With the exception of Pearl Harbor, the Western Hemisphere escaped World War II mostly unscathed. It also led, to paraphrase Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto's alleged quote, a sleeping giant to wake up in the form of the United States. With Europe and Asia in rubble, the threat of the Soviets replacing the Nazis, and China falling to the communists, men like Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and George Marshall forged a new world order, placing the West in the hands of the United States.

On June 4, 1940, standing in the House of Commons as the Nazis turned toward a possible invasion of England, Winston Churchill delivered one of many famous speeches. He said, "And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old." He, and the leaders in the aftermath of World War II, knew the........

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