Harry S. Truman
Thirty-Third President of the United States
1945-1953
Born: May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri
Died: December 26, 1972 in Independence, Missouri
Location: NE Corner of Mt. Rushmore Road and St. Joseph Street
Harry Truman served in France during World War I as a captain in the Field Artillery, returned to Missouri and opened a haberdashery in Kansas City, was elected a judge of the Jackson County Court, and was active in the Democratic Party. He became a US Senator in 1934, and headed the Senate war investigating committee during World War II.
He was elected Vice President in 1944, and became President upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. With all of the wartime problems falling squarely on Truman’s shoulders he told reporters, "I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."
As President, Truman made some of the most crucial decisions in history: ordered atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, witnessed the signing of the charter of the United Nations, a 21-point program called The Fair Deal, the Truman Doctrine, and The Marshall Plan, which stimulated spectacular economic recovery in war-torn western Europe, the Berlin airlift, the creation of NATO, and involvement in the Korean War.
Truman won the controversial election of 1948, but chose not to run again in 1952. He and wife Bess retired in Independence, Missouri, where he passed away in 1972.
|
