Marshall Plan
American billions rebuild Western Europe
In April 1948 the United States launched a European aid programme named after Secretary of State George Marshall. Over four years 16 countries received about $13 billion to rebuild industry and trade. The USSR refused to take part and kept the Eastern European countries out, deepening the division of the continent.
Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1939–1945 World War II — 9 years earlier
- 1945 Founding of the United Nations — 3 years earlier
- 1947–1991 Cold War — 1 year earlier
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — same year
- 1949 Founding of NATO — 1 year later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — 12 years earlier
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — 7 years earlier
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — 6 years earlier
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — 3 years earlier
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — 9 years later
Middle East
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — 16 years earlier
- 1948 Founding of the State of Israel — same year
Africa
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — 13 years earlier
- 1956 The Suez Crisis — 8 years later
- 1958 Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart — 10 years later
- 1960 Year of Africa — 12 years later
- 1963 The Organisation of African Unity is founded — 15 years later
Asia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 3 years earlier
- 1947 Independence and Partition of India — 1 year earlier
- 1949 Founding of the People's Republic of China — 1 year later
- 1950–1953 Korean War — 2 years later
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 5 years later
Americas
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — 19 years earlier
- 1945 ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer — 3 years earlier
- 1947 Invention of the transistor — 1 year earlier
- 1969 Moon landing — 21 years later
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — 22 years later
Oceania
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 12 years earlier
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — 7 years earlier
- 1942 The Battle of Midway — 6 years earlier
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 6 years later
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 11 years later
Alive at the time
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 79)
- Winston Churchill (aged 74)
- Joseph Stalin (aged 70)
- Albert Einstein (aged 69)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 67)
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 59)
- Mao Zedong (aged 55)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 30)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (aged 19)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 18)