World War II: The Yalta Conference between the "Big Three" (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) opens at the Livadia Palace in the Crimea.

The Yalta Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin. The conference was held near Yalta in Crimea, Soviet Union, within the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov palaces.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a member of parliament (MP) and represented a total of five constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served more than two terms. His first two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth saw him shift his focus to America's involvement in World War II.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held office as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as the fourth premier from 1941 until his death. Despite initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he ultimately consolidated power to become an absolute dictator by the 1930s. Stalin codified the party's official interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, while the totalitarian political system he created is known as Stalinism.