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G.I. Bill
This bill was a multifaceted, multibillion-dollar entitlement program that rewarded honorably discharged veterans with numerous benefits including low-interest home loans, a stipend to attend college, loans to start a business, and unemployment benefits. -
Franklin Roosevelt's Death
The only person to win four presidential elections, FDR led America from the Depression to the end of World War 2. -
Creation of the United Nations
The framework for the proposed United Nations rested on President Roosevelt’s vision that the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China would provide leadership in the postwar international system. It was these four states, with the addition of France, that would assume permanent seats in the otherwise rotating membership of the United Nations Security Council. On June 26, 1945 President Truman signed the charter during the final session of the San Fransisco Conference. -
Japan Surrendered
Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan on August 15. On September 2, aboard the battleship USS Missouri, delegates from the Japanese government formally signed their surrender. World War II was finally over. -
The First Levittown
William Levitt built the first Levittown, the prototypical suburban community, in Long Island, New York. Purchasing large acreage, subdividing lots, and contracting crews to build countless homes at economies of scale, Levitt offered affordable suburban housing to veterans and their families. Levitt became the prophet of the new suburbs, and his model of large-scale suburban development was duplicated by developers across the country. -
The Long Telegram
This was a telegram the U.S. ambassador to Russia, George Kennan, wrote to the U.S. State Department denouncing the Soviet Union. He wrote that there could be no cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union because of the Soviet's expansive communistic ideology. -
The Smith-Mundt Act
This act was created to promote a better understanding of the United States in other countries. It established cultural exchanges with various nations, including the USSR, in order to showcase American values through American artists and entertainers. -
Launching of NATO
American officials launched the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is a mutual defense pact in which the United States and Canada were joined by England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. -
First Credit Card Issued
The Diners Club released the first charge card that could be used at multiple merchants with the balance needing to be paid in full every month. No longer stymied by the Depression or wartime restrictions, consumers bought countless washers, dryers, refrigerators, freezers, and, suddenly, televisions. -
The Internal Security Act
This act mandated all “communist organizations” to register with the government, gave the government greater powers to investigate sedition, and made it possible to prevent suspected individuals from gaining or keeping their citizenship. -
Detonation of the First Hydrogen Bomb
The United States detonated the first hydrogen bomb on November 1, 1952. The blast measured over ten megatons and generated an inferno five miles wide with a mushroom cloud twenty-five miles high and a hundred miles across. The irradiated debris—fallout—from the blast circled the earth, occasioning international alarm about the effects of nuclear testing on human health and the environment. -
Presidential Election of 1952
General Dwight Eisenhower defeated Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 presidential election. -
Death of Joseph Stalin
He led the Soviet Union for 29 years beginning in 1924. -
Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Previously members of the Communist Party of the USA in the 1930s, they were accused of passing secret bomb-related documents to Soviet officials and were indicted in August 1950 on charges of giving nuclear secrets to the Russians. After a trial in 1951, they were found guilty and executed on June 19, 1953. -
The Warsaw Pact
The Soviet Union formalized its collective defensive agreement in 1955, the Warsaw Pact, which included Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East Germany. It was established to counteract the power of NATO.