#TBT: President Truman Concludes War War 2

     President Truman, unpopular at the time he left office, has been recognized as among the greatest presidents in American history. Taking office upon the death of popular four-term president Franklin D. Roosevelt, he faced a number of crises in global and domestic affairs.

     Not least among these was World War II. On May 8th, 1945, he celebrated VE Day, or Victory in Europe Day, the defeat of Adolf Hitler and the German Empire (Italy was defeated in 1942). In August, he made the decision to drop two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, weighing the cost of human life in an invasion versus using the bombs. Japan surrendered the next day. 

     In July, Truman attended the Potsdam Conference with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, a conference that laid out the postwar order.