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Truman Doctrine
Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri. In 1890, the year the Little White House was built, the Truman's moved to Independence, Missouri. -
The Marshall Plan
The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to aid in the economic recovery of nations after World War II and secure US geopolitical influence over Western Europe. -
Berlin Airlift
The U.S. and U.K. delivered more than 2.3 million tons of food, fuel and supplies to West Berlin via more than 278,000 airdrops. American aircrews made more than 189,000 flights, totaling nearly 600,000 flying hours and exceeding 92 million miles. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. -
Start of the Korean War
The Korean War, like many wars in history, did not take place in a vacuum. It broke out because the North Koreans attacked South Korea with confidence that they could win the war and the entire Korean peninsula. -
End of the Korean War
On July 27, 1953, seven months after President Eisenhower's inauguration as the 34th President of the United States, an armistice was signed, ending organized combat operations and leaving the Korean Peninsula divided much as it had been since the close of World War II at the 38th parallel. -
Warsaw Pact
This was composed originally of the Soviet Union and Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Later Albania withdrew from the pact in 1968 and East Germany withdrew in 1990. -
Eisenhower Doctrine
The Eisenhower Doctrine was focused on the Middle East and promised aid to nations both threatened by revolutions from within as well as overt attacks by the Soviet Union. -
Sputnik
The satellite, an 85-kilogram (187-pound) metal sphere the size of a basketball, was launched on a huge rocket and orbited Earth at 29,000 kilometers per hour (18,000 miles per hour) for three months. -
U-2 Incident
U-2 reconnaissance plane over the Soviet Union in 1960 and that caused the collapse of a summit conference in Paris between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France.