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Truman Doctrine
On March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman presented this address before a joint session of Congress. His message, known as the Truman Doctrine, asked Congress for $400 million in military and economic assistance for Turkey and Greece. -
The Marshall Plan
Sixteen nations, including Germany, became part of the program and shaped the assistance they required, state by state, with administrative and technical assistance provided by the US. European nations received nearly $13 billion in aid, which initially resulted in shipments of food, staples, fuel and machinery from the United States and later resulted in investment in industrial capacity in Europe. Marshall Plan funding ended in 1951. -
Berlin Airlift
Around 1948 General Tunner created the Berlin Airlift. A cargo ship to transport. Coal, heating oil, medicines, food and necessary supplies were airlifted into Berlin in an endless stream of transport aircraft operating at 2 minute intervals day and night in every kind of weather. The Berlin Airlift was a live demonstration on the future of the Air Cargo Industry. -
The Korean War
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. -
NATO
At the end of 1950, the decision is taken to merge the embryonic military organisation created under the Brussels Treaty into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. By 1951, General Eisenhower, appointed by the North Atlantic Council as the first Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, is able to open the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, soon to become known as SHAPE, at Rocquencourt, outside Paris. -
The Polio Vaccine
In 1953, American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. Dr. Salk was celebrated as the great doctor-benefactor of his time. -
Sputnik
October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball, weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path -
NASA Established
October 1, 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed. The 1958 Space Act was signed, establishing NASA as the organization responsible for both aeronautics and astronautics. -
The Bay of Pigs
On January 1, 1959, a young Cuban nationalist named Fidel Castro (1926-) drove his guerilla army into Havana and overthrew General Fulgencio Batista (1901-1973), the nation’s American-backed president. -
Castro's Cuban Revolution
Cuban exiles, armed and trained by Americans, formed an army known as La Brigada and invaded Cuba’s Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961. The army was crushed by Castro after President Kennedy refused to directly involve the U.S. armed forces, and 1200 of the invaders were captured -
Buidling the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany. The barrier also known as the Berlin Wall, was built at the line of segregation between the eastern sector of Berlin and the western sector because of economic and political purposes. -
6 Day War
Israel consistently expressed a desire to negotiate with its neighbors. In an address to the UN General Assembly on October 10, 1960, Foreign Minister Golda Meir challenged Arab leaders to meet with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to negotiate a peace settlement. Nasser answered on October 15, saying that Israel was trying to deceive world opinion, and reiterating that his country would never recognize the Jewish State.
