Their decisions determined the fate of tens of millions of people around the world, with important residues remaining even today three-quarters of a century later.

For eight years, beginning in 1937, the battle lines of war had been engulfing much of Asia, most of Europe, parts of Africa, and even touched the shores of North America. As many as 50 million people may have died in this devastating global firestorm of conflict. The war also marked a descent into a nightmare of human barbarism. The Nazis slaughtered millions whom they classified as "racial vermin." Those innocent human beings were to be eradicated from the face of the earth in a deluded pursuit of engineering a "master race." Never had humanity witnessed such a magnitude of designed madness.

By the beginning of 1945 it became increasingly clear that both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan would be defeated, and the agony of war would finally end. The weary world longed for peace, security, and freedom. The future, everyone understood, was in the hands of the political leaders of the victorious United States, Great Britain, and Soviet Union. During that week of February 4–11, 1945, the Big Three met at Yalta to map out the postwar world.