HARRY S. TRUMAN
1945 - 1953
Arizona Timeline
1946 - After WWII ended, the Kingman Army Air Field which was established at the beginning of the war and trained 36,000 B- 17 gunners, became a
storage depot for over 7,000 planes. Most were salvaged.
1948 - Arizona Indians gain right to vote. Motorola builds first plant in Phoenix marking the beginning of high tech industry in Arizona.
1952 - Kingman is incorporated. It becomes the first incorporated city in Mohave County since Chloride incorporated in 1900 and unincorporated in 1916.
Harry s. Truman was born in
Lamar, Missouri, in 1884. He
entered the political arena in
1926, when he was elected
presiding judge of the Jackson
County Court. He went on to the
U. S. Senate and became the vice
presidential nominee in 1944. He
was the first president to give a
speech on television.
Elizabeth Virginia “ Bess”
Wallace Truman was born in
Independence, Missouri, in 1885
and was Harry Truman's
childhood sweetheart. They
married in 1919 right after Harry
Truman was discharged from the
Army as a Captain after WWI.
They had one daughter, Mary
Margaret.
President Harry Truman assumed the Presidency upon Franklin Roosevelt's death in 1945. He finished Roosevelt's term and was elected to another
term in 1948; he chose not to run again after this term. Truman authorized the use of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to end World
War II. He established the Truman Doctrine and also the Marshall Plan. In 1948, when the Russians blockaded Berlin, he organized the Berlin Airlift to
supply food and other necessities to the citizens of the city. When the Communist North Koreans invaded the South in 1950 he took action through the
United Nations to defend South Korea against the invasion. After he left office, he wrote his memoirs and established the Harry S. Truman Memorial
Library. He died in 1972 and is buried in the courtyard of the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. He is famous for his quote “ The Buck Stops
Here”.
Harry and Bess Truman attended the same grade school and high school. Bess went on to Barstow, a girls' finishing school in Kansas City. Bess was her
husband's secretary, when he was chairman of Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. As First Lady, she was a good
hostess but was a private person and avoided the press. She died in 1982.
