Tuesday, November 7, 1944. Roosevelt wins a fourth term.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 7: 1944     President Franklin D. Roosevelt won a fourth term in office, defeating Thomas E. Dewey.

Truman, of course, became his Vice President.

Truman was chosen over prior VP Henry Wallace as Democratic insiders were concerned about Wallace's far left leanings.  People have wondered about how far Wallace went in that direction, but The New Republic, which ironically was featured here just yesterday, and for which Wallace was an editor after he was no longer VP, actually stated that he was a Communist in its 75th anniversary issue.  He was certainly very far left.

He was also an expert on chickens.

Truman had been a small businessman before entering politics and was the last U.S. President to lack a college degree.

Roosevelt in many ways created much of the modern state which the current Republican Party, once again flirting with isolationism, threatens to tear down under Donald Trump, something that got started with Ronald Reagan.

US fighters strafed a Red Army column near Niš, mistaking it for a German column.  Soviet aircraft responded.  There were losses on both sides, but what exactly occured is confusing as it remains classified.

The US took Bloody Ridge on Leyte.

The USS Albacore struck a mine off of Hokkaido and was sunk.

SOE operative Hannah Szenes, age 23, was executed in Hungary, which was controlled by Hungarian fascists at the time.

Last edition:

Monday, November 6, 1944.. The photo.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, British League of Nations Mandates, Canadian Army, Egypt, Iowa, Medicine, Netherlands, Palestine, Scotland (Liverpool), Terrorism, Vichy France, World War Two, Zionism

Friday, July 21, 1944. Landings on Guam.

Following up on the dramatic events of the day prior, German troops poured into Berlin.

Ludwig Beck, 64, Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, 39, and  Claus von Stauffenberg, 36, were executed for their role in the July 20 plot.

Guderian succeeded Kurt Zeitzler, who had suffered a nervous breakdown, as Chief of Staff of the German Army.

US Marines and soldiers of the US Army commenced landing on Guam.  Initial Marine landings met with very little opposition.

The Japanese mounted attacks on US positions at Aitape.

The French Expeditionary Corps was withdrawn from the line in Italy in preparation for Operation Dragoon.

The U-212 was sunk sought of Brighton by the Royal Navy.

Harry S. Truman was nominated by the Democratic Party to run as Roosevelt's Vice President for 1944.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 20, 1944. The July 20 Plot.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, 1944 Election, Adolf Hitler, Battle of Narva, Claus von Stauffenberg, Franklin Roosevelt, German Resistance Movements, Heroes, July 20 Plot, Mussolini, Operation Valkyrie, World War Two

Wednesday, April 14, 1943. Code Breaking With Fatal Results, The Death of Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili.

The Japanese broadcast a coded message regarding a visit to the 8th fleet by Admiral Yamamoto, something that would put in place a dramatic chain of events, as the US had broken the code.

Senator Harry S. Truman appeared as a speaker in Chicago and called for the U.S. to respond directly to the Holocaust.  The rally itself was to draw attention to this cause.

Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, the eldest son of Joseph Stalin, died when he ran into an electric fence at Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Oranienburg, Germany, where he was being held as a Prisoner of War.  He ran into the fence after an argument with British POWs.  

He'd never been mentally stable, and the circumstances of his death may be related to that.

Tuesday, December 26, 1972. Harry S. Truman dies, Operation Lineback II resumes, the Soviet Union changes Chinese sounding names.

Harry S. Truman died at age 88.

His health had been in steady decline since 1964, when he sustained a fall.

The former President and his wife Bess held the first and second Medicare Cards, conveyed upon them by President Johnson in honor of their support for government health care, something he was far ahead of his time on, and depending upon your views, something that the country still has not caught up with.

220 American aircraft hit targets over North Vietnam over a fifteen-minute period.  A missile assembly facility together with airbases and radar installations were destroyed.

Truman was the last U.S. President who did not hold a university degree.  He had a fairly difficult early life, in no small part due to the economic conditions that prevailed in Missouri and his humble beginnings.  His service in World War One, which he entered through the Missouri National Guard and in which he became an officer, started his rise to later office.  Indeed, in no small way, the Missouri artilleryman of World War One would not have become President but for that experience.

This set the stage, combined with airstrikes over the next three days, for a return by North Vietnam to the Paris Peace Talks.

The Soviets changed the name of nine cities in Siberia that had been seized by Imperial Russia from China in the 1860. The prior names, the Soviets thought, sounded too Chinese.