Harry S. Truman

Described as

president of the United States from 1945 to 1953; politician (1884–1972)

Other names

President Truman, Harry Truman, H. Truman, H. S. Truman, Harry S Truman, Truman

Born

May 8, 1884 · 19 references

Died

December 26, 1972 · 21 references

Born in

Harry S Truman Birthplace State Historic Site · 5 references

Died in

Research Medical Center · 5 references

Buried in

Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum · 3 references

Cause of death

multiple organ dysfunction syndrome · 1 reference; pneumonia · 1 reference

Citizen of

United States · 2 references

Occupation

politician · 3 references; judge · 2 references; businessperson · 1 reference; military officer; diarist · 1 reference; captain · 1 reference

Positions held

President of the United States (1945–1953); Vice President of the United States (1945); Governor-General of the Philippines; United States senator (1935–1945) · 1 reference; senator · 1 reference

Political party

Democratic Party · 2 references

Education

University of Missouri–Kansas City; William Chrisman High School · 1 reference

Member of

American Legion · 1 reference; Freemasonry; Veterans of Foreign Wars

Awards

Congressional Gold Medal; Armed Forces Reserve Medal; World War II Victory Medal; Silver T-Square Award (1950) · 1 reference

Spouse

Bess Truman (1919–1972) · 2 references

Children

Margaret Truman · 3 references

Father

John Anderson Truman · 1 reference

Mother

Martha Ellen Young Truman · 1 reference

Religion

Baptists · 1 reference

Military branch

United States Army

Military rank

captain; Major · 1 reference; colonel · 1 reference

Height

1.75 m (5 ft 9 in) · 1 reference

Wikipedias with a page

200

Wikidata item Q11613 (wikidata.org/wiki/Q11613), public domain (CC0). Copied November 13, 2026.

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April. Truman set up the Marshall Plan to rebuild the badly damaged economy of Western Europe. He established the Truman Doctrine and supported the founding of NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. A member of the Democratic Party, he proposed numerous New Deal coalition liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated the United States Congress.
Born in rural Missouri, Truman was raised in Independence, Missouri, and during World War I, he fought in France as a captain in the Field Artillery. Returning home, he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, and was elected as a judge of Jackson County in 1922. Truman was elected to the U.S. Senate for Missouri in 1934. Between 1940 and 1944, he gained national prominence as the chairman of the Truman Committee, which aimed to reduce waste and inefficiency in wartime contracts. Truman was elected vice president in the 1944 presidential election and became president upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945. Only then was he told about the ongoing Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. Truman authorized the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Truman's administration engaged in an internationalist foreign policy by working closely with Britain. Truman staunchly denounced isolationism. He energized the New Deal coalition during the 1948 presidential election, despite some Democrats splitting off into the Dixiecrats, and defeated both the Republican Party nominee Thomas E. Dewey and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. Truman presided over the onset of the Cold War in 1947. He oversaw the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan in 1948. With America's involvement in the Korean War (1950–1953), South Korea repelled the invasion by North Korea. Domestically, the postwar economic challenges such as strikes and inflation created a mixed reaction over the effectiveness of his administration. In 1948, he proposed that Congress should pass comprehensive civil rights legislation. Congress refused, so Truman issued Executive Order 9980 and Executive Order 9981, which prohibited discrimination in agencies of the federal government and desegregated the United States Armed Forces.
Investigations revealed corruption in parts of the Truman administration, and this became a major campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election, although they did not implicate Truman himself. He was eligible for reelection in 1952 but he chose not to run due to poor polling. Subsequently, Truman went into a retirement marked by the founding of his presidential library and the publication of his memoirs. It was long believed that Truman's retirement years were financially difficult, resulting in Congress establishing a pension for former presidents. However, evidence eventually emerged that he amassed considerable wealth, some of it during his presidency. When Truman left office, his administration was heavily criticized. Despite this controversy, historians consistently rank Truman in the first quartile of U.S. presidents. In addition, critical reassessments of his presidency have improved his reputation among historians and the general population.

Born, in its opening lines

May 8, 1884

Died, in its opening lines

December 26, 1972

From the Wikipedia article “Harry S. Truman” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman), by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Copied November 13, 2026; not changed.