The massive Chinese military intervention in North Korea 10 days ago has broken the back of the advance by United Nations forces towards the Yalu River. Both the Americans and South Koreans armies have suffered extremely heavy losses and are engaged in a rapid but organised retreat. The American Eighth Army, the major fighting force in Korea has completely withdrawn to sites south of the 38th parallel.
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