Truman

American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) were the US participants in World War I after 1917.

The Bataan Death March took place during World War II in April 1942 when the Japanese Army forced American and Filipino prisoners of war to march for up to 70 miles with many dying along the way.

The Berlin Airlift (June 1948-September 1949) was an American-led initiative carrying supplies to relieve the Berlin Blockade by the Soviet Union in the framework of the Cold War. The Soviet Union blocked transportation to Berlin because they perceived the introduction of a new currency in West Berlin as a challenge to the postwar order established in 1945.

The Big Three were the Allied heavyweights in World War II: the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States and their respective leaders Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt (Harry S. Truman after April 1945). The leaders periodically met at the Allied conferences to determine the overall war strategy and key postwar decisions.

Cold War was a period of rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States between 1945 and 1991. The two countries with opposing ideologies came out as superpowers after World War II effectively dividing the world into their respective spheres of influence. Because conflicts at this time involved indirect (proxy) wars rather than “hot” wars between these two nuclear-armed powers, the term “cold” is used.

Containment was a key aspect of American foreign policy during the Cold War that first arose under the Truman administration and was largely proposed by George Kennan. Its goal was to “contain” Soviet influence around the world.

A county judge is an administrative position to which Truman was elected and held at the beginning of his political career in Missouri.

Established through Truman’s Executive Order 9835 in March 1947, the purpose of this program was to screen federal employees and identify the possible Communist views in the government.

In 1863, during the Civil War, the Union Army released General Order No. 11 expelling tens of thousands of people from western Missouri, especially its rural areas, on suspicion of aiding the Confederates. The 1863 order is not to be confused with the 1862 order which targeted the Jewish population in Union Major-General Ulysses S. Grant’s district.

House Un-American Activities Committee (1938-1975) was designed to screen ideological leanings of public and private Americans, such as communism and fascism, that the government considered dangerous.

Lend-Lease was an American federal program that ran from March 1941 until the end of World War II to support the Allies—first, Britain and then, the Soviet Union—by providing the necessary supplies.

A secret project led by Americans and codenamed Manhattan that focused on nuclear research. The project successfully developed the world’s first nuclear weapons which were used against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 with a large civilian death toll. The invention of these weapons led to a nuclear arms race during the Cold War.

The Marshall Plan (1948-1952), named after Secretary of State George C. Marshall, was a broad economic aid program for 17 countries in Europe outside the Soviet sphere of influence. It was officially called the European Recovery Program. The Plan is believed to have been moderately successful, although European recovery began on its own before its introduction. The plan shaped American foreign policy by combining financial, political, and institutional instruments.

This National Security Council policy paper was published in 1950 and defined American defense spending and militarization in the Cold War period.

The Potsdam Conference took place in Potsdam, Germany between July 17 and August 2, 1945, after the Allied victory in Europe. This conference was the last of the World War II Allied conferences, and the first and only conference in which Truman represented the US. The Allies determined occupation zones in Germany, the postwar order in Europe, and the Soviet intention to enter the war against Japan that same month.

The Red Scare (1947-1957) was a period of widespread anti-Communist hysteria in the United States primarily led by Senator Joe McCarthy.

Launched in 1941 and popularly known as the Truman Committee, this bipartisan group investigated defense contracts in the context of World War II, improved the efficiency of the war effort, and decreased waste and profiteering.