ope.
18/9/1947, The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was founded, under the 1947 National Security Act. Created by President Truman, it was a response to the Cold war with the Soviet Union.
5/6/1947. US Secretary of State George Marshall announced the Marshall Plan to help Europe recover from near bankruptcy following the War. See 16/4/1947.
16/4/1947, (1) The phrase ‘Cold War’ was first used, in a speech by Bernard Baruch in Columbia, South Carolina, when the US Congress was discussing the ‘Truman Doctrine’. This was a doctrine of checking further Communist expansion into Europe by giving economic and military aid to governments threatened by communist subversion. This was followed within 2 months by the Marshall Plan (5/6/1947).
(2) Ammonium nitrate stored aboard the freighter Grandcamp exploded in Texas City Port, killing 752.
12/3/1947, US President Truman spoke of a Cold War (see 5/3/1946) against Communism. He instituted the ‘Truman Doctrine’, whereby the US would give military and economic access to any countries deemed to be under Soviet threat, such as Greece or Turkey.
27/2/1947, In the USA, Donald Acheson outlined, in the State Department, what was to become known as the Truman Doctrine, aimed at containing Soviet expansion.
21/2/1947. The world’s first soap opera, “A woman to remember”, began on USA television.
4/2/1947, US politician Dan Quayle was born
25/1/1947, Al Capone, American gangster and leader of organised crime in Chicago during the Prohibition era, died aged 48 due to a major brain haemorrhage, virtually penniless. In 1931 he was jailed for 11 years income tax evasion; he was released from Alcatraz in 1939, suffering from syphilis and prematurely aged.
7/1/1947, George Marshall was appointed US Secretary of State.
5/12/1946. New York was chosen as the permanent site of the UN.
5/11/1946, In the US, Republicans gained control of Congress.
23/10/1946, The first New York meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organisation took place.
28/7/1946, Howard C. Petersen, US Assistant Secretary of War, announced that, in addition to deaths in combat, 131,028 American and Filipino citizens, mostly civilians, had died "as a result of war crimes" from December 7, 1941 until the end of World War II.
23/7/1946, The last German prisoners of war in the United States were released, as 1,385 POWs were placed on the ship General Yates, following detention at Camp Shanks in New York. In all, there had been 375,000 German prisoners kept in the US at the end of World War II.
13/7/1946, The US House of Representatives approved a loan to Europe.
4/7/1946. The Philippines was granted independence from the USA. Manual Roxas was elected as the first President.
17/6/1946, Barry Manilow, American singer and songwriter, was born in New York City.
18/4/1946. The League of Nations was formally dissolved, after the United Nations had been set up on 24/10/1945. See 26/6/1945.
5/3/1946. Winston Churchill referred to an “Iron Curtain” descending across Europe, in a speech at Fulton, USA. The first public acknowledgement that the Cold War had begun. See 12/3/1947.
10/2/1946, The first ‘GI brides’ arrived in the USA to live with their new partners. When US servicemen were stationed in the UK, British males complained they were ‘overpaid, oversexed, and over here’. Many British women became engaged or married to them. Now the GI brides assembled at camps in Hampshire, to be shipped over to the USA aboard the Queen Mary.
29/1/1946, Harry L Hopkins, US government social administrator, died aged 56.
19/1/1946, Dolly Parton, American Country and Western singer, was born in Sevierville, Tennessee.
10/1/1946, The League of Nations was officially dissolved, after 26 years, and replaced by the United Nations.
21/12/1945, US General Patton was killed in a road accident whilst commanding the 5th US Army in West Germany.
6/12/1945, U.S. General George C. Marshall testified at the Pearl Harbour inquiry that he did not anticipate the attack but that an "alert" defence would have prevented all but "limited harm”.
5/12/1945. Five US Na