n Washington. NATO was set up on 18/3/1949, by Britain and seven other European countries. Denmark had agreed to join on 25/3/1949. Eleven countries signed in total.
9/2/1949, US actor Robert Mitchum was jailed for 2 months for smoking marijuana.
7/1/1949, Marshall was succeeded by Acheson as US Secretary of State.
16/11/1948, US President Truman refused to participate in talks with the Soviets on the future of Berlin until the blockade was lifted.
15/10/1948, US President Gerald Ford married widow Elizabeth Bloomer Warren.
2/9/1948, Christa McAuliffe, US teacher who died in the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986, was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
2/8/1948, Alger Hiss testified in the US McCarthy anti-Communist hearings, using the phrase ‘Reds under the bed’.
15/7/1948. John Pershing, commander of the US Army in France in World War One, nicknamed ‘Black Jack’, died in Washington DC.
30/4/1948, The Organisation of American States was set up. The agreement, covering all 21 of the republics in the Americas, was signed at Bogota, Colombia. The fourteenth state ratified the treaty on 13/12/1951, thereby formally legally validating the treaty.
19/4/1948, The USA tested a plutonium bomb at Eniwetok Atoll.
31/3/1948. (1) US Congress passed the Marshall Aid Bill.. On 3/4/1948 President Truman signed the Economic Assistance Act, putting in effect Marshall aid for 16 countries in war-torn Europe. The first aid shipments to Europe left the USA on 5/4/1948.
(2) Al Gore, US Vice President under Bill Clinton, noted for his strong pro-environmental stance, was born.
15/3/1948. US coal miners went on strike for better pensions.
1947, In the US, the Department of Defense was established by the National Security Act of 1947. The Department of war and the Department of tte Navy, which had both existed since 1789, were merged. Until 1949 the new agency was known as the National Military Establishment,
5/10/1947. In the US, President Truman urged Americans to give up meat on Tuesdays and poultry and eggs on Thursday to aid Europe.
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 Assistan