February 4th

What:
Yalta Conference commences

Where:
Yalta, USSR

Year:
1945

Information and Significance
On February 4th, 1945, the Yalta Conference commenced. Hitler's Third Reich and Tojo's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere were in their death throws. Mussolini's New Roman Empire was already in flames. This conference of the Big Three Alled war leaders, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosvelt and Josef Stalin, would determine the fate of the world after the war. This event was less of an event in World War II than an event in the Cold War. This conference determined that German and Japanese war criminals were to be put on trial rather than simply shot. However, far more importantly it drew the lines for the Cold War.

Germany was divided into four zones of occupation: the French, American, Soviet and Britsh zones. The American, British zones would later become West Germany and the Soviet one East Germany. Berlin was also divided into the four zones. It was deicided that the Soviet Union would rebuild Eastern Europe, which would later become the states in the Warsaw Pact. The Americans rebuilt Western Europe and forged an alliance that would later become NATO. Japan was to be rebuilt by the US, and Korea was divided into two. The partition of Korea would soon lead to the Korean War and the a long period of animosity that would continue until the present. This argreement also allowed Britain and France to keep their empires. However, this would not last long and decolonization was only a matter of time away.