Harry Truman

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 - December 26, 1972) became the 33rd President of the United States on April 12, 1945, succeeding to the office after only 82 days as vice president when Franklin D. Roosevelt died, and served until January 20, 1953. Having learned of the Manhattan Project only after taking office, he authorized the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to bring an end to the Second World War. He shaped the postwar international order through the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction and the Truman Doctrine of containing Soviet expansion, supported the founding of NATO, and organized the Berlin Airlift of 1948 in response to the Soviet blockade of West Berlin; during his second term he committed American forces to the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 after North Korea's invasion of the South. Though his presidency was contested at the time, historians have since consistently ranked him favorably among American presidents.