1945
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Senator from Missouri
33rd President of the United States First term Second term Presidential and Vice presidential campaigns Post-presidency   | ||
April
- April 12 – Harry S. Truman is inaugurated as the 33rd president of the United States in a ceremony in the Cabinet Room, the oath being administered by Chief Justice of the United States Harlan F. Stone and completed exactly two hours and thirty four minutes after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. [1]
- April 13 – Several labor unions in official and unofficial capacities pledge support for President Truman. [2]
- April 14 – President Truman attends FDR's funeral. The White House announces President Truman's first press conference of his tenure will be held in three days. [3]
- April 15 – President Truman attends Roosevelt's burial services. [4]
- April 16 – President Truman addresses a joint session of Congress, during which he outlines his intentions of his tenure, including plans to win the war, carrying on the policies of the late President Roosevelt, and punishing war criminals. [5]
- April 17 – President Truman delivers a broadcast address to service members in the United States Army and Navy, telling them that they shall carry a tradition of not faltering as done by his immediate predecessor and recalls his own service during World War I as having made him privy to both killing on the battlefield and the fighting man's trials and tribulations. [6] [7]
- April 18 – President Truman orders the Department of Commerce receive the transmission of the surplus property of the treasury procurement division. [8] President Truman designates May 13 as Mother's Day in order to show what he calls the US's "gratitude, love, and devotion" for its mothers. [9]
- April 20 – President Truman holds the second news conference of his tenure in his White House office. [10]
- April 23 – President Truman, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshal Joseph Stalin issue a joint statement during the evening, saying in part, "Any person guilty of maltreating or allowing any Allied prisoners of war, internees or deported citizens to be maltreated, whether in battle zone, on lines of communication, in a camp, hospital, prison or elsewhere, will be ruthlessly pursued and brought to punishment." [11]
- April 26 – Press Secretary Jonathan Daniels requests White House reporters give President Truman equal protection to that received by the late President Roosevelt under the voluntary censorship code. [12]
- April 27 – President Truman issues a statement saying the armies of Anglo-Americans have met Soviet Union forces in the "heart of Nazi Germany" and that the "enemy has been cut in two." [13] President Truman holds his third news conference during the afternoon, announcing "Edwin W. Pauley as his Personal Representative on the Reparations Commission, with the rank of Ambassador, and of Dr. Isador Lubin as an Associate, with the rank of Minister." [14]
- April 28 – President Truman holds his fourth news conference at the White House, during which he says there is "no foundation" for rumors relating to Germany surrendering, during the night hours. [15]
May
- May 1 – President Truman issues a statement praising the office of Price Administration: "I suppose that OPA, like the rest of us, has made a few mistakes. But when we look at the whole record, I think that our price control and stabilization program has been one of the most remarkable achievements of this war." [16]
- May 2 – Congress receives the first economy program from the White House in 12 years. It calls for a US$7 billion cut in funds for shipbuilding, the reduction of at least US$80 million in eight agencies' budget estimates, and announces the termination by June 30 of the civilian defense office. [17]
- May 2 – President Truman holds the fifth news conference of his presidency at his White House office during the afternoon. [18]
- May 3 – President Truman vetoes H.J. Res. 106, saying in part, "the legislation now passed by the Congress and presented for my approval would appear to have that result and to constitute a departure from the sound principle hereinbefore stated on which we have erected our military manpower mobilization system." [19]
- May 4 – President Truman meets with President of the Philippines Sergio Osmeña for discussion on the Philippines becoming completely independent. [20]
- May 4 – General Dwight Eisenhower announces the surrender of enemy forces in Holland and northwestern Germany and Denmark at Marshal Montgomery's 21st army group. [21]
- May 5 – President Truman announces his willingness to "endorse and carry through to their conclusion the policies laid down by President Roosevelt respecting the Islands and the independence of the Filipino people." [22]
- May 7 – President Truman says he cannot make an announcement about forces in Europe surrendering "until a simultaneous statement can be made by the three governments" in accordance with an agreement he made with the governments of London and Moscow. [23]
- May 8 – Truman announces the end of the war in Europe via radio (V-E Day).
- May 9 – The office of war mobilization announces the return of American troops from Europe between 270,000 and 500,000 monthly and that reducing the number of soldiers there to 100,000 will take a year. [24]
- May 10 – The State Department discloses personal representative of President Truman Samuel L. Rosenman has completed San Francisco, California conferences with Great Britain, Russia, and France. [25]
- May 11 – The War Department announces plans for American involvement in the occupying of Germany, including that General Eisenhower will represent the United States on the four-powers control council for Germany. [26]
- May 11 – On Mother's Day, President Truman is visited by his mother Martha Ellen Young Truman in her first trip to Washington. [27]
- May 12 – President Truman is said by the Army and Navy Journal to have "opened the door" to Japan for peace by assuring that none of the country's people will be killed. [28]
- May 13 – President Truman and his mother join service members in prayer at the chapel of the Bethesda, Maryland as part of a thanks for European victory. [29]
- May 14 – Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Anthony Eden and Clement Attlee meet with President Truman. [30]
- May 15 – President Truman holds a press conference in which he states his support for free press in Germany as well as the repeal of the Johnson Act. [31] President Truman announces his nomination of Richmond K. Turner for full admiral. [32] United States Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes admits that he requested Congress validate federal surveillance of the late President Roosevelt's Hyde Park home while Roosevelt's family is not occupying it. [33]
- May 21 – President Truman delivers a speech to Congress in regards to his presenting the Medal of Honor to James W. Lindsey. [34]
- May 24 – President Truman issues a message to Congress about the executive branch's organization. [35]
- May 25 – President Truman holds the eighth news conference of his tenure at the White House during the afternoon. [36]
- May 30 – Special Envoy to the President Joseph E. Davies holds a series of conferences in London. [37]
June
- June 1 – President Truman gives a joint address to Congress that entails his plan to bring about Japan's surrender that includes an army of 7 million and a navy of 3 million. [38] President Truman holds the ninth press conference of his presidency during the morning in the White House. [39]
- June 2 – Press Secretary Charlie Ross says President Truman has been notified of the change in schedule for the previously planned security conference in San Francisco. [40] President Truman stresses the need for service members and other Americans to have food in a statement. [41]
- June 4 – President Truman writes in a letter to House Speaker Sam Rayburn for an approbation to end the conflict with Japan. [42]
- June 5 – President Truman abolishes the office of civilian defense, transferring all of its protective property to the Department of Commerce. [43]
- June 6 – President Truman commutes the death sentence of Thomas H. Robinson, Jr. to a sentence of life imprisonment. [44]
- June 7 – President Truman holds a news conference, his tenth since assuming the presidency, at the White House. Truman discusses foreign policy and taxes. [45] President Truman says transportation issues are aiding in the US's victory within Europe and calls on Americans to "understand the situation and at once lend full cooperation in order that the burden may be minimized." [46]
- June 18 – President Truman issues a statement on driver safety, saying in part, "By keeping his car in safe operating condition and by driving it with the utmost care, every motorist can help in relieving our serious transportation problem and thereby aid further in the whole war effort." [47]
- June 19 – President Truman sends a message to Congress urging a change to the presidential line of succession: "In so far as possible, the office of the President should be filled by an elective officer. There is no officer in our system of government, besides the President and Vice President, who has been elected by all the voters of the country." [48]
- June 21 – President Truman holds the fourteenth news conference of his presidency in the office of Governor of Washington Monrad Wallgren at the Legislative Building in D.C. [49]
- June 23 – President Truman signs S. 502, authorizing subsidies payments and purchases during the upcoming fiscal year as well as set maximum limits on 1946 occurrences. President Truman says he signed the bill "because continuance of these subsidy payments is essential to assure necessary war output and to provide support for the stabilization program." [50]
- June 26 – The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.
- June 27 – President Truman holds a news conference, the fifteenth of his presidency, at Memorial Hall in Independence, Missouri during the afternoon. [51]
- June 29 – The House passes Truman-backed legislation making the Speaker of the House after the Vice President in the United States presidential line of succession. [52] French press reports President Truman wrote in a letter to De Gaulle that General Dwight Eisenhower would be ordered to give France coal from Germany. [53]
- June 30 – Press Secretary Charles G. Ross announces the nomination of James Byrnes for United States Secretary of State by President Truman. [54] Several Truman appointees, namely Clinton Anderson, Lewis Schwellenbach, Robert Hannegan, and Tom Clark, take over their respective departments. [55]
July
- July 1 – Truman returns to Washington amid reports that he will discuss the topics of his recent overseas ventures and legislation calling for the US to participate in the world court. The document of the legislation is delivered to President Truman in the afternoon. [56] The American group of the allied control council adopts a program meant to decentralize Germany by breaking it up into regions. [57]
- July 2 – James Byrnes is confirmed for Secretary of State by the Senate. [58]
- July 3 – President Truman issues a statement on the upcoming Independence Day: "Let us honor our nation's creed and liberty, and the men and women of our armed forces who are carrying this creed with them throughout the world." [59]
- July 4 – The United States Navy announces a meeting has been held in San Francisco between United States Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and high level officers within the Navy during the prior weekend on the ongoing war with Japan. [60]
- July 5 – United States Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson reveals an unspecified number of American troops have been deployed to the Pacific, saying he could not reveal the exact number while in Washington. [61]
- July 6 – United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull is discharged from the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. [62]
- July 7 – The Department of War announces that 42 divisions which fought in either Germany or the Mediterranean are expected to return by the end of the year. [63]
- July 8 – The Department of War releases the number of Navy branch service members either killed, wounded, or missing in action. [64]
- July 9 – David Lawrence has his argument for Japan to surrender broadcast to the country by the office of war information. [65]
- July 10 – The Department of War reveals new list of American army personnel liberated in Germany. [66]
- July 11 – United States Under Secretary of the Navy Artemus Gates says over 17,000 Japanese planes have been obliterated by US forces since the Pearl Harbor attack. [67]
- July 16 – The U.S. conducts the Trinity test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, the first test of a nuclear weapon.
- July 17 – Potsdam Conference
- July 18 – An appeal is made public that calls for President Truman to use US diplomatic and economic power during the Potsdam conference to support the fair elections in Poland and promised by Yalta after being presented at the White House for the purpose of relaying to President Truman. The appeal includes signatures from several notable individuals including Herbert Hoover, Alfred M. Landon, and John Dewey. [68]
- July 20 – United States Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes announces intentions to send 6,000,000 tons of coal to Europe by the start of the following year. [69]
- July 21 – President Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin hold their fifth three-hour meeting in Potsdam, Germany. An announcement, from the American compound, states the conference's work is going forward and "serious business" would be done. [70]
- July 26 – The Labour Party win the United Kingdom general election by a landslide. The new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Clement Attlee replaces Churchill at the negotiating table at Potsdam. The Potsdam Declaration is issued.
- July 28 – The Senate ratifies the charter that will secure the US joining the League of Nations in a vote of 89 to 2. [71]
August
- August 2 – The Potsdam Conference adjourns. Allied leaders release a joint report on the Potsdam Conference simultaneously in Washington, Moscow, and London. [72]
- August 4 – President Truman vetoes H.R. 3549, which would provide property to Norwich University. Of his decision to veto, President Truman says, "Individual enactments to provide relief in specific situations, or to govern special cases, which in effect are exceptions or amendments to the present law, it seems to me should be discouraged as detrimental to a sound public policy in a Government program of this character." [73]
- August 6 – The B-29 bomber Enola Gay drops the first atomic bomb "Little Boy" on Hiroshima.
- August 8 – The Soviet Union declares war on Japan; the Soviet invasion of Manchuria begins about an hour later which includes landings on the Kuril Islands. The Japanese have been evacuating in anticipation of this.
- August 9 – President Truman says the allied forces are willing and determined in their quest for peace during a radio report. [74] The B-29 bomber Bockscar drops the second atomic bomb "Fat Man" on Nagasaki.
- August 14 – President Truman holds the eighteenth press conference of his presidency at the White House, speaking and answering questions on foreign affairs in the presence of members of both his family and cabinet. [75]
- August 15 – Surrender of the Empire of Japan announced.
- August 16 – President Truman requests the renewal of the war time no-strike pledge by organized labor. President Truman slightly relaxes wage controls to meet the reconversion period with expediency. [76]
- August 17 – President Truman agrees to liquidate the lend lease program as quickly as possible following a conference with cabinet members. [77]
- August 23 – President Truman holds the twentieth news conference of his tenure at the White House, discussing his administration's foreign policy. [78]
- August 24 – President Truman releases a memorandum about the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944. [79]
- August 25 – President Truman issues a statement concerning the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. [80]
September
- September 1 – President Truman says, during the night hours via radio broadcast, that the following day will be "V-J day" in reference to the surrender of Japan. [81] United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes pledges changes within Japan to allow for a government inclined to peace. [82] The Navy announces its intention to release, through the demobilization program, 75,000 officers and 790,000 enlisted personnel by the end of the year. [83] Assistant War Secretary McCloy holds a broadcast discussion where he alludes to the allied occupation in Germany being nowhere near ending soon. [84]
- September 2 – The Japanese Instrument of Surrender is signed on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
- September 5 – President Truman says the White House meeting of the Roosevelt Memorial Association "was well attended, and the various proposals for memorials were discussed, and it was finally agreed to appoint a committee to nominate officers for the Roosevelt Memorial Association into an enlarged executive committee and to study plans and call another meeting to report back to the Executive Committee again" during the twenty-third news conference of his tenure in the afternoon. [85]
- September 6 – The US Initial Post-Surrender Policy for Japan, which governs US policy in the occupation of Japan, is approved by Truman.
- September 12 – President Truman holds the twenty-fifth news conference of his presidency in his office during the morning hours. [86]
- September 13 – President Truman commemorates the eighty-fifth birthday of John J. Pershing. [87]
- September 19 – President Truman discusses demobilizing the military: "Between now and Christmas the discharge rate will steadily rise from the present daily figure of 15,200 to not less than 22,000 per day and by January, 1946, to more than 25,000 per day." [88]
- September 20 – President Truman accepts the resignation of Henry L. Stimson as United States Secretary of War in a letter. [89]
October
- October 1 – Harold Hitz Burton is sworn as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. [90] United States Secretary of Labor Lewis B. Schwellenbach proposes that a binding decision in the oil strike be found by December 1 through an impartial arbitrator. [91]
- October 2 – President Truman promotes the war fund as aiding active service members, giving health and welfare service to Americans within the US, and reliving patients affected by the war in liberated areas during a White House broadcast. [92] The White House announces a postponing of a meeting with Georgy Zhukov due to the latter's illness. [93] The House Military Committee approves legislation indicating President Truman award General George Marshall with a special gold medal. [94]
- October 3 – President Truman sends a special message to congress announcing the beginning of talks with other nations about the use of atomic weapons to assure peace, [95] and urges congress to hastily pass legislation authorizing the St. Lawrence river seaway and power project. [96] Press Secretary Ross says the Palestinian situation remains in a "diplomatic stage" and that President Truman received a telegram from Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Clement Attlee on his desk the prior day during a news conference. [97]
- October 11 – The House votes to pass the first tax cutting bill to have entered Congress in the past 16 years. [98] President Truman tells Congress of a virtual exhaustion of the US$800 million that the US has contributed to international charity under the sponsorship of the United Nations. [99]
- October 12 – Letters by President Truman, in which the latter assigns responsibility to a cabinet member for his reconversion program, are made public by the White House. [100] Congressman Dewey Jackson Short says Congress intends to discover the truth behind the attack on Pearl Harbor during a Republican rally. [101] President Truman gives the Medal of Honor to fifteen service members during a White House mass ceremony. [102]
- October 13 – United States Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Presba Anderson says the recently created UN food and agriculture organization could contribute to the decline of the two thirds of starved individuals across the world while speaking in Washington, D.C. [103]
- October 16 – President Truman publicly states the contents of his discussion with President of Chile Juan Antonio Ríos: "We discussed the mutual desire to strengthen the solidarity of the republics of the Western Hemisphere on the basis of the ideals for which the war was fought and won." [104]
- October 18 – President Truman holds the thirtieth news conference of his tenure during the morning hours at the White House, speaking about American relations with Russia and domestic issues such as a Kansas district judgeship vacancy. [105]
- October 27 – President Truman attends the commission of the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York City during the morning. [106]
- October 30 – President Truman conducts a radio broadcast on the economy as it relates to reconversion of the American dollar. [107]
- October 31 – President Truman holds the thirty-second news conference of his presidency at his White House office during the morning, answering questions on his administration's foreign policy. [108]
November
- November 1 – President Truman announces in a statement that "Ambassador Pauley and his staff will work in close cooperation with General MacArthur and his staff" to end aggression on the part of Japan. [109]
- November 5 – President Truman delivers a speech at the Labor Management Conference opening session in the Departmental Auditorium during the afternoon. [110]
- November 7 – The White House announces that in four days President Truman, Prime Minister of Britain Clement Attlee, and Prime Minister of Canada William Lyon Mackenzie King will hold a meeting on Anglo-American policy in regards to the atomic bomb while the three are on the USS Potomac (AG-25). [111]
- November 8 – The House holds hearings on the draft of a peacetime conscription proposal by President Truman; these sessions last two hours before ending quickly by opposition in the house military affairs committee erupting while United States Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson is testifying for congress to adopt the proposal as a guarantee of peace within the world and national defense in the future. [112]
- November 9 – President Truman signs a tax reduction bill of US$5,920,000,000. [113]
- November 13 – President Truman sends a message to Congress on American involvement in regards to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. [114]
- November 15 – President Truman holds the thirty-third press conference of his presidency in his White House office during the morning. [115]
- November 20 – President Truman holds a news conference, the thirty-fourth of his tenure, at his White House office in the afternoon. [116]
- November 28 – A letter is transmitted from President Truman that details the occupation of Germany to the Secretaries of State, the Navy, and War. [117]
- November 29 – President Truman holds a news conference, the thirty-fifth of his tenure, addressing the administration's foreign policy. [118]
December
- December 2 – Congressional sources reveal the Truman administration is spending US$82,000 of taxpayer money on a daily basis for the broadcasting of both swing music and news summaries to other countries. [119]
- December 3 – The US military government office announces the ordered destruction of an additional eight German war plants. [120]
- December 4 – The US Senate votes for the US to become part of the new league of nations as well as for President Truman to have authorization to send US troops to war for foreign nations without Congress's approval. [121]
- December 5 – A bill advocating President Truman's fact finding and cooling off in industrial disputes recommendations is introduced in the lower chamber of Congress. [122]
- December 6 – President Truman signs the Government Corporation Control Act, requiring budgetary programs be sent to the Bureau of the Budget on the part of corporations as well as submitting to the General Accounting Office their expenditures to the audit. [123]
- December 7 – President Truman holds the thirty-seventh news conference of his tenure at the White House in the afternoon. [124]
- December 10 – The Allies release a joint statement on wartime trade control removal during the morning. [125]
- December 12 – President Truman holds the thirty-eighth news conference of his presidency in the morning at the White House, speaking about domestic issues such as appointments. [126]
- December 15 – President Truman releases a statement calling for the cessation of hostilities be arranged between the armies of the National Government and the Chinese Communists and other dissident Chinese armed forces in order to bring about the unification of the country. [127]
- December 17 – President Truman vetoes H. R. 1862, which he says in a statement "would extend preferential rank and retirement benefits to a particular group in one of the branches of our armed forces, and would not take into account the matter of rank and other benefits for personnel holding comparable assignments within other branches." [128]
- December 18 – The House passes the United Nations organization bill in a vote of 344 to 15; Truman is now authorized to declare war without Congress's approval. [129]
- December 19 – President Truman sends a message to Congress endorsing the possible creation of a department for national defense. [130]
- December 20 – President Truman declares that boards dedicated to fact finding on investigative strikes should be allowed to examine the books of employers due to his belief that the earnings of a company are relevant to wage disputes. [131]
- December 22 – During the night hours, President Truman calls on the US to allow immigration of at least 39,000 a year as part of a quota fulfillment. [132]
- December 23 – President Truman issues a memorandum stating the reasons behind his displease with H. R. 4407, citing its effects on appropriations through reductions and breaking up of public employment offices. [133]
- December 26 – During a press conference at his federal building offices, President Truman announces his legislative proposals will be revealed publicly during a radio address set to be conducted in the first week of the following month. [134]
- December 27 – President Truman talks with William Southern, and members of the staff of The Independence Examiner at the newspaper's offices. Truman leaves in the night hours to return to Washington, concluding his Christmas vacation. [135]
- December 28 – Truman meets with members of his family at the White House before signing 61 bills and leaving for a cruise intended to last five days. [136]
- December 29 – Secretary of State Byrnes travels on the USS Williamsburg in order to give President Truman a report on his trip to Moscow. [137]
