Harry S. Truman

Harry Truman was born on May 8, 1884. He served with distinction during World War I as a commander of an artillery battery, and ultimately attained the rank of major. In 1922 with the support of political boss Tom Pendergast, Truman was elected as a county judge. He lost reelection, but then won again as presiding judge in 1926 and 1930. In 1934 Truman was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he supported President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and entry into World War II. When Vice President Henry Wallace alienated Democratic Party leaders, Truman was nominated for vice president. On April 12, 1945, eighty-two days into Truman’s vice presidency, Roosevelt died in Warm Spring, Georgia. At the age of sixty-one, Truman was sworn in as the thirty-third president of the United States. Key events during the Truman presidency include victory in World War II with the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, the start of the cold war with the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin airlift, the Pair Deal, price-control legislation, and the McCarthy hearings. In March 1952 Truman announced that he would not seek reelection. Harry S. Truman died on December 26, 1972.