After Harry Truman’s unlikely rise to the presidency, he would face some of the biggest crises of the century.

After Harry Truman's unlikely rise to the presidency, he would face some of the biggest crises of the century. Truman would end the war with Germany; use the atomic bomb against Japan; confront an expanding Soviet Union; and wage war in Korea - all while the woman he adored, his wife, Bess, refused to stay in the White House and play the role of First Lady. On the home front, Truman was the first president to tackle civil rights issues for blacks - a move that would prove controversial when campaigning for his second term. His unpredictable win over Thomas Dewey in the presidential election of 1948 proved to Truman that he had finally separated himself from the specter of FDR. However, his second term brought another war and battles with Congress to pass health care and civil rights legislation. Exhausted after his second term, Truman relinquished the presidency and retired to Independence, Missouri, where he lived as a popular and well-loved citizen. In later years, he would receive recognition for all his accomplishments and come to be admired as a gritty American original.