A Day That Shook The World: Big Three meet at Yalta

(2010 AFP)

On 12 February 1945 a communiqué was issued at the Yalta Conference announcing the carve-up of soon-to-be-defeated Germany and parts of Eastern Europe.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, otherwise known as the ‘Big Three,’ had been in discussion with advisers for 7 days at the Crimea location.

Their meeting came as the Russia’s Red Army prepared to invade Berlin and the Allied Forces encroached on the Rhine.

The decisions they made ultimately dictated the Cold War which would last a generation after the Second World War’s end.

Watch original footage from the summit, courtesy of British Pathé