The lend-lease program laid a foundation for the post-war Marshall Plan, which provided aid to European nations to help rebuild their economies after two devastating world wars.

On January 10, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt introduces the lend-lease program to Congress. The plan was intended to help Britain beat back Hitler’s advance while keeping America only indirectly involved in World War II.

Lend-Lease Act

As Roosevelt addressed Congress, the Battle of Britain was in its full destructive swing and Hitler seemed on the verge of invading Great Britain. The cash-strapped Brits desperately needed airplanes, tanks and ships to fight Hitler’s imminent invasion. For months, Britain’s prime minister, Winston Churchill, had begged Roosevelt for help, but the president was committed to abiding by Americans’ wishes to stay out of another bloody world war.

The lend-lease program provided for military aid to any country whose defense was vital to the security of the United States. The plan thus gave Roosevelt the power to lend arms to Britain with the understanding that, after the war, America would be paid back in kind. Congress overwhelmingly accepted the plan, which only staunch isolationists opposed. Roosevelt’s program enabled the U.S. military to prepare for the growing threat of Japan on its Pacific flank while helping Britain to contain Hitler across the Atlantic, as it permitted aid to Europe without committing American troops that might be needed in a Pacific war. Even though Roosevelt’s plan did not require immediate repayment, the United States commandeered what was left of Britain’s gold reserves and overseas investments to help pay for the increased defense production.

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japan forced the entry of the United States into the war. Roosevelt then recognized the strategic advantage of also supplying the Soviet Union with arms under lend-lease in order to draw Hitler’s resources away from Western Europe. This gave the United States a better chance at fighting a war on two fronts while planning for an invasion to liberate Europe. Roosevelt, mindful of the inherent conflict between American democracy and Soviet communism, counted on using U.S. military aid to the Soviet Union as a bargaining chip in post-war diplomatic relations.

By the end of the war the United States had given more than $50 billion in armaments and financial support to Britain, the U.S.S.R. and 37 other countries. The lend-lease program laid a foundation for the post-war Marshall Plan, which provided aid to European nations to help rebuild their economies after two devastating world wars.

The first General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising 51 nations, convenes at Westminster Central Hall in London, England. One week later, the U.N. Security Council met for the first time and established its rules of procedure. Then, on January 24, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction

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1776 – “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine was published.

1840 – The penny post, whereby mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than paid for by the recipient, began in Britain.

1861 – Florida seceded from the United States.

1863 – Prime Minister Gladstone opened the first section of the London Underground Railway system, from Paddington to Farringdon Street.

1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.

1901 – Oil was discovered at the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont, TX.

1911 – Major Jimmie Erickson took the first photograph from an airplane while flying over San Diego, CA.

1920 – The League of Nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I with Germany.

1927 – Fritz Lang’s film “Metropolis” was first shown, in Berlin.

1928 – The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky.

1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sailed from Miami, FL, to Trinidad thus becoming the first American President to visit a foreign country during wartime.

1943 – The quiz show, “The Better Half,” was heard for the first time on Mutual Radio.

1946 – The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place with 51 nations represented.

1950 – Ben Hogan appeared for the first time in a golf tournament since an auto accident a year earlier. He tied ‘Slammin’ Sammy Snead in the Los Angeles Open, however, Hogan lost in a playoff.

1951 – Donald Howard Rogers piloted the first passenger jet on a trip from Chicago to New York City.

1957 – Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation of Anthony Eden.

1963 – The Chicago Cubs became the first baseball club to hire an athletic director. He was Robert Whitlow. (MLB)

1971 – “Masterpiece Theatre” premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke. The introduction drama series was “The First Churchills.”

1978 – The Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a redezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory.

1981 – In El Salvador, Marxist insurgents launched a “final offensive”.

1984 – The United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century.

1986 – The uncut version of Jerome Kern’s musical, “Showboat”, opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

1990 – Chinese Premier Li Peng ended martial law in Beijing after seven months. He said that crushing pro-democracy protests had saved China from “the abyss of misery.”

1990 – Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. completed a $14 billion merger. The new company, Time Warner, was the world’s largest entertainment company.

1994 – In Manassas, VA, Lorena Bobbitt went on trial. She had been charged with maliciously wounding her husband John. She was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.

1997 – Shelby Lynne Barrackman was strangled to death by her grand-father when she licked the icing off of cupcakes. He was convicted of the crime on September 15, 1998.

2000 – It was announced that Time-Warner had agreed to buy America On-line (AOL). It was the largest-ever corporate merger priced at $162 billion. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the deal on December 14, 2000.

2001 – American Airlines agreed to acquire most of Trans World Airlines (TWA) assets for about $500 million. The deal brought an end to the financially troubled TWA.

2002 – In France, the “Official Journal” reported that all women could get the morning-after contraception pill for free in pharmacies.

2003 – North Korea announced that it was withdrawing from the global nuclear arms control treaty and that it had no plans to develop nuclear weapons.

2007 – The iTunes Music Store reached 1.3 million feature length films sold and 50 million television episodes sold.

2019 – In Venezuela, Juan Guaidó and the National Assembly declared incumbent President Nicolás Maduro “illegitimate” and started the process of attempting to remove him from office.

2020 – The green Ford Mustang from the 1968 Steve McQueen thriller “Bullitt” was sold for $3.4 million at the Mecum Auctions event in Kissimmee, FL.

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