Learn Our History Today: On May 8, 1884, U.S. President Harry Truman was born near Lamar, Missouri. First going into politics in 1922, after his haberdashery that he ran went bankrupt, Truman took his first public office as a county official, before being elected as Missouri’s senator in 1934. As a senator, Truman rose to prominence through his involvement in the Truman Committee which exposed corruption and fraud in wartime contracts during World War II. This brought him to the attention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who chose him as his running mate in the 1944 election, which the pair won after a very close contest. When President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, Truman succeeded him as President of the United States, becoming the Commander in Chief of a country that was fighting one of the most deadly wars in human history and although Germany looked as it was ready to crumble, the war with Japan was far from over. Very early in his Presidency, Truman was faced with one of the toughest decisions any President would ever have to make. He knew that Japan would never surrender; they would simply try to fight it out as long as possible until nearly their entire population was made a casualty. This would in turn create huge amounts of American casualties as the troops battled to take over the Japanese homeland, and our soldiers had already seen how brutally the Japanese would fight to protect their homeland. A desperate and deadly battle for Japan could be avoided, however, with the use of the newly developed Atomic bomb, which had enough force to level a whole city in a single blast. Truman could use this new weapon which might possibly force the Japanese to surrender after they had witnessed its devastating power. However, the massive blast would kill thousands of innocent civilians. In the end, Truman decided in favor of the bomb, with the resulting explosions virtually annihilating the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just as had been expected, the Japanese quickly surrendered after seeing the devastation of the atom bomb, ending World War II. During the rest of his time as President, Truman saw the country through the early days of the Cold War, in addition to surviving an assassination attempt. In 1953, Truman retired to his home in Missouri, where he died in 1957.
Posted on: Thu, 08 May 2014 23:27:29 +0000
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