This Day in History - April 3rd

1948: Truman signs Marshall Plan

On 3 April 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed the Foreign Assistance Act, commonly known as the Marshall Plan. Named after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the program channelled over $13 billion in aid to Europe between 1948 and 1951. The plan was designed to spark economic recovery in European countries devastated by the Second World War. It also saved the United States from a post-war recession by providing a broader market for American goods. However, because the USSR prevented countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia from participating, the plan also contributed to the raising of the Iron Curtain between Eastern and Western Europe.

Also On This Day

2000

In Britain, asylum vouchers are introduced, meaning that those seeking asylum in Britain can only obtain food and clothes by redeeming the vouchers. The scheme is scrapped two years later.

1996

In America, Theodore Kaczynski, the “Unabomber” is arrested in Montana.

1996

U.S. secretary of commerce Ron Brown dies in a military plane crash in Croatia along with several senior American corporate executives.

1993

In England, the Grand National ends in farce and is declared a void as the majority of the riders run the race failing to realise that a false start had occurred.

1987

The jewels of the late Duchess of Windsor, the former Mrs Wallis Simpson who married Edward VI of England after his abdication in 1936, fetch more than £30million at auction.

1981

In England, mobs of youths go on the rampage in Brixton, South London throwing petrol bombs and looting shops.

1954

Oxford University wins the 100th boat race.

1942

The Second World War: Japanese forces launch a major offensive against Battan, the peninsula guarding Manila Bay of the Philippine Islands.

1936

Richard Bruno Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and death of the Lindbergh baby.

1922

Joseph Stalin becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1918

The First World War: General Ferdinand Foch is appointed allied commander in chief on the Western Front.

1917

Lenin returns from exile to Russia to take control of the Bolshevik revolution.

1896

The Italian newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport, is published for the first time.

1882

One of America's most notorious outlaws, Jesse James, is shot by a member of his own gang.

1860

In American the first Pony Express mail service begins.