Modern Era
Rosie the Riveter: American Women in the Wartime Workforce
Millions of women did skilled industrial work during the Second World War; many lost those jobs in 1945, but the experience reshaped ideas about women and work.
Region
Americas
Modern Era
Dieppe Raid (1942): Operation Jubilee and Canada's Costly Lessons
Allied defeat: of about 6,000 troops landed or embarked, more than half were killed, wounded or captured, most of them Canadians.
Modern Era
Japanese American Internment (1942–1945): Executive Order 9066
About 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of them US citizens, were confined without trial; the US government formally apologised and paid compensation in 1988.
Modern Era
Doolittle Raid (1942): The First American Air Attack on Tokyo
Light physical damage to Japan but a major boost to American morale; all 16 aircraft were lost and Japan responded with a punitive campaign in eastern China and a push to take Midway.
Contemporary
Gouzenko Affair (1945): The Defection That Exposed Soviet Spies
Gouzenko's documents exposed a Soviet military intelligence network in Canada, leading to a royal commission, arrests and convictions in 1946.
Contemporary
ENIAC (1945): The First General-Purpose Electronic Computer
ENIAC proved that large-scale electronic computation was practical and launched the American computer industry.
Contemporary
Operation Paperclip: German Scientists Brought to the US
More than 1,600 German and Austrian specialists were brought to the United States, boosting its rocket and aerospace programmes but sheltering some with Nazi pasts.
Contemporary
Philippine Independence 1946: The End of American Colonial Rule
The United States relinquished sovereignty over the Philippines, which became the independent Republic of the Philippines with Manuel Roxas as president.
Contemporary
Iron Curtain Speech (1946): Churchill at Fulton, Missouri
Churchill's warning of an iron curtain across Europe was widely criticised at first but became the defining image of the Cold War division of the continent.
Prehistory
Ghost Ranch Coelophysis Quarry: The 1947 Triassic Bonebed
The quarry yielded hundreds of skeletons of the early dinosaur Coelophysis, making it one of the best-known Triassic dinosaurs.
Contemporary
Hollywood Ten (1947): HUAC Hearings and the Film Blacklist
The ten were convicted of contempt of Congress and imprisoned, and the studios began a blacklist that lasted until about 1960.
Contemporary
Truman Doctrine (1947): America's Pledge to Contain Communism
Congress approved $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey, and containment of communism became the basis of US foreign policy in the Cold War.