Timeline
1884 - 1945 | 1948 - 1982
1948 |
February 2: Truman sends a message to Congress asking for civil rights legislation to secure the rights of the country's minority groups.
 April 3: Truman signs the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948, creating a European Recovery Program (ERP) to implement the Marshall Plan for U. S. aid to European recovery. An Economic Cooperation Administration is established to administer the program.
June 25: Truman signs the Displaced Persons Act authorizing admission into the United States of 205,000 European displaced persons over the following two years.
June 26: Truman orders an airlift of supplies into Berlin, in conjunction with the British, in answer to a Russian blockade of the portion of that city occupied by the Western powers. The blockade will last until May 12, 1949.
July 15: Truman is nominated Democratic candidate for president on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, after thirty-five delegates from Alabama and Mississippi walk out of the convention in protest against a strong civil rights plank in the party platform. Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky is chosen as Truman's vice-presidential candidate.
 September 6-October 30: Truman makes several extensive campaign trips, traveling through all sections of the country except the South. Calling it a "whistle stop" campaign, he makes 275 speeches, centering his attack upon the record of the "do-nothing 80th Congress," and travels about 22,000 miles.
November 2: Truman is elected to his second term as president, contrary to the forecasts of newspapers and poll takers, who had almost unanimously predicted his defeat.
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1949 |
January 20: Truman is inaugurated for his second term. In his inaugural address, he calls for a "bold new program" to help underprivileged peoples of the earth (Point IV Program).
August 10: Truman signs the National Security Act Amendment, establishing a unified Department of Defense.
 August 24: Truman proclaims the North Atlantic Pact, which has been signed by twelve nations in Washington on April 4th, to be in effect. Implementation of the pact is entrusted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
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1950 |
January 31: Truman reveals that he had ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to develop the hydrogen bomb.
 June 26: Truman orders U. S. air and sea forces to aid South Korean troops in resisting the Communist forces of North Korea, which had invaded South Korea the day before.
June 30: Truman announces that he had ordered American ground forces in Japan sent to Korea and the navy to blockade the Korean coast. The president's Korean policy is backed by the U. N. Security Council. General Douglas MacArthur, the American commander in Japan, is put in charge of all U. N. troops in the area, which include forces from other nations.
July 19: President Truman sends a message to Congress asking for a supplemental appropriation to support the Korean police action and for measures to control the country's economy.
December 6: Truman writes a personal letter to music critic Paul Hume, assailing him for his "lousy review" of a recital given by Truman's daughter Margaret. The president's strong language arouses public controversy, but the majority of mail is in his favor.
December 16: Truman proclaims a state of national emergency following the entry of Communist China into the Korean conflict on November 6, after U. N. forces take over most of North Korea.
 April 11: Truman relieves MacArthur of all posts as commander of American and U. N. forces in the Far East for making statements critical of the government's military and foreign policies in that area. Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway replaces MacArthur.
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1952 |
 Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president.
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1953 |
January 20: Truman attends the inauguration of President Eisenhower and then leaves by train for Independence, Missouri.
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1953-55 |
Truman works on his memoirs, the first volume of which, Year of Decisions , is published in November 1955. The second volume, Years of Trial and Hope , will appear the following year.
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1955 |
May 8: On his seventy-first birthday, Truman breaks ground for the construction of a privately financed Harry S. Truman Library building.
August 12: The Presidential Libraries Act is signed, authorizing the General Services Administration to accept the papers of U. S. presidents, and the land, buildings, and equipment that are offered for a "Presidential archival depository."
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1956 |
April 21: Truman attends the marriage of his daughter, Mary Margaret, to E. Clifton Daniel, Jr., well-known newspaperman, in Trinity Episcopal Church, Independence, Missouri. Four grandsons will be born in 1957,1959, 1963, and 1966.
May 11 - July 3: With his wife, Bess, Truman tours Europe. He visits historical sites, meets with a number of European leaders, including Winston Churchill, has an audience with Pope Pius XII, and receives numerous honors, including an honorary degree from Oxford University on June 20.
August: Truman announces his support of Governor Averell Harriman for the Democratic party's nomination for the presidency, but after the party's national convention selects Adlai Stevenson, Truman campaigns for Stevenson instead.
July 6: Truman participates in the dedication of the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri; it is the second presidential library to become part of the National Archives and Records Service.
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1957 |
President Eisenhower sends Federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce desegregation of the public schools.
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1959 |
April 19: Truman participates in the dedication of his birthplace home in Lamar, Missouri. It is purchased and restored by the United Auto Workers union, and then accepted by the state as a gift.
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1960 |
Truman publishes Mr. Citizen, a book about his post-presidential experiences.
 October 8 - November 4: Truman conducts a vigorous campaign speaking tour across the country on behalf of presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, who will be elected president.
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1961 |
January 20: With his wife and daughter, Truman is a guest in the White House on inauguration day. It is their first visit there in eight years.
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1963 |
May 29: A large statue of Truman is unveiled in Athens, Greece, commemorating Truman as one of Greece's "greatest benefactors."
November 26: Truman attends the funeral of President Kennedy and meets afterward with Eisenhower, affecting, to the press, a final "reconciliation" between these two former political adversaries.
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1964 |
March 11-13: Truman attends the funeral of King Paul I in Athens, Greece, as President Johnson's personal representative.
August 2: The U.S.S. Maddox is allegedly torpedoed by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin.
May 8: Truman becomes the first former president to address the U. S. Senate while it is in formal session. The Senate honors him on his eightieth birthday.
June 25: Truman receives from the South Korean ambassador to the United States the "Order of Merit for the National Foundation Joongjang," the republic's highest honor.
July 30: Truman participates in a ceremony at the Truman Library during which President Johnson signs the Medicare bill, an event that Truman describes as a "profound personal experience for me." Mr. and Mrs. Truman will receive Medicare registration cards numbers one and two in January 1966.
 November: Lyndon Johnson is elected president.
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1965 |
March 8: The first American combat troops arrive in Vietnam.
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1966 |
January 20: Truman takes part in a ceremony at the Truman Library announcing the founding of the Harry S. Truman Center for the Advancement of Peace, to be constructed in Jerusalem.
July 4: Truman makes his last appearance as a speaker at the eighth annual July 4th celebration on the Truman Library grounds.
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1968 |
April 4: Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated.
June 5: Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated.
 Richard Nixon is elected president.
October 12: Truman looks on as President Johnson signs a bill, in the Truman home, designating October 24, 1968 as U. N. Day. The president also issues a proclamation noting Truman's part in creating the United Nations organization in 1945.
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1969 |
 March 21: Truman is visited by President and Mrs. Nixon, after which President Nixon presents the Truman Library with a Steinway piano that had been in the White House during Truman's presidency.
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1970 |
National Guardsmen open fire on a crowd of student antiwar protesters at Ohio's Kent State University.
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1971 |
December 29: With wife Bess, daughter Margaret, and son-in-law E. Clifton Daniel, Truman tours the Truman Library for the last time and views the film "For All the People" -- a new motion picture designed for the orientation of museum visitors.
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1972 |
December 26: Truman dies at the age of eighty-eight.
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1982 |
October 18: Bess Truman dies at the age of ninety-seven.
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1884 - 1945 | 1948 - 1982
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