The Marshall Plan
Officials from the United States and Britain watch as the first shipment of Caribbean sugar provided under the Marshall Plan arrives in England, lowered from the decks of the Royal Victoria. Passed by Congress in 1948, the Marshall Plan (known officially as the European Recovery Program) committed the United States to spend $17 billion over a four-year period to assist the war-ravaged nations of Western Europe. Marshall Plan funds helped the struggling British, French, and especially German economies, but they also benefitted the United States itself: the plan required European nations who participated to purchase most of their goods from American companies. Keystone/Getty Images.