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Navajo Code Talkers
29 Navajo men joined the U.S. Marines and developed an unbreakable code that would be used across the Pacific during World War II. They were the Navajo Code Talkers -
Atomic bomb is approved
President Roosevelt approves the production of the atomic bomb following receipt of a National Academy of Sciences report determining that a bomb is feasible. -
The Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference in Germany establishes the "Final Solution" for Jews in Europe. The plan would attempt to exterminate an estimated 11 million people. -
Executive Order 9066
The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation. President Roosevelt, encouraged by officials at all levels of the federal government, authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan. -
MacArthur is named supreme commander of the Allied Forces.
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Bataan Death March
Japanese forced 76,000 captured Allied soldiers (Filipinos and Americans) to march about 80 miles across the Bataan Peninsula. -
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Battle of the Coral Sea
a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia, taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. marked the first air-sea battle in history. -
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Battle of Corregidor
the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Commonwealth of the Philippines during World War II. -
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Battle of Midway
The United States Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway Atoll, marking a turning point in the war in the Pacific theatre. -
Casablanca Conference
The conference produced a unified statement of purpose, the Casablanca Declaration. It announced to the world that the Allies would accept nothing less than the "unconditional surrender" of the Axis powers. -
D-Day
the day in World War II on which Allied forces invaded northern France by means of beach landings in Normandy. -
Port Chicago disaster
Two ships loading ammunition at Port Chicago Naval Weapons Station in California explode. The accident killed three hundred and twenty people. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected to a fourth term as U.S. president.
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Flood Control Act of 1944
The Pick-Sloan Flood Control Act of 1944, enacted in the 2nd session of the 78th Congress, is U.S. legislation that authorized the construction of numerous dams and modifications to previously existing dams, as well as levees across the United States. -
Yalta Conference
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin pledge to hold free elections after the war in Eastern Europe and divide Germany and Austria into three zones of occupation. -
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is an iconic photograph of six United States Marines raising the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in the final stages of the Pacific War. -
Death of Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR dies of a stroke -
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33rd President of the U.S.
Harry S. Truman becomes 33rd U.S. President -
Death of Adolf Hitler
Hitler commits suicide by gunshot -
Battle of Berlin
resulted in the surrender of the German army and the death of Adolf Hitler (by suicide). It was a resounding victory for the Soviet Union and the Allies. Around 92,000 German soldiers were killed with another 220,000 wounded. -
Germany surrenders
Germany officially surrendered to the Allies, bringing an end to the European conflict in World War II -
Potsdam Conference
At the Potsdam Conference, the Big Three — U.S. President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin — decide the fate of Europe and that Japan must submit to unconditional surrender or face "utter destruction." -
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Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, during World War II an American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. -
Microwave
Microwave is invented by Percy Spencer -
Atomic Energy Act of 1946
The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) determined how the United States would control and manage the nuclear technology it had jointly developed with its World War II allies, the United Kingdom, and Canada. -
Start of the Cold War
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and their respective allies, the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc, after World War II. -
Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of peace treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to contain Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. -
Marshall Plan
U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 North American and European countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. -
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The Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States liberated Korea from imperial Japanese colonial control on 15 August 1945. -
Super Glue is rediscovered
Super Glue was invented in 1942, but it was rediscovered and publicized in 1951 by Harry Coover and Fred Joyner -
Election of 1952
United States presidential election between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson,
