On December 26, 1972, former 33rd President of the United
States Harry S. Truman died in Independence, Missouri.

Then-President Richard Nixon called Truman a man of
“forthrightness and integrity” who had a deep respect
for the office he held and for the people he served, and
who “supported and wisely counseled each of his
successors.” Truman was in office from April 12, 1945
to January 20, 1953.

On December 5, 1972, Truman was admitted to Kansas City’s
Research Hospital and Medical Center with pneumonia.

He developed multiple organ failure, fell into a coma, and
died at 7:50 a.m. on December 26, at the age of 88.

Truman in September 1917.

Harry and Bess Truman on their wedding
day, June 28, 1919.

President Harry Truman holds up a copy of the Chicago
Daily Tribune declaring his "defeat" to Thomas Dewey
in the presidential election, St Louis, Missouri, in Nov.
1948. 

Truman was so widely expected to lose the 1948 election that
the Chicago Tribune had printed papers with this erroneous
headline when few returns were in.

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August
6 and 9, 1945 respectively, were authorized by President
Truman at the end of World War II.