On this day in 1945, the leaders of the three major Allied powers ended a week of negotiations. Their location:  Yalta, a Soviet resort on the shores of the Black Sea. For the Big Three, this was the second conference. (The first took place in Tehran in late 1943.) At the time of the Yalta conference, it was referred to as the Crimean conference. The leaders held their talks in the old summer palace of Czar Nicholas II.

The Big Three:

• US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
  
• British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
  
• Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.
  

The Times. World War II had been going on for too many years. The war with Germany would end in three months. Churchill and Stalin were intent on dividing Europe into political zones.

Dividing of Germany. Plans were made to divide Germany into four zones of occupation ~ American, British, French, and Soviet ~ under a unified control commission in Berlin. (See Today Only for August 15)

And France... It was to be demilitarized. All its war criminals were to face trial.

The Rest of Europe? The Soviets would administer the European countries they liberated, with a promise of free elections. The British and Americans would oversee countries such as Italy, France, and Austria, gradually shifting them over to democracies.

UN Plans. The Yalta Conference also made plans for the establishment of the United Nations. A charter conference was planned for April in San Francisco. (See Today Only for December 4)

FDR. President Roosevelt was ill, and would die two months later. His efforts were concentrated on gaining Soviet support for the US war effort against Japan.

The Bombing of Hiroshima... was still a secret. In fact, the atomic bomb project had not yet tested a weapon. Attack by sea was dangerous. Stalin agreed to enter the Pacific War within two to three months of Germany's surrender.

Yalta's Secrets. Most of the agreements made at Yalta remained secret until after World War II. The plans that were revealed ~ dividing Germany and establishing the United Nations ~ met with approval.

What Roosevelt Said. Roosevelt returned home too weak to stand without his braces. He called the conference "a turning point, I hope, in our history, and therefore in the history of the world." That April he went to rest at his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage.