John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley at Bell Labs build the first working transistor, the foundation of modern electronics.
ENIAC, the first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer, is unveiled to the public at the University of Pennsylvania.
At Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill declares that an "iron curtain" has descended across Europe, a symbolic marker of the early Cold War.
Under the Treaty of Manila, the United States recognises the independence of the Republic of the Philippines.
The United States enacts a large-scale economic aid programme to rebuild Western European economies after the Second World War.
The Soviet Union blocks road and rail access to West Berlin; the Western Allies respond by supplying the city through an airlift for almost a year.
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meet at Yalta to discuss the post-war reorganisation of Europe and the world.