Harry S Truman

Senator from Missouri, a Vice President, and Thirty-third President of the United States; born in Lamar, Barton County, Mo., May 8, 1884; moved with his parents to a farm in Jackson County, Mo., in 1888; attended the public schools in Independence, Mo.; engaged in agricultural pursuits; during the First World War was commissioned a first lieutenant, later a captain, and served with Battery D, One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Field Artillery, United States Army, with service overseas; discharged as a major in 1919; colonel of Field Artillery, United States Army Reserve Corps 1927-1945; engaged in the haberdashery business 1919-1921; studied law at Kansas City (Mo.) Law School; judge of the Jackson County Court 1922-1924, and presiding judge 1926-1934; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1934; reelected in 1940 and served from January 3, 1935, until his resignation on January 17, 1945; chairman, Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program (Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth Congresses), formed at Truman’s initiative and widely known as the “Truman Committee,” which called nationwide attention to military contracting procedures; elected Vice President of the United States on the Democratic ticket with Franklin Roosevelt in 1944, and inaugurated on January 20, 1945; upon the death of President Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, became President of the United States; elected in 1948 for the term ending January 20, 1953; was not a candidate for reelection in 1952; returned to his home in Independence, Mo.; engaged in writing his memoirs and took an active interest in the creation of the Truman Library; died in Kansas City, Mo., December 26, 1972; interment in the Rose Garden at the Truman Library, Independence, Mo.