Victory in Europe (VE Day) occurred on May 8, 1945. It allowed American attention to be shifted toward the war in the Pacific. Truman had only recently learned of the development of the atomic bomb in the weeks after becoming president. He made the decision to drop an atomic bomb on Japan in hopes that it would prevent an invasion, thereby saving thousands of allied lives.
World clock, HSTR 4406
After the end of World War II, the Soviet Union began occupying neighboring lands in order to gain power. In March of 1947, the Truman Doctrine was drafted in an effort to contain the spread of Communism. In 1948 and 1949, the US teamed with Great Britain to airlift two million tons of supplies to West Berlin, breaking the Soviet blockade there. Another step to deter the spread of Communism was the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance between the United States, Canada and ten Western European nations. Truman hoped that the treaty would prevent World War III.
