Rosa Parks

On December 1st 1955 Rosa Parks made history by refusing to move to the back of city bus after the bus driver repeatedly asked her to move. The bus driver threatened to have her arrested but Miss. Parks refused to move. Unfortunately the bus driver went through with his actions and she was arrested. She was taken to the Montgomery's Alabama Police station. Her case was not very unique though. African Americans were always getting in trouble for disobeying the segregation laws. Previous to the year before though the Brown V. Education law was passed that stated educational segregation was inherently illegal. This made Rosa Parks want to fight even more for her rights. Rosa started putting on strikes against the bus company. She got as many African Americans who rode the buss' to stop, this comprised 70% of the bus riding community. The boycott was extremely successful lasting over a year! Although a great achievement Rosa and her family were discriminated against even more. Her family members loosing jobs, getting into altercations, it was not a safe environment for the Parks family. Parks received numerous awards, including an honorary degree from Shaw College in Detroit, the 1979 NAACP Spingarn Medal, and an annual Freedom Award presented in her honor by the SCLC. In 1980 she was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize and in 1984 the Eleanor Roosevelt Women of Courage Award. In 1988 she founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to train African American youth for leadership roles, and began serving as the institute's president. In 1989 her accomplishments were honored at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Rosa Parks risked practically her life for African American which is why she is such an outstanding women that people today still look up to.

Tuskegee Airmen

Because of racial discrimination, blacks were never allowed on any lead or combat roles in the army. However, many blacks were willing to fight for the U.S. during the WWII. In the beginning, U.S. still had doubts about letting blacks pilot planes. However, in 1942, there were 5 out standing Black pilots who won the silver wings of Army Air Forces polots. Because their outstanding performance the Tuskegee Airmen was formed. It was U.S.’s first all Black air force.

Tuskegee Airmen were well trained and educated team. It managed to fought in 200 battles without losing any bombers. They fought against Germany in Italy, Destroyed over 1,000 German aircrafts. They received hundreds of air medals.

The Tuskegee Airmen opened the gate way for Blacks into the combat field of army. It proved their ability to be just as strong as any one else. It was also one step toward racial equality.

Katherine

50's culture

The 50’s saw the beginning of many of the things we take for granted today, the most notable being the television. Early TVs showed only a small black and white picture with broadcast a couple hours a week. Early programs only reached about 9% of Americans. But WWII inventions such as microwave relay made television much more practical. Industry quickly took advantage of there new advertising opportunity, spending 170 million dollars one television ads in 1950 and 2 billion in1960. Despite all this TV was not universally accepted. People feared the effect that shows with stereotypical roles would have on children. Also most shows were centered around rich white men, rarely showing minorities or people in poverty. Despite TVs new popularity radio still remained a part of people’s lives. They did so not by opposing TV but by moving in a different direction. Stations that previously played dramas or variety shows moved to news or music.

by Spencer

Tuskegee Airmen

The Tuskegee Airmen was the name of a popular African American Air Force Unit who fought during WWII. Before the war, African Americans were still living under segregation as well as being subject to Jim Crowe Laws. Despite African American racism, a series of legislative moves by the congress forced the U.S. army to form an all-black air force combat unit. Army officials were reluctant to enlist black soldiers so they set up conditions to enlist much like what society did for black voting rights. The War Department required the applicants to have a high level of experience of flying and education. Unfortunately for them, there was an abundance of applicants who qualified for these terms.

On June 1941, the Tuskegee program formed the 99th Fighter Squadron unit.The 99th was successful during their first mission to attack the island of Pantelleria in the Mediterranean Sea. However, the army generals tried hard to convince to the society that the Tuskegee program was a failure. Colonel Momyer told the media that the unit’s pilots were cowards which were posted in an article in TIME. Despite the false criticisms perceived by the media, the Tuskegee program was given a second chance. Shortly after, the 332 Fighter Group was formed.

By the end of the war, The Tuskegee Airmen shot down 112 Luftwaffe planes and embarked on over 1500 missions. Additionally, the 99th received 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 8 Purple Hearts, 14 Bronze Stars and 744 Air Medals. By forming the Tuskegee Airmen, African Americans showed their determination to fight for their country, and their rights.

McCarthyism

During the time anti-Communist fever was sweeping the nation, one senator saw the opportunity to make a name for himself and garner supporters. That man was Senator Joseph McCarthy.

McCarthy, after his first three years in the Senate, had become known for being an ineffective legislator. Realizing that his unpopularity put his reelection to the Senate at risk, McCarthy took advantage of anti-Communist sentiment and charged that Communists were taking over the government.

McCarthy repeatedly made one untenable accusation after another about who the Communists were in the government. This act of accusation without evidence became known as McCarthyism. McCarthy eventually claimed, at three separate times, that there were 57, 81, and 205 Communists in the State Department. He even charged that the Democratic Party was guilty for allowing Communist infiltration into the government. Such slander would have gotten McCarthy sued had it not been for his legal immunity in the Senate that protected him. McCarthy’s own party, the Republicans, did not moderate his actions because they believed he would win the 1952 presidential election if the public saw McCarthy cleansing the nation of Communists.

However, McCarthy finally went too far when he accused the U.S. Army of harboring and being Communist. This led to a nationally televised Senate investigation that resulted in the Senate condemning him for his dishonest actions. McCarthy, who suffered from alcoholism, died three years later a broken and dishonored man.

by Jonathan Marson and Andy Yeh

Vietnam war "Short" summary

Johnson was the central figure when it comes to the US involvement in Vietnam. His vision was to stop the spread of communist aggression, and others shared this theory like Eisenhower, Kennedy and Truman. In the year 1964, the Northern Vietnamese apparently attacked two US destroyers. Thus, in the year 1965, the US began regularly bombing the Northern railroads, bridges and oil facilities as well as the HaiPhong harbor. With the Vietcong attack of an US base in Pleiku, the Americans were now fully involved and Operation Flaming dart came next. In April of the year 1965, Johnson was all set to Americanize this Vietnam War and sent more than 40 thousand troops to Vietnam. By mid June, Johnson was told to send in more troops in order to prevent South Vietnam’s collapse. Thus America had to plunge directly into the war, which was a better option at that time than facing defeat.

1) About 58,200 Americans were killed during the war and roughly 304,000 were wounded out of the 2.59 million who served the war.

2) The average age of the wounded and dead was 23.11 years.

3) After the war, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and The Philippines stayed free of communism.

4) During the war, the national debt was increased by $146 billion.

5) 90% of the Vietnam War veterans say they are glad they served in the war.

6) 74% say they would serve again.

7) 11,465 were less than the age of 20.

8) The number of Vietnamese killed was 500,000 and casualties were in the millions.

9) From the year 1957 to the year 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated nearly 37,000 South Vietnamese and nearly 58,500 were abducted. Death squads mainly focused on leaders like minor officials and schoolteachers.

10) Nearly two-thirds of the men serving the war were volunteers.

Japanese Concentration Camps in America

The sequence of events which led to the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans in prison camps began in 1931, when militarists gained control of the Japanese government and seized control of Manchuria. In the following years, Japan expanded its conquest to other parts of Asia. On December 6, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor because the United States was seen as a potential obstacle to its expansionist agenda.

The attack on Pearl Harbor, along with growing anti-Asiatic sentiments, fueled America’s distrust of the Japanese. In fact, the country became so paranoid that it began to consider American citizens of Japanese descent potential threats to national security. In 1942, the War Department ordered the internment of 1,444 Hawaiian Japanese-Americans and about 110,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. These people were evicted from their property, ordered to bring only what they could carry, and shipped to prison camps even though there was no evidence of their disloyalty or subversion. Though the situation in the United States was not nearly as horrific as in Europe, the mass relocation and imprisonment of Japanese Americans bore some resemblances to the Nazis' treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. As Ms. Niizuma pointed out, internees ate out of German-made bowls--a haunting reminder of these parallels. It was also shocking that two-thirds of these internees were Nisei—people born in the country to immigrant parents. To these Nisei, it was disturbing and insulting that they were under suspicion, because their allegiance was with the country they were born and raised in: the United States.

Throughout the process, Japanese Americans fought for their rights. In Korematsu v. United States, however, the Supreme Court justified the confinement of Japanese Americans to internment camps as a military necessity. This lamentable breach of justice did not deter the Japanese Americans: after the war, they formed the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and eventually convinced Congress to spend $38 million to compensate for the lost property. Later, in 1978, President Reagan authorized a bill delivering $20,000 in reparations to each surviving individual who had been imprisoned in relocation camps. Nonetheless, this monetary compensation amounted to only a fraction of the losses Japanese Americans suffered during relocation, which included lost property, terminated businesses, and emotional trauma. In 1990, fifty eight (58) years after the relocation, President George H.W. Bush issued a formal apology for the heinous violation of the 14th Amendment, in which he stated, "We can never fully right the wrongs of the past. But we can take a clear stand for justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans during World War II."

By Vivek C. and Jesús G.

After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, U.S suspicion of Japanese Americans grew rapidly. American citizens, especially in Hawaii, were terrified of another attack. In response to this fear, the United States’ War Department demanded that all people of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii be evacuated immediately. The Governor of Hawaii, General Delos Emmons was strongly opposed to this plan because the Japanese were a huge part of Hawaii’s economy, but he soon had to give in.

In addition to the evacuation of Japanese Hawaiian residents, President Roosevelt signed an order in 1942 saying that all Americans of Japanese decent must be relocated, whether they were citizens or not. This confused and frustrated many Japanese, because they did not see what they had done wrong. Many American’s however were glad this order was put in place because they were worried that there might be Japanese spies who could help Japan form another attack on the U.S.

After the entire Japanese population of Hawaii was removed, another 110,000 Japanese were relocated from the West Coast and put into Concentration camps. Many of these people were American citizens and thought it was ridiculous that they were being stripped of their rights based solely on suspicion. Finally in 1944 the U.S Supreme Court came to the conclusion that it was unconstitutional to keep Japanese in the concentration camps and they were allowed to return home and attempt to rebuild their lives.

-Cory and Ofri

Kennedy and Cuba

The Democratic nominee for president, Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy, promised active leadership "to get America moving again." His opponent was Republican Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Kennedy and Nixon participated in the first televised debate. Kennedy looked and spoke better than Nixon, being coached by television producers. He was elected in November 1960.

Kennedy surrounded himself with a team of advisers that one journalist called "the best and the brightest." He first focused on the Cold War. His administration developed a policy of flexible response. Defense spending was increased and the Special Forces branch was created.

In Cuba, Fidel Castro was gaining power with the help of the Soviets. Some Cubans saw him as a tyrant and therefore sought exile in the United States. Eisenhower had trained the exiles to invade Castro. Kennedy approved the plan. The Cuban exiles landed in the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961. Unfortunately, nothing went as planned. The disaster that resulted embarassed Kennedy, and he accepted blame for the incident.

On Octobert 14, 1962, American planes photographed Soviet missile bases in Cuba with missiles ready to launch. Kennedy ordered the Navy to quarantine Cuba and to prevent ships from coming near it. The Soviet ships stopped to avoid troubles at sea. Khruschev agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba and the US agreed to remove missiles from Turkey.



In November 22, 1963, Kennedy was in the head while in Texas to settle a dispute between Democrats. gg.

-Andrew C and Ben H

The Space Race

The Space Race

The Space Race was a heated competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, as each side tried to match or better the other's accomplishments in exploring outer space. It involved the efforts of both powers to explore outer space with satellites and manned missions, and eventually to land a man on the moon.

The Space Race effectively began after the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. The term "Space Race" originated as an analogy to the arms race. The Space Race became an important part of the cultural, technological, and ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The Sputnik launch changed everything. As a technical achievement, Sputnik caught the world's attention and the American public off-guard. Its size was more impressive than the Vanguard's intended 3.5-pound payload. In addition, the public feared that the Soviets' ability to launch satellites also translated into the capability to launch ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons from Europe to the U.S. Then the Soviets struck again; on November 3, Sputnik II was launched, carrying a much heavier payload, including a dog named Laika.

Immediately after the Sputnik I launch in October, the U.S. Defense Department responded to the political furor by approving funding for another U.S. satellite project. As a simultaneous alternative to Vanguard, Wernher von Braun and his Army Redstone Arsenal team began work on the Explorer project.

On January 31, 1958, the United States successfully launched Explorer I. This satellite carried a small scientific payload that eventually discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, named after principal investigator James Van Allen. The Explorer program continued as a successful series of lightweight, scientifically useful spacecraft, establishing the United States as a primary power in space.

After a series of space programs leading up to the Apollo program, the United States finally had the capability to land a man on the moon. The Apollo 11 mission landed Neil Armstrong on the moon on July 20, 1969. This effectively won the Space Race for the United States.

By: Derek Nielsen and Aston Sun

Rosa Parks

On a cold December 1st night in 1955, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was leaving work for her Montgomery home. Because she was black, Rosa parks was forced to sit at the back of the bus, like other black people of her time. However, she dared to rebel against the norm, and refused to give up her spot. On that December night, Rosa Parks was in the front of the bus when a white man stepped on. The bus driver ordered her to give up her seat to the white man, but she refused. A police officer arrested her, and she was taken away to jail.

Rosa Parks’ defiance of the law sparked a city-wide bus boycott by colored people all around Montgomery. Her act became an important symbol of the modern day civil rights movement and propelled her into international fame. She received many medals for her act, including the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Spingarn Medal in 1979. Upon her death in 2005, Rosa Parks was granted the posthumous honor of lying in sate at the Capital Rotunda.

Rosa Parks was a very courageous figure. A symbol for generations to come, she stood up to an unfair and unjust law for her own beliefs and for her cause. Like Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights leaders, she sacrificed everything, losing her job and getting arrested in the process. She sat for equality, so future generations could stand tall.

By: Yotam Kasznik and Jonas Pinnau

1950's Culture

Culture boomed after World War II, creating the American Dream. A suburban lifestyle made owning an automobile a necessity. Because of the rise in the cars on the road, drive thru and drive-ins became popular. Numerous highways and lifestyles were created.
New products opened a new market, which included washing machines, dryers, blenders, freezers, and dishwashers. Many people bought them on credit as well.
Entertainment was a large part of 1950's culture. Televisions started off as a small box with black and white pictures, but shortly after, new broadcast systems were created. Shows, such as "I Love Lucy" and "The Texaco Star Theater", became enormously popular. Kids shows were also created, such as "Mickey Mouse Club." Movies became more increasingly popular and by 1954 more than 50% of movies were in color. However color television, which became available at the same time, did not become widespread until a decade after.
Rock n' Roll emerged with the African American Culture. From this, Elvis Presley became "The King of Rock n' Roll."
The rise of entertainment brought stereotypes along with it. Women were always stereotyped as the ideal mother or wife. Male characters usually outnumbered female characters for 3 to 1. Minorities were also rarely ever seen on television. TV portrayed a white America.
- Alice and Shany

Japanese Internment Camps

Japanese Internment Camps

On February 19th, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Under this order, 120,000 people of Japanese descent living in the United States were removed from their homes and placed in internment camps. Roosevelt claimed that this was essential to protecting the nation from spies, sabotage, and espionage. Two thirds of the people detained were American citizens, and more than half were children. None had done anything to show disloyalty towards the nation. In some cases, families were broken up and separated in different camps. The only ten people convicted of espionage were all Caucasian.

The Japanese were given just 48 hours to fully evacuate their homes. Consequently, they were easy prey for fortune hunters who offered them far less than market price for their possessions. They were housed in barracks and had to use communal areas for washing, laundry, and eating. Sometimes internees died from inadequate medical care and the high level of emotional stress they suffered. Those taken to camps in desert areas had to cope with the extremes of temperature.As a result, life in the internment camps was difficult.

All internees over the age of seventeen were asked two important questions:

1.) Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty whenever ordered? (Females were asked if they were willing to volunteer for Army Nurse Corps.)

2.) Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attacks by foreign or domestic forces and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, to any other foreign, power, or organization?

It is supremely ironic that the internees were taken from their homes and imprisoned by the United States government, but still asked to serve the United States if the need arose.

By: Derek Nielsen and Aston Sun

Japanese Concentration Camps in America

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor many Americans became worried about the Japanese living within the United States. On February 19, 1942, president Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066. This ordered the round up of Americans with Japanese heritage. They were sent to one of ten concentration camps where they were locked in and had to live in horrible conditions. The camps were overcrowded and there was no cooking facilities or plumbing of any kind. They ate in huge mess halls and had rationed amounts of food. Many of the young Japanese men enlisted in the army and fought for the America even though America had their families locked up like animals. When the Japanese were sent to the camps they were only allowed to take a few belongings. They lost many of their things and many of the Japanese had to give up their shops and jobs. During World War 2, 120, 000 Japanese were locked up in camps. Two thirds of these people were American Citizens.

Petra

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks was a proud black woman from birth. Her earlier years were fairly decent, due to the kind white people around the area. She first became aware to the racism when the KKK marched down her street to make a point to all the black people in the neighborhood. As she became more active for the cause against the racism in America, she joined the NAACP, a strong activist group fighting the racism everywhere. She was outrage by incident with the 15-year-old black girl refusing to leave the bus. This encouraged her to act upon the anger the black people were holding in due to this incident. Her first response was the same action, just with more at stake. When she refused to get off the white section of the bus. When she did that she was able to start the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This devastated the Bus Transportation System.

Culture of the 1950's

During World War II, many of the nation's young men went off to war, which caused women to take over many of the jobs that had previously been reserved for males. However, during the 1950's the old gender roles were reestablished. Men were supposed to work to support their families, and women were supposed to stay at home and take care of the house. The United States had entered a period of conformity--people were more likely to go along with the current social norms rather than introduce new ideas. This conformity was helped along by the rising popularity of television, which allowed Americans to all see the same thing. TV gave the country a more standardized definition of what was normal.

However, some artists and authors did rebel, and they became known as the "beat generation." In general, American society valued reason over intuition. The beat generation focused on the importance of intuition and spiritualism. They rejected Western religion and instead went with more Eastern religions. A poet who rebelled against modern industrialized civilization was Allen Ginzberg. The police declared that his poem "Howl" was offensive, and so they removed all of the published copies of it. However, Ginberg went to court and won. A very popular singer at that time was Elvis Presley, whose rock and roll songs popularized black music. Many of the people who preferred to conform were shocked by his music and dances.

These social rebellions laid the foundation for bigger changes in the 1960's.

~By Erin M

Japanese Internment Camps

In 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. This started the war in Japan, which lead to the bombings of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. It caused hatred for Japanese people not only in Japan, but also in the United States. The differences in culture didn't help very much either.

Japanese people all over the United States were discriminated against. There had been anti-immigration attitudes in the past, but this was a lot worse. They were sent to internment camps where they were separated from their families and friends for long periods of time. They had to leave their homes and businesses to live in other in far away places. Sometimes in other states. These internment camps were uncomfortable, and cramped. Most of them were on the West Coast because of it's proximity to Japan.

Newspapers at the time were full of propaganda. These internment camps were said to be necessary. They rationalized everything they did in the newspaper. Because people didn't really like Japanese people, they didn't mind too much.

Regardless of everything they went through, a lot of Japanese people were still proud to be American. They were still loyal as ever, and some of them fought for the US in WWII.

Harry Truman’s Presidency

When Harry Truman became president he faced many of the United States problems head on. The challenges were the raising threat if communism, and also bring back the nations economy to a strong state. The economic problem that Truman had to put his mind on was riots, many people facing high prices on things and also the wages that people were getting paid. He made many narrow minded statements threatening to draft worker to work in the mines, and also to take control of all the railroads. In 1947 the Taft Hartley act was passed over Truman’s veto. This bill made it so that many bills were overturned and also rights were won back. Which mad the new deal work more smoothly. In 1946 Truman put everything on the line when the talk about civil rights was on the table. “ I am asking for equality of opportunity for all human beings” pgs 637. Truman congress did not approve of any civil rights equality, So every bill or act that Truman bought to them they shot him down. But 1948 Truman took a stand for .

Space Program

The space race began when on April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union put a human in space- a man named Yuri A. Gargarin. Kennedy decided that America would surpass the Soviets (and therefore communism) by sending a man to the moon. First, they would put a human in space, showing that they could match the Soviets. They did so a month later. Meanwhile, NASA was constructing new launch facilities in Florida and a control center in Texas. On July 20, 1969, the US would put Neil Armstrong onto the moon. They beat the Soviets to the moon; but more space exploration would have to wait a long time. The space program begun in 1961 would expand university science programs, give rise to new industries and new consumer goods. It would create new jobs in space and defense related industries.

Vietnam “War”

The Vietnam "War" was never officially called a war, simply because Congress had never officially declared it one. It would begin with US involvement in the 1950, when the US allied with the French when France attempted to reassert its rule in attempt to keep communism from spreading. The Vietminh, the communist group in Vietnam the time, eventually drove out the French in May 1954, and the US began to take a direct hand.

The US stepped in and interfered with elections to keep a communist leader from taking leadership of Vietnamese. Diem, the US puppet reneged on the agreement and set up a corrupt government, fomenting dissent among the people. Diem was assassinated due to his policies, but this only increased the chaos. On August 2, 1964, the US ship USS Maddox was supposedly attacked. The alleged attacked allowed the current president, Johnson to begin attacks in Vietnam. On February of 1965, President Johnson began "Operation Rolling Thunder". This would mark the beginning of the "war".

The war would continue to escalate. By 1967, the number of US troops in Vietnam would increase to 500,000. The war would take a heavy toll moral as American troops fought a war that had different rules than they had fought before. America, both in the field and at home, grew increasingly reluctant to fight.

The war continued to drag on several years after the public insisted on withdrawal as negotiations came to a halt. Finally, on April 30, 1975, the war ended.

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks would become known for her action of refusing to relinquish her seat on the bus to a white man on December 1, 1955 and starting a boycott that would bring even more attention to the civil rights movement. The boycott would last 381 days, approximately one year, and forced the Supreme Court to outlaw segregation. But before her actions on the buss, she had already began to fight segregation. She protested segregation through daily actions, such as refusing to use segregated facilities. In 1943, she joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. When, in 1955, she attended a workshop to promote interracial living, she decided to attempt to fight segregation even more publicly. Rosa Parks would go on to become one of several icons of the Civil Rights Movement. It would cause her many hardships, and as she grew older, she grew increasingly removed from the movement.

Major Battles of WWII: Pacific

World War II in the Pacific was a savage and bloody affair. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese advanced island by island seemingly unstoppably until the Spring of 1942. By then, the Americans had lost in the Philippines, withdrawing at Bataan in March 11, 1942. In the spring of 1942, however, the tide began to turn; Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle led 16 bombers to raid Tokyo. At the battle of Coral Sea in May 1942, the Americans stopped the Japanese invasion for the first time. The Battle of Midway, known by most the turning point of the Pacific War, was when the Allies began gaining ground. After the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the Americans stormed Guadalcanal in August 1942, marking Japan's first defeat. In October of 1944, the Americans reached the Philippines. The Battle of Leyte Gulf marked the first appearance of the kamikaze pilots in the war. Iwo Jima would come after retaking the Philippines. The Battle of Okinawa occurred in April 1945, and was won at a high price, making President Truman decide to use the atomic bomb- although he did not really understand what it was, only that it was a weapon of devastating power. The use of the atomic bomb would mark the ending to the war.