Truman Born: The Haberdasher Who Shaped the Cold War
He was a farmer's son from Missouri who wound up dropping two atomic bombs without being the president who ordered them. Harry S. Truman was born in Lamar in 1884 and hadn't finished college when he entered politics. He became FDR's vice president and inherited the presidency 82 days later. He ended World War II, integrated the military, launched the Marshall Plan, and kept the Korean War from becoming a nuclear one. He left office with a 22% approval rating. Historians now rank him among the top ten presidents.
May 8, 1884
142 years ago
What Else Happened on May 8
The Zhi family thought they'd won when they flooded Jinyang's walls—until the Zhao and Wei families switched sides mid-siege and turned those same waters agains…
The emperor who famously cared more about his chickens than his empire signed tax relief for seven Italian provinces in 413—after the Visigoths had already burn…
King Reccared I convened the Third Council of Toledo to formally renounce his Arian faith in favor of Nicene Christianity. This conversion unified the Visigothi…
The bishops who walked into Toledo that May carried weapons under their robes. Visigothic Arianism had ruled Spain for two centuries—father and son weren't the …
King Edward III and King John II halted the Hundred Years' War by signing the Treaty of Brétigny, granting England sovereignty over vast swathes of southwestern…
She asked for death and got sixteen visions instead. Julian of Norwich, thirty years old and desperately ill in May 1373, received last rites from her priest. T…
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