Ever since the U.S. political system solidified into its current two-party form (that is, post-Federalist, post-Whig, and post-“Democrat-Republican”), Washington—in terms of cross-party cooperation—has experienced good times and bad. As Todd S. Purdum illustrates in “Washington, We Have a Problem,” in V.F.’s September issue, the present moment certainly qualifies as one of the ugly times. And as the Obama administration celebrates landmark victories with the passage of the health-care and financial-reform bills, both achieved with the thinnest possible veneer of bipartisan oomph imaginable (a single House Republican voted for the health-care bill, and only three Republican senators broke ranks to vote for the financial-reform bill), here’s a look back at some of the important moments when politicians set aside their grievances and extended open hands across the aisle—for better or worse.

With Fascism defeated, Soviet-backed Communism emerged as the United States’ new global threat. The Truman Doctrine developed against the backdrop of the Greek Civil War, when the U.S. sent assistance to the beleaguered Greek and Turkish governments as they fought the Russian-supported Communist parties for control of Greece, amid the ruins of German and Italian occupation. Authorizing such aid—and vowing to “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”—wasn’t a political slam dunk. The Truman administration was able to convince a skeptical Congress only after Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave the legislation his full support. Victory was achieved in Greece, and the United States’ long-term defensive strategy of deterrence and containment against Communism, which would guide U.S. foreign policy for the next 50 years, was set. That same year, Truman also inaugurated the Marshall Plan, the United States’ economic package to help with Europe’s postwar recovery, which Vandenberg also worked to deliver.