1946: Information and Much More from Answers.com
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1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950
An Austrian Republic gains recognition from the Western powers January 7 with frontiers as of 1937 (Marshal Ivan Stepanovich Konev has been supreme commissar for Austria since August of last year); Albania proclaims herself a People's Republic January 11, Yugoslavia adopts a new Soviet-model constitution January 31, and Hungary proclaims herself a republic February 1. Former premier Béla Imrédy is sentenced to death by a People's Tribunal and hanged as a war criminal at his native Budapest February 28 at age 55; U.S. troops captured wartime fascist leader Ferenc Szálasi in Germany last year, and he is hanged at Budapest March 12 at age 49 (see 1947).
The United Nations General Assembly opens its first session January 10 at London with former Belgian premier Paul-Henri Spaak, 46, as president; the UN Security Council meets for the first time January 17 at London, and Norwegian socialist Trygve Lie, 49, is elected United Nations Secretary-General February 1.
Seattle-born labor organizer Eugene Dennis (originally Francis Xavier Waldron Jr.) becomes general secretary of the U.S. Communist Party in February, replacing Earl Browder, who has been expelled. Now 40, Dennis has led demonstrations since the late 1920s, served time in prison for inciting to riot, attended the Lenin School at Moscow, and now aligns himself with William Z. Foster in a strategy of militant radicalism that is blatantly pro-Soviet (see 1947).
Milwaukee-born diplomat George F. (Frost) Kennan Jr., 42, sends home a long telegram from Moscow February 22, beginning, "The USSR still lives in antagonistic 'capitalist encirclement' with which in the long run there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence" (see 1947).
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent," says former prime minister Winston Churchill March 5 in an address at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. President Truman is in the audience that hears the British statesman declare that Moscow's totalitarian dominance has produced a decline of confidence in "the haggard world."
The United Nations Security Council meets March 25 at New York's Hunter College, the League of Nations assembly dissolves itself April 18, the UN General Assembly meets at New York October 23, selects New York as the UN site December 5, and 9 days later accepts a gift of $8.5 million from John D. Rockefeller Jr. toward purchase of property on the East River for permanent headquarters.
Britain establishes the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), an outgrowth of the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, that broke the Nazi Enigma code during the war and now employs more than 7,000 people. Its mission is to eavesdrop on telephone calls of foreign diplomats, extract information from signals intelligence, and share that intelligence with other United Kingdom security and defense agencies as cold-war tensions escalate; the GCHQ will settle at two sites on the outskirts of Cheltenham in 1952, but Parliament will not formally acknowledge its existence until 1983 (see U.S. National Security Agency, 1952).
A Soviet defector in Canada hands over documents showing that British nuclear scientist Alan Nunn May worked for Moscow while employed on the Manhattan project, passed small amounts of enriched uranium to his Soviet handler on July 9 of last year in return for $200 and a bottle of whiskey, and later provided details of the bomb America dropped a month later on Hiroshima. Now 45, May has returned to Britain, he insists that he was merely sharing scientific knowledge, but a British court sentences him to 10 years' hard labor, and he will serve 6 before being released.
Geopolitics proponent and politician Karl Haushofer commits suicide at Pähl bei Weilheim March 13 at age 76 after being investigated for alleged war crimes. His wife is of Jewish extraction and swallows poison.
Partisans capture Chetnik leader Dragoljub Mihailovich March 13, sentence him to death for alleged collaboration with the Germans, and execute him at Belgrade July 17 at age 53. Former Yugoslavian government-in-exile prime minister Slobodan Jovanovic, now 76, is condemned in absentia to 20 years' hard labor.
Italy's Victor Emmanuel III abdicates May 9 at age 76 after a 46-year reign, his son Umberto, 41, proclaims himself king, a referendum June 2 rejects the monarchy 12.7 million to 10.7 million, Umberto II joins his family at Lisbon June 3, and the nation becomes a republic headed by Premier Alcide De Gasperi of the Christian Democratic Party (see 1945; 1948). Italy loses the Dodecanese Islands to Greece and parts of her northern territory to France June 27.
A Communist People's Court tries former Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu for war crimes, finds him guilty May 17, and executes him near Jilava June 1 at age 63.
Czechoslovakia's Communist Party wins 38.7 percent of the vote in the general election May 26 (see 1945). Noncommunist parties hold a decisive majority, but communist deputy premier Klement Gottwald, 49, takes office as premier (see 1948).
Bulgaria ousts her monarchy and becomes a People's Republic September 15 following a referendum. Bulgarian communist Georgi Dimitrov returns from Moscow November 21 to become premier (see Reichstag fire, 1933).
Greece's George II returns to Athens September 28 following a plebiscite favoring retention of the monarchy (see 1945), but the communists have gone underground and resumed full-scale guerrilla war, creating a situation that the British are unable to control (see 1949; Truman Doctrine, 1947).
The Nuremberg Tribunal returns verdicts September 30 (see 1945). It sentences Rudolf Hess, now 52, and Reichsbank president Walther Funk, 56, to life imprisonment (Hess will be the only inmate of Spandau Prison until his death); Franz von Papen, now 67, and Hjalmar Schacht, now 69, are acquitted, but a Bavarian de-Nazification court will impose an 8-year sentence on von Papen, who was expelled from the United States during the war on charges of espionage, and he will serve 2. Hitler Youth founder Baldur von Schirach is found guilty of participating in the mass deportation of Jews and given a 20-year prison term. Gen. Erich von Manstein is found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment (but will released in 1953 for medical reasons). Adm. Doenitz is found guilty of crimes against peace and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Twelve leading Nazis are judged guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death, including Hermann Goering, who was Hitler's designated successor but cheats the gallows October 15 at age 53 by taking poison. Those hanged October 16 include former German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, 53; field marshal Wilhelm Keitel, 64; former German general Alfred Jodl, 56; Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, 53; anti-Semitic demagogue Julius Streicher, 61; and former Austrian Nazi leader Arthur Seyss-Inquart, 54, who served as German high commissioner of the Netherlands. Aircraft designer Ernst Heinkel has been arrested as a war criminal and charged with using slave labor in his factories, but the charges will eventually be reduced to "Nazi follower," and he will escape with a fine of 2,000 marks. Former Weimar Republic defense minister Gustav Noske dies at Hanover November 30 at age 78, having taken part in the unsuccessful coup against Hitler in July 1944 but escaped punishment.
Finland's president Marshal Mannerheim resigns for reasons of health in March (see 1944); Prime Minister Paasikivi, now 75, is elected president (see 1956).
British and French forces begin evacuating Lebanon March 10 (see 1943). The country gains full independence after 26 years of French colonial rule.
Transjordanian independence gains British recognition March 22. Transjordan proclaims herself a kingdom May 25, Emir Abdullah will rule until 1951 as King Abdullah (see 1949), but Moscow vetoes Jordanian admission to the United Nations.
Moscow agrees to withdraw troops from Iran April 25 on the promise of reforms in Azerbaijan; Soviet troops leave May 9 following protests by London, Washington, and Teheran.
The Irgun Tzvai Leumi led by Menachem Begin bombs Jerusalem's King David Hotel July 22, killing 91 in a protest against British rule in Palestine (see 1945; 1947).
Turkey rejects demands August 22 that Soviet military and naval forces be given rights to protect the entrance to the Black Sea.
Gen. MacArthur announces the establishment January 19 of an International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFF) with a prosecution team containing justices from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the Soviet Union as well as the United States. The IMTFE begins trying war criminals May 3 at Tokyo; 1,128 officials have been imprisoned awaiting trials on charges of war crimes, some 210,000 others having simply been barred from holding public office. Of the 80 alleged war criminals held at the Sugamo prison since last year, 28 men (including nine civilians) will have their cases heard by the IMTFE, whose sessions will continue until November 12, 1948 (see 1948).
U.S. occupation authorities bar former Japanese minister of education Ichiro Hatoyama, 63, from holding any political office. A political opponent of Hideki Tojo 4 years ago, he spent most of the years from 1937 to 1945 in retirement at his country house and was about to take office as prime minister, but although he has become leader of the Liberal Party his association with the prewar government has raised suspicions about him and he will not be seated in the Diet until April 1952.
Gen. MacArthur resists suggestions that he encourage the emperor Hirohito's abdication as an acknowledgment of responsibility for the war; he resolves to protect the emperor as a way to maintain an orderly government, and in February he rejects a proposed constitution, calling it a rewording of the old Meiji constitution. He quickly has young lawyers on his staff draw up a progressive new constitution that establishes a bicameral legislature with a weak upper chamber; it has 39 articles dealing with what MacArthur calls "basic human liberties" (e.g. most of the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, universal adult suffrage, marriage and property rights for women, labor's right to organize) and cannot be revised except by national referendum.
Former Japanese foreign minister Shigeru Yoshida, 67, becomes prime minister May 22; arrested in June of last year for trying to force an early surrender and not freed until September, he will remain in office with only brief intervals until 1954, forming five different cabinets. Former foreign minister Yusuke Matsuoka dies at Tokyo June 26 at age 65 while awaiting trial on war-crimes charges.
The new Japanese constitution promulgated in October has received imperial endorsement, and candidates who back it receive overwhelming approval in the fall elections. Read to the Diet by Emperor Hirohito November 3, it vests sovereignty not with the emperor (who is retained as symbolic leader) but with the people of Japan, who obtain a democratic government after centuries of absolutist rule (see 1889). The constitution's Article 9 states that Japan will "forever renounce war" and never maintain armed forces, but Japan's "Self-Defense Forces" will grow to become one of the world's largest militaries.
Singapore becomes a British crown colony April 1 with Sir Franklin Charles Gimson, 55, as governor (see 1945). The outpost of empire has been under military rule since September of last year (see 1959).
Paris recognizes Vietnamese independence within the French Union March 6, but hostilities with native communists continue as Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh tries to drive out the French and unite Indochina (see 1945). The French retaliate by proclaiming an autonomous Republic of Cochin China at Saigon June 1; nationalists found the Khmer Issarak (Independent Cambodians) to fight the French, but it quickly breaks into factions (see independence, 1953). Vietnam's newly created president Nguyen Van Thinh commits suicide at Saigon November 10; French naval vessels bombard Haiphong November 23, killing 6,000 civilians, the puppet Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai flees to Hong Kong, and Ho Chi Minh tries to overwhelm French troops at Hanoi in December, beginning an 8-year struggle (see 1949).
The Philippines gain independence from the United States July 4 under provisions of the 1934 Tydings-McDuffie Act. Former president José Laurel is charged with 132 counts of treason but will never be brought to trial; Manuel Roxas (y Acuna), now 54, was a member of the convention that drew up the constitution that was approved in 1935, he acquired supplies of rice for the Japanese Army while serving in the wartime government of José Laurel, and although a court was established to try collaborators he was defended by Gen. MacArthur (see amnesty, 1948). Nominated by the Nacionalista (later Liberal) Party, he is elected president of the Commonwealth and tries to subdue the communist-led Huks (Hukbalahaps) peasant party, which has appropriated most of the large estates in central Luzon, murdered rich Filipinos who collaborated with the Japanese, and set up a regional government that collects taxes and administers its own laws (see 1942). Huk leader Luis Taruc has been elected to the Philippine House of Representatives but has been charged by the Commission of Elections with using terrorism to gain votes and has been denied his seat. Roxas will succeed in obtaining reconstruction funds from Washington but at the cost of granting the United States 99-year leases on 23 military bases, accepting trade restrictions on Philippine citizens, and granting special privileges to U.S. property owners and investors (see 1948).
Chinese Nationalists release communist leader Ye Ting after 5 years' imprisonment, but he is killed in an airplane accident in Shanxi (Shansi) Province April 8 at age 48. China's civil war resumes April 14 after a truce of more than 3 months negotiated by Gen. George C. Marshall. The Nationalist government returns from Chongqing (Chungking) to Nanjing (Nanking) May 1, another truce stops hostilities for 6 weeks beginning May 12, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) broadcasts a radio message in August ordering all-out war against the Nationalists, and the Guomindang (Kuomintang, or KMT) reelects Chiang Kai-shek president October 10. Gen. Joseph W. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell dies at the Presidio in San Francisco October 12 at age 63. A Sino-American treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation is signed November 4, a national assembly meets November 15 without communist representation, and the Chinese adopt a new constitution December 25, but Mao Zedong has 1 million men in uniform plus 2 million guerrillas and dismisses threats to his communist insurgency as a "paper tiger."
Siamese (Thai) political leader Pridi Phanomyong becomes prime minister in March after the nation's first popular election. Now 45, he has served as regent for the boy king Ananda Mahidol (Rama VIII), who returns home from Europe to assume his constitutional duties but is found dead of a gunshot wound in his bed at Bangkok June 9 at age 21 after an 11-year reign (see 1950). The king's Massachusetts-born brother Bhumibol Aduldyedj, now 18, will return from school in Switzerland, marry Princess Sirikit Kityakara in April 1950, and be crowned May 5, 1950, but the circumstances of Rama VIII's death will remain a mystery, undermining constitutional government and helping to return the country to military rule. Premier Phanomyong resigns under pressure in August, having come under suspicion because of his reputed republican sympathies of involvement in the king's death. The Siamese accept a UN verdict October 13 that they restore to French Indochina the provinces acquired in 1941 as allies of Japan (see 1947; Thailand, 1949).
U.S. military authorities conduct the first Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests in the Pacific July 1.
Mathematician John von Neumann and physicist Klaus Fuchs apply for a U.S. patent on a nuclear fusion (hydrogen) bomb (see 1944). Now 35, Fuchs worked on the Manhattan Project at Alamagordo, N.M., along with physicist Edward Teller and Polish-born mathematician Stanislaw Marcin Ulam, now 37, whose Teller-Ulam solution makes the hydrogen bomb possible (see Eniwetok, 1952; Fuchs, 1950).
Sarawak's rajah Sir Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke cedes his realm to the British crown July 1 (see 1941). Now 71, the country's last "white rajah" has reigned since 1917 (he proclaimed a constitution in September 1941 designed to establish self-government, but the Japanese took over Sarawak soon afterward).
Indonesian authorities suppress a left-wing revolt begun July 3 by followers of Ibrahim Datuk Tan Malaka who oppose negotiating with the Dutch; a communist revolt (the Madiun Affair) begins in September, but the Cheribon (Linggadjati) Agreement initialed by Dutch and Indonesian diplomats November 15 follows conclusion of a truce in the fighting between Indonesians and Dutch and British forces (see 1945). Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir has arranged a meeting on Linggadjati Hill near Cheribon in western Java at which he persuades the Dutch to recognize the Indonesian Republic (Java, Sumatra, Madura) and agree to the establishment of the United States of Indonesia to be joined in equal partnership with the Netherlands under the Dutch crown. Only about half of the 13,667 islands in the sprawling equatorial archipelago are inhabited, and the new nation will include also the Celebes, the Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, and part of Borneo; the last British troops leave November 29, but Dutch troops remain (see 1947).
Former presidential "brain trust" member Harry L. Hopkins dies at New York January 29 at age 55; Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone at Washington, D.C., April 23 at age 73 after 5 years as head of the Court (he is succeeded June 24 by Kentucky-born secretary of the treasury Fred M. [Frederick Moore] Vinson, 56, who will preside until his own death in 1953); Sen. Carter Glass dies at Washington, D.C., May 28 at age 88; former mayor James J. "Jimmy" Walker at his native New York November 18 at age 65.
Republicans score large gains in the November congressional elections as labor unions, liberals, and other traditional supporters of the Democratic Party stay away from the polls in response to President Truman's anti-labor policies. The G.O.P. uses the slogans, "Had enough?" and "To err is Truman" to sweep its candidates into office as the president's popularity plummets.
Former Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge wins election to a 4-year term but dies of cirrhosis of the liver and hemolytic jaundice at Atlanta December 21 at age 62 before he can be sworn in (see 1932). Popular with rural voters, he has boasted that he never carried a county with a streetcar line. Gov. Ellis G. Arnall was elected in 1942 with support from the late President Roosevelt and has fought graft and corruption in a state dominated by special interests such as highway cartels and railroads; having abolished Georgia's notorious chain-gang system, increased the black voter franchise in the face of strident opposition, and made Georgia the first state to let 18-year-olds vote, he refuses to give up his position, and when he is locked out of the governor's office at Atlanta he takes over the information booth at the capital gates, running his administration from the kiosk (see 1947).
Former Argentine labor minister Col. Juan Perón wins election as president February 24 at age 50 with help from his wife, Evita, and begins a rule that will continue until 1955 (see 1943). Now 50, he defeats Jose Tamborini in a closely fought race, having gained the support of the "shirtless ones." Eva Duarte de Perón (née Maria Eva Ibaguren), now 26, met Col. Perón when she was 15 and trying to be a singer and actress; when he was arrested 2 years ago she went on the radio to plead with the people that they rally and free him; he married her that December, and she has gained widespread popularity (see human rights, 1947).
Former Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico dies at New Orleans June 14 at age 67.
Mexico elects her first civilian president July 7. PRI candidate Miguel Alemán Valdés, 43, managed the campaign of President Camacho 6 years ago and easily defeats his opponent, Ezequiel Padilla; he appoints a cabinet of economic experts and begins a program of industrialization, electrification, irrigation, and improvement of transportation. Alemán will have closer U.S. ties than his predecessors.
Haitian students and workers stage violent demonstrations and strikes to protest the policies of President Elie Lescot, who took office 5 years ago. Three military officers seize power and supervise elections that result in victory for politician Dumarsais Estimé, who will serve until 1950.
France gives her French Caribbean island of Martinique the status of a département, making it equal to any state in France proper. The island's colonial rulers were loyal to the Vichy government from 1940 to 1943 before switching allegiance to the cause of the Free French (see 1974).
Gen. Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, is appointed governor general of Canada, a position he will hold until 1952.
The Algerian Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques) emerges under the leadership of revolutionary nationalist leader Ahmed Messali Hadj, now 48, whose Algerian Popular Party (Parti Populaire Algérien) has been suppressed by French authorities (see 1929; 1954).
Japan's Buraku Liberation League (Buraku Kaihō Domei) has its beginnings in the militant All-Japan Committee for Baraku Liberation (Buraku Kaihō Zenkoku Iinkai) (see 1922). It will rename itself in 1955 but have only limited success (see 1960).
Bombay (Mumbai) removes social disabilities of the city's untouchables, but prejudice against the harijans continues (see 1947; Gandhi, 1932).
Japanese women vote for the first time April 10 (see 1945); 83 women stand for election to the Diet, 39 win seats. The new Japanese constitution adopted November 3 contains provisions (written by 22-year-old U.S. lawyer Beate Sirota Gordon) that expand women's rights, following the lead of some other national constitutions but not that of the United States, which contains no such provisions (see Equal Rights Amendment, 1947).
Italian women vote on the same basis as men for the first time as the nation ends its monarchy and becomes a republic.
Women in Palestine, Kenya, Liberia, and Vietnam gain the right to vote on the same basis as men.
Mexican women gain the right to vote in municipal elections (see 1935; 1953).
Japanese women form an organization to protect women from occupation-force authorities, who pick up women in the street and subject them to examination for sexually transmitted diseases.
France's "Loi Marthe Richard" closes Paris brothels. Assemblywoman Richard, 58, has campaigned against the enslavement of women in houses of prostitution. She became the sixth woman in the world to fly an airplane 34 years ago, served as a spy in World War I and stole the German plan for U-boat attacks on U.S. troopship convoys from the bedroom of naval attaché Hans von Krohn in Spain. Her legislation does not outlaw prostitution, but bordellos are no longer licensed, medical examinations are dropped, and demimondaines are obliged to solicit in the streets.
Latvian-born Illinois Institute of Technology psychologist David P. (Pablo) Boder, 59, accepts an invitation from Gen. Eisenhower to interview survivors of Nazi death camps. Using a newly-invented wire recorder, Broder speaks through interpreters to 109 people and introduces the word Holocaust that will come into wide use for the annihilation of some 6 million Jews since the 1930s.
Holocaust orchestrator Adolf Eichmann escapes from a U.S. internment camp and makes his way under an alias to Argentina (see 1942; 1961).
Switzerland agrees May 25 to repay $58 million in gold that was stolen from Jews by the Nazis and deposited in Swiss accounts during the war. The Swiss agree also to try to locate assets of Jews who were killed in the Holocaust and return them to survivors, but they will drag their feet about making good on the promises (see 1962).
A Polish pogrom at Kielce July 4 kills dozens of Jews who have survived the Holocaust that took the lives of 20,000 in the city's ghetto. As many as 3,000 will be killed in the next few months, and most of Poland's remaining 300,000 Jews (out of 3 million before the war) will emigrate.
Congress establishes an Indian Claims Commission to settle once and for all the disputes that have been smoldering for nearly a century over lands taken by the white man.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules June 3 that Virginia's Jim Crow law requiring segregation of passengers on interstate buses is unconstitutional. Baltimore-born NAACP counsel Thurgood Marshall, now 38, has helped Richmond lawyer Spottswood Robinson, 29, represent Irene Morgan (see 1944), the court's 6-to-1 decision in Morgan v. Virginia theoretically outlaws racial segregation on interstate buses, Greyhound Bus Co. orders its drivers to avoid forcing segregation, but some Southern states defy the ruling, and the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) organizes the first challenges to Jim Crow laws, with blacks and whites traveling in the fall through four Southern states and singing, "You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow" (see Rosa Parks, 1955).
A Georgia racial murder makes national headlines: about 15 Walton County whites drag four blacks out of their car near Monroe July 15 and shoot them to death with rifles and shotguns, firing more than 60 shots. Pacific War veteran George W. Dorsey, 28; his pregnant wife, Mae, 28; his pregnant sister Dorothy, 20; and Dorothy's farm worker husband, Roger Malcolm, 24, are buried in unmarked graves. The F.B.I. receives no help from the sheriff or local police, its agents conduct a 6-month investigation, a federal grand jury of 21 whites and two blacks will hear 100 witnesses, but no indictments will be handed up and no perpetrators brought to justice; observers suggest that the Ku Klux Klan acted in retaliation against Malcolm, who stabbed his white boss's son because the man was having sex with Dorothy.
Southern white supremacists use intimidation and violence to prevent blacks from voting in the November elections. Blacks active in voter registration find miniature coffins left on their doorsteps or receive bullets in the mail, there are killings at registrar offices and polling places, and Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo (D. Miss.) boasts that he has used the word nigger 77 times in one speech; some blacks who do manage to vote are subsequently lynched, and the racism outrages President Truman. He issues an executive order December 5 establishing a Civil Rights Commission headed by General Electric CEO Charles E. Wilson with subpoena powers to investigate charges of civil rights violations, an issue that Congress has refused to address because Southern Democrats control the ways and means committees that determine what the House and Senate may consider. The commission will issue a 178-page report (see Truman speech, 1947).
Consumers' League of New York cofounder and former suffragist Maud Nathan dies at her native New York December 15 at age 84.
United Cerebral Palsy Associations has its beginnings in the Cerebral Palsy Society founded at New York by Viennese-born textile manufacturer Jack Hausman, 44, and his wife, Ethel, who with three other people have assembled a group of parents to raise funds for medical care of children with the disorder. The umbrella organization will be created in 1948, and in the next 50 years will raise more than $100 million for research and support (see telethon, 1951).
The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef) established by the UN December 16 to meet the pressing needs of children in postwar Europe and China will grow to have programs in 162 countries and territories, with administrative offices at New York.
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratories find that a liquid polysulfide polymer is the ideal propellant for rockets: it not only works as a fuel but also bonds directly to the walls of rocket shells, eliminating the need for heavy mechanical supports.
Arctic explorer Robert A. "Bob" Bartlett dies at New York April 28 at age 70.
Housing shortages and pent-up demand for consumer goods lead to runaway prices and rising wage demands in much of the world.
Some 260,000 electrical workers strike Westinghouse and General Electric January 15, and more than 750,000 steelworkers walk off the job January 19 in the biggest strike thus far in U.S. history (see General Motors strike, 1945). Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corp. settle their strike with the United Automobile Workers (UAW) in January, agreeing to pay another 18½ cents per hour (an increase of 17.5 percent), but they do not agree to hold down the prices of their cars. A wage-pattern formula announced by President Truman February 14 entitles labor to 33 percent wage increases that equal the rise in the cost of living since January 1941. Steel makers agree February 16 to grant an 18½¢-per-hour wage increase that raises workers' pay to $1.09 per hour and passes the cost along by raising steel prices by $5 per ton (see 1952). An employment act passed by Congress February 20 declares that maximum employment must be the government's policy goal.
President Truman reestablishes the Office of Economic Stabilization February 21 to control inflation (see 1943). He names former advertising executive Chester Bowles, 45, to head the office.
General Motors resolves its strike by the UAW March 13, granting a wage increase half a percent higher than the company's initial proposal, but strikes idle some 4.6 million U.S. workers during the year with a loss of 116 million man-days, the worst stoppage ever. Unions were unable to strike during the war, wages have failed to keep pace with price increases, and workers make up for lost time.
U.S. troops seize the nation's railroads May 17 in the face of imminent strikes. Troops seize American soft coal mines May 22 to end a strike begun April 1. John L. Lewis has brought his United Mine Workers back into the American Federation of Labor (AFL) late in January (see 1936). Speaking to a joint session of Congress May 25, President Truman says the railroad strike is no ordinary labor-management dispute; he asks Congress to let him draft railroad workers into the army, interrupts his speech to accept a note, announces that a brief strike has been settled on terms acceptable to the president after he has recommended wage boosts, but his threat to draft workers costs him the support of labor leaders and liberals in the fall elections. John L. Lewis leads his membership out on strike again November 21 in defiance of a federal injunction and is fined $3.5 million December 4; the workers return to the pits December 7.
The Office of Price Administration (OPA) expires June 29 when the president vetoes a Compromise Price Control act; Congress revives the OPA July 25 with a new Price Control act.
Canada institutes family allowances (see Britain, 1945). Sales of children's shoes jump from 762,000 pairs per month to 1,180,000 as parents receive financial aid.
Parliament votes February 13 to repeal the British Trades Disputes Act of 1927, legalizes certain kinds of strikes, and lifts most restrictions on labor unions' political activities.
The British Government takes over the Bank of England February 14.
Economist John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, dies at Firle, Sussex, April 21 at age 62, worn out from his labors during the war.
France nationalizes the Banque de France, the 82-year-old Société Générale and other banks pursuant to legislation enacted last year by the Parlement. The four commercial banks that are taken over account, with the Banque de France, for half the assets and liabilities held by the nation's banks.
Parliament nationalizes the British coal industry in May with a law that is to take effect January 1, 1947.
May Day celebrations in Japan bring out hundreds of thousands of workers waving red flags and demanding recognition of their new labor unions, higher pay, and better working conditions (see 1947).
Moscow announces August 8 that 200 key East German industries will be brought under Soviet control; the nationalized industries will be turned over to the East German government in 1953, Moscow promises.
Hungary suffers the worst inflation in world history as the gold pengo of 1931 falls in value to 130 trillion paper pengos in June. The government prints 100-trillion pengo notes.
High meat prices bring demands that President Truman resign, but prices soften when the government withdraws from the market in the summer and prices break when the OPA removes price ceilings in the fall.
President Truman issues an executive order November 9 lifting all wage and price controls except those on rents, sugar, and rice.
The U.S. inflation that will continue for decades begins December 14 as President Truman removes curbs on housing priorities and prices by executive order. President Roosevelt's inflation control order of April 1943 kept prices from climbing more than 29 percent from 1939 to 1945 as compared with a 63 percent jump in the 1914 to 1918 period, but Truman is more worried about a possible postwar depression than about inflation.
Wall Street's 50-year-old Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches a post-1929 high of 212.50, falls to 163.12, and closes December 31 at 177.20, down from 192.41 at the end of 1945.
Hoover Dam builder Frank Crowe dies at Redding, Calif., February 26 at age 63, having superintended construction also of Parker Dam, Shasta Dam, and others.
The McMahon Act passed by Congress August 1 establishes a civilian U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Former TVA director David E. Lilienthal is sworn in November 1 as AEC chairman (see Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1974).
Soviet petroleum production begins a major expansion that will make the USSR the world's largest oil producer within 30 years. Engineers exploit deposits between the Volga River and Ural Mountains, where prospectors first found oil in the 1930s.
Kuwait Oil Co. is founded on a 50-50 basis by Gulf and Anglo-Iranian (see 1938). The company will produce 1 billion barrels in the next 8 years and another billion in the following 3, making Kuwait the Middle East's largest oil-producing nation (see Getty, 1949).
Dutch windmills dwindle in number to 1,400, down from 9,000 in the 1870s. The number will fall to 991 by 1960 and to 950 by 1973 despite government efforts to preserve the polder mills that have kept the Netherlands from being flooded during the war.
The Transcontinental & Western Airlines (TWA) Lockheed Constellation Star of Paris takes off from Washington, D.C., February 5, lands at New York's La Guardia Airport, and arrives at Paris 20 hours later with 36 passengers and eight crew members, having refueled en route at Gander, Newfoundland, and Shannon Ireland. The passengers include businessmen, diplomats, two fashion designers, and a physician delivering penicillin (see Constellation, 1943); round-trip coach fare is $675 at a time when the average annual income for Americans is about $2,500. TWA inaugurates the first service between the United States and Italy March 31 and soon continues from Rome to Cairo.
KLM introduces scheduled service between Amsterdam and New York May 21, becoming the first European airline to have scheduled flights across the Atlantic (see 1941).
London's Heathrow Airport opens on a formal basis May 21 (see 1929). The airport has been used since January for flights to Buenos Aires.
British transatlantic passenger air service to North America starts July 1 as BOAC begins flying Lockheed Constellations between London and New York. Scheduled flying time is 19 hours, 45 minutes.
SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) is created by a consolidation of Sweden's AB Aerotransport, Denmark's DDL, and Norway's DNL to operate on transatlantic routes.
Pan American Airways inaugurates a great circle route to Tokyo.
Air India is created July 29 by a reorganization of Tata Air Lines, whose planes fly passengers at low rates to all of the largest cities of India (see 1932; 1948).
The DC-6 introduced by Douglas Aircraft can carry 70 passengers at 300 miles per hour with cargo, mail, and luggage (see 1938). Douglas has been the leading U.S. aircraft producer during the war but is only slightly ahead of Lockheed in sales, but the DC-6 gives it a leg up with the first pressurized airplane that can attain altitudes of more than 18,000 feet (see Braniff, 1947; DC-7, 1953).
Alitalia (Aerolinee Italiane Internazionali) is created September 15 with British European Airways holding 30 percent of the shares in the new company.
International Air Transport Association (IATA) is founded. The trade association has 63 member airlines within a year and begins to set policies related to traffic, rates, and fares.
A Berlin-bound American Overseas Airlines plane nosedives into a Newfoundland hill October 3, killing 39 men, women, and children in the worst airline accident thus far.
Texas-born stock manipulator Robert Ralph Young, 49, attracts attention by running full-page newspaper advertisements headlined, "A Hog Can Cross the Nation without Changing Trains, but You Can't." Young has become board chairman of Allegheny Corp. (see New York Central, 1954).
Kaiser-Frazer automobiles challenge the established powers of the U.S. automobile industry. Henry J. Kaiser of Kaiser Aluminum has started the new company with former Willys-Overland president Joseph Washington Frazer, 54, and theirs will be the last major U.S. bid to compete with General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler (see 1950).
Bermuda permits motorcars to operate on the island after a half-century ban on vehicles other than bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and wagons, and motortrucks for special purposes.
Vespa motor scooters are introduced in Italy to provide cheap if noisy transportation. Aircraft maker Enrico Piaggio's works at Pontadera were destroyed by Allied bombers. Piaggio has had his chief engineer, Corradino d'Ascanio, design the scooter to give him a product that enables him to resume production, and he calls it by the Italian name for wasp.
Race-car driver Barney Oldfield dies at Beverly Hills October 4 at age 68.
Electronic numerical integrator and computer (ENIAC) is the world's first automatic electronic digital computer and makes the Mark I electromechanical computer of 1944 obsolete. The massive 30-ton device unveiled February 14 at Philadelphia employs 18,000 radio tubes and large amounts of electric power (the city's lights dim whenever it is turned on), it operates on the principle that vacuum tubes can be turned on and off thousands of times faster than mechanical relays, and by using punched cards pioneered by the late Herman Hollerith in 1890 it can make some 7,500 calculations per second (to compute trajectories of artillery shells); although its tubes are not reliable and it functions only for brief periods, ENIAC begins a revolution in industrial technology. University of Pennsylvania electrical engineers J. (John) Presper Eckert Jr., now 27, and John William Mauchly, now 39, began work on ENIAC early in 1941 following a visit with University of Iowa physicist John Vincent Atanasoff, now 41, who had invented basic concepts of computer technology. Using volatile memory that is constantly refreshed, binary arithmetic, and a combination of not, and, or, and nor logic gates, Atanasoff produced a prototype machine as early as 1939 and by 1942 had a completed model—a noisy, desk-size monster whose spinning digital calculator could read a series of numbers into binary registers, operate on those numbers again and again, and then punch out an answer; the war interrupted his work, he moved to Maryland to work in ballistics research (the War Department needed computers to calculate artillery trajectories), and he never obtained a patent. Eckert and Mauchly supplied the War Department with a U-shaped, 30-ton, 1,800-square-foot digital computer comprised of 40 different units, including 20 accumulators, all connected by heavy black cables that could perform 5,000 addition cycles per second, calculate a trajectory in 30 seconds (an analog desk calculator required 20 hours), and do the work of 60,000 people working by hand (see 1948; transistor, 1947; Univac, 1951).
Bell Laboratories statistician John Tukey, 31, coins the term bit (short for binary digit) to describe the 1s and 0s that are basic to digital computer programs (seesoftware, 1958).
Ford Motor Company engineer Delmar S. Harder, 54, coins the word automation for the system he has created to manufacture automobile engines. His completely automatic process produces a new engine every 14 minutes and is the first completely self-regulating system applied to manufacturing (see transportation [assembly line], 1913).
A linear proton accelerator devised by physicist Luis W. Alvarez at the University of California, Berkeley, is based on the formation of standing electromagnetic waves in a long cylindrical tank (see orbital-electron capture, 1939). Now 35, Alvarez worked on microwave radar research at MIT from 1940 to 1943 and then helped to develop the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, N.M.
Illinois-born E. M. (Edward Mills) Purcell, 34, at MIT's Radiation Laboratory discovers nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in liquids and solids; he devises a method of detecting NMR that is far more accurate than the atomic-beam method created by Isidor I. Rabi for studying the molecular structure of pure materials and the composition of mixtures (see radio wave, 1952; medicine, 1973).
Dutch crystallographer Herman Bijvoet, 28, demonstrates a way to determine the absolute configuration of crystals (see Hoff, Le Bel, 1874): he shows that while left-handed and right-handed crystals may look alike when bombarded with X-rays, if one of the atoms in the crystal is an absorber for the X-rays used, then left-handed and right-handed crystals will give different results (see Barton, 1950).
A "bathyscape" devised by physicist Auguste Piccard, now 62, carries scientists deep below the surface of the ocean for marine research (see 1960; balloon, 1932).
Gloucestershire-born astronomer (Alfred Charles) Bernard Lovell, 33, uses his new radio telescope October 9 and 10 to observe a particularly intense meteor shower, directing radio signals from the instrument's transmitter (see Reber, 1937). He finds that the number of optical sightings corresponds to the number of radio echoes being received and that the timing of the two rates is just as predicted, thus proving that the echoes are caused by the meteors and permitting meteor showers to be recorded in daylight (see Jodrell Bank, 1951).
Zoologist Clarence E. McClung dies at Swarthmore, Pa., January 17 at age 75; chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis drops dead in his laboratory at Berkeley, Calif., March 23 at age 70; physicist-mathematician Sir James Jeans dies at his native London September 16 at age 79.
The journal Science reports that a Cornell University team headed by biochemist Vincent du Vigneaud has synthesized penicillin (see 1945; nutrition, 1940). Now 45, du Vigneaud has earlier synthesized the tripeptide glutathione, isolated the antidiuretic hormone vasopressin, and made other breakthroughs (see Nystatin, 1950).
The United States has more than 25,000 new cases of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis), up from more than 10,000 in 1943 (see 1947).
Soviet surgeon Vladimir P. Demikhov, 30, pioneers heart-transplant surgery by performing the procedure on a dog that keeps its old heart as well as the new one and survives for 5 months. Demikhov next year will perform a lung transplant on a dog (see Medawar, 1953).
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by New York pediatric psychiatrist Benjamin Spock, 43, is published in May and counters the stern dictums laid down by many previous books of its kind (see Gesell, 1943); it will be used to raise generations of children along what some will call permissive lines of behavioral standards. "Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense," Spock writes. "What good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best." His book of relaxed, practical advice has sales of 750,000 copies in its first year without advertising. Spock will revise its second edition to focus more on parents' anxieties and will add a section entitled "Parents Are Human" for the 1957 revision. It will be retitled Baby and Child Care, translated into 42 languages, including Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Tamil, Thai, and Urdu, and in the next 50 years will have sales of more than 43 million copies.
The health hazards of smoking come under scrutiny in a medical symposium held October 2 at the University of Buffalo. Lung cancer is six times more prevalent among men than among women, and physician William Rienkoff says, "It will be interesting, now that women are smoking, to see if the much higher ratio of the malignancy of the lung in men is decreased by an increase in the incidence in women."
The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision February 10 in Everson v. Board of Education upholds a New Jersey court's ruling that providing state funds to reimburse parents for having their children bused to parochial schools does not violate the "establishment clause" in the First Amendment, but Justice Hugo Black says in his majority opinion that the term "no establishment" means that neither the federal government nor any state "can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another," nor can a tax in any amount be "levied to support any religious activities or institutions." The wall between church and state stated by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 "must be kept high and impregnable," Black says, but while he concludes that New Jersey did not breach that wall Justices Harold Burton, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, and Wiley Rutledge hold that it did. Fundamentalist leaders will go on exercising their political clout to have elected officials use taxpayers' money to fund "faith-based" schools and charities (seeEngel v. Vitale, 1962).
The Revised Version of the New Testament is published after 17 years of work, revising the American Standard Version of 1901. Forty-four Protestant denominations have appointed a committee of 22 biblical scholars headed by Yale University Divinity School dean Luther A. Weigle, 65. Its Revised Standard Version of the Old Testament will appear in 1952 (both are based on the King James version of 1611).
"Mother Cabrini" is canonized at Rome July 7 and becomes America's first saint (see 1889; 1917).
Colleges and universities throughout the world struggle to cope with swollen enrollments after years that have seen many go bankrupt or come close. U.S. college enrollments double and even quadruple, reaching an all-time high of more than 2 million as returning veterans crowd classrooms with help from the G.I. Bill of Rights (see 1944). It opens the doors of schools that were once only for rich men's sons and daughters to young people who could never have afforded college educations without financial help; by next year the government will be paying the tuitions of nearly 50 percent of college students, and these students will be more motivated to excel than earlier generations of students, even though many will be living in Quonset huts, trailers, and other makeshift housing while they raise families.
Fulbright awards for an international exchange of students and professors are initiated August 1 as President Truman signs into law a bill introduced by Sen. J. William Fulbright, who was a Rhodes scholar in 1925 (see 1902). More than 250,000 Fulbright fellowships will be awarded in the next 55 years, a master of Oxford's Pembroke College will tell Fulbright he is "responsible for the largest and most significant movement of scholars across the face of the earth since the fall of Constantinople in 1453," and Fulbright alumni will include heads of state by the dozen.
Mensa has its beginnings in the High I.Q. Club founded at Oxford October 1 by medical researcher and post-graduate law student Lancelot (Lionel) Ware, 31, with Australian-born barrister Roland Berrill, 49, who has been rejected by the university but has a private income and finances the project. Their objective is to compile a list of the 600 most intelligent people in Britain with view to making them more easily accessible if needed in an emergency; limiting membership to people who can prove they have I.Q.s in the top 1 percent of the population (an error in computing standard deviations on tests will soon change that to the top 2 percent), they rename the society Mens (Latin for mind), find that this is the title of a racy men's magazine, opt for Mensa (Latin for table), and only later will learn that this is Mexican slang for idiot. The society will encourage research in the area of human intelligence for the benefit of mankind, questions will arise as to the value of I.Q. testing and Mensa will have trouble justifying any real purpose for its existence, but it will grow by the end of the century to have about 100,000 members with groups in 60 countries worldwide.
Dick Tracy in the comic strip of the same name uses a two-way wrist radio in January (see 1931). Cartoonist Chester Gould had planned to have his hero wear a wrist TV, his editors have rejected that idea as being too far-fetched, such TV will not become a reality in this century, but cell telephones that work very much like the two-way wrist radio will be commonplace by the 1990s (see 1983).
AT&T sets up the world's first commercial radio telephone service at St. Louis, but its system uses only one transmitter with six channels (more would interfere with radio frequencies) and is soon backlogged. AT&T engineers will improve the system next year by using a network of low-power transmitters, each placed in a region, or "cell." As a user travels from one region to another, it will be possible for calls to be handed off from cell to cell, allowing more people to have simultaneous access to the airwaves, but it will be decades before the cell phone begins to come into common use (see 1983).
The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) begins a weekly Letter from America by the Manchester Guardian's urbane U.S. correspondent Alistair (originally Alfred) Cooke, 37, who went to Cambridge on a scholarship. Begun as a 13-week experiment March 24, the program will continue for 53 years.
Sony Corp. has its beginnings in the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Co. (Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, or Totsuko) incorporated May 7 by Japanese electrical engineer Masaru Ibuka, 38, with backing from sake brewing heir Akio Morita, 25. Ibuka has worked on infrared detection devices and a telephone scrambler for the military, taken over a gutted and boarded-up Tokyo department store, and started a factory to produce shortwave converters for radio sets that will enable listeners to receive news from abroad. Morita has read about Ibuka's device and joins him in founding the company that will be renamed Sony Corp. in 1958. Starting with 20 employees, Totsuko is soon making audio control consols, electronic megaphones, and electrically heated seat cushions (see tape recorder, 1950).
Nearly 10,000 American homes have television sets, up from 5,000 last year, and they are almost non-existent in other countries, but mass production of sets now begins in the United States and abroad (see 1948).
Television pioneer John L. Baird dies at Bexhill-on-Sea, England, June 14 at age 57. The BBC Third Programme begins in September to give British radio listeners more variety.
Xerography wins support from the Rochester, N.Y., firm Haloid Co., whose research director, John H. Dessauer, has seen an article on "electrophotography" by Chester Carlson in a July 1944 issue of Radio News (see 1938). Dessauer and his boss Joseph C. Wilson, 36, travel to Columbus, Ohio, and see experiments conducted by the Batelle Memorial Institute, Haloid invests $10,000 to acquire production rights, and within 6 years the firm will raise more than $3.5 million to develop what will be called the Xerox copier (see 1950).
Dallas Morning News publisher George Bannerman Dealey dies of a coronary occlusion at Dallas February 26 at age 86; New York Daily News founder Joseph Medill Patterson of a liver ailment at New York May 26 at age 67; journalist Ray Stannard Baker at his Amherst, Mass., home July 12 at age 76.
Die Welt (The World) begins twice-weekly publication at Hamburg April 2 under the supervision of Col. H. B. Garland, British Army. Edited by Hans Zehrer, its circulation will soon reach 500,000 (325,000 at Hamburg, 175,000 at Essen) (see Berlin, 1947).
Der Spiegel (The Mirror) begins publication November 16 at Hanover under the name Die Woche (The Week). Two young British officers have started the weekly modeled on Time and Newsweek but it will soon be edited by local journalist Rudolf Augstein, 22; he served as a telegraph operator and, later, artillery observer for the German Army before being wounded on the eastern front, was imprisoned briefly by the U.S. Army, and will put out his first issue January 4 of next year; it will have a circulation of 65,000 by 1948 and grow to have more than 5 million as it becomes a powerful voice in publishing (see 1962).
Elle begins publication at Paris under the direction of former film scriptwriter Françoise Giroud, 30, and Hélène Lazareff. Giroud served time in prison for her Resistance activities during the Nazi occupation, and her new fashion magazine will challenge Vogue and Harper's Bazaar (seeL'Express, 1953).
Scientific American magazine is acquired after 101 years of publication by former LIFE magazine science editor Gerard Piel, 31, who will be joined by LIFE staffmen Dennis Flanagan, 27, and Donald H. Miller Jr. in broadening the appeal of the monthly as science grows in its impact on the lives and careers of more Americans.
Family Circle magazine begins monthly publication in September after 14 years as a weekly supermarket giveaway. The cover price is 5¢, the September issue has 96 pages, some chains drop the magazine, and others accept it as a profit-making item.
Nonfiction: Hiroshima by John Hersey, whose documentary account of six people who survived last year's U.S. nuclear attack on the Japanese city occupies the entire August 31 issue of the New Yorker magazine and then appears in book form; The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture by anthropologist Ruth Benedict, who has never been to Japan but whose book will nevertheless be a classic in its field; Thunder Out of China by Boston-born former Time magazine foreign correspondent Theodore H. (Harold) White, 31, and his colleague Annalee Jacoby, who have quit Time because publisher Henry Luce has refused to run articles critical of Chiang Kai-shek's corrupt regime; Chinese Science by Joseph Needham, who headed the British Scientific Mission in China during the war and traveled about the country collecting rare scientific books and manuscripts (see 1954); Man's Search for Meaning by Viennese-born psychiatrist Viktor (Emil) Frankl, 41, who has survived the horrors of the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps (his book will be translated into 24 languages and have sales of more than 10 million copies); The Case Against the Nazi War Criminals by Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor Robert H. Jackson, who returns to his seat on the U.S. Supreme Court at year's end; Journal, 1939-42 by André Gide; The Stricken Land by Rexford Guy Tugwell is about Puerto Rico (Tugwell has left the island to join the faculty of the University of Chicago); The Art of Plain Talk by Viennese-born U.S. author Rudolph Flesch, 35.
Philologist-writer Logan Pearsall Smith dies at London March 2 at age 80; author-critic Gertrude Stein at Paris July 27 at age 72; naturalist-writer Ernest Thompson Seton at Santa Fe, N.M., October 23 at age 86.
Fiction: Zorba the Greek (Vois Kai Politeia Tou Alexi Zorba) by Nikos Kazantzakis; Independent People by émigré Icelandic novelist Halldor Laxness (originally Halldor Gudjonsson), 44; The Berlin Stories ("The Last of Mr. Norris" and "Goodbye to Berlin") by Christopher Isherwood; The President (El Señor Presidente) by Guatemalan novelist Miguel Asturias, 47; Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty; The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers; Memoirs of Hecate County (stories) by Edmund Wilson; All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, whose protagonist Willie Stark is transparently based on the late Huey Long; Ladders to Fire by Paris-born New York novelist Anaïs Nin, 32; Back by Henry Green; Miracle de la rose by playwright Jean Genet; "The Courtesy Call" by Osamu Dazai, who expresses nihilistic despair (he has been the victim of a wartime air raid and has said that he was deceived by the emperor); The Foxes of Harrow by Georgia-born novelist Frank (Garvin) Yerby, 36; Williwaw by West Point-born novelist (Eugene Luther) Gore Vidal (Jr.), 21, who joined the Army Reserve 4 years ago instead of going to Harvard (he had been a mediocre student at Exeter and served in the Aleutians); This Side of Innocence by Taylor Caldwell; B. F.'s Daughter by John P. Marquand; The River by Rumer Godden; The Train (Sputniki) by Russian novelist Evira (Federovna) Panova, 41; Letty Fox: Her Luck by Christina Stead; The River Road by Frances Parkinson Keyes; Green Grass of Wyoming by Mary O'Hara; Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Detroit-born Fortune editor Eric (Williams) Hodgins, 46; The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing; Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes; Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey; I the Jury by Brooklyn, N.Y.-born comic-strip writer Frank Morrison "Mickey" Spillane, 28, whose raunchy Mike Hammer detective novel emphasizes sex, sadism, and violence, drawing scorn from critics.
French authorities prosecute Paris publisher Maurice Girodias for publishing works by the American novelist Henry Miller; it is France's first obscenity case since the one involving Flaubert's Madame Bovary in 1844.
E. Phillips Oppenheim dies on the Isle of Guernsey February 3 at age 79, having written three to five spy and suspense novels per year since 1896; Thomas Dixon of 1905 The Clansman notoriety dies at Raleigh, N.C., April 3 at age 82; Booth Tarkington at Indianapolis May 19 at age 76; novelist-historian H. G. Wells at London August 13 at age 79.
Poetry: Lord Weary's Castle by Boston-born poet Robert (Traill Spence) Lowell (Jr.), 29, who has served a term in prison for his pacifism in World War II; The Double Image by English poet Denise Levertov, 23; Deaths and Entrances by Dylan Thomas; Cities, Plains, and People by Lawrence Durrell; Paterson by William Carlos Williams; Poems—North and South by Worcester, Mass.-born poet Elizabeth Bishop, 35, includes "Florida," "The Map," "The Fish," "The Man-Moth," "The Unbeliever," and "A Miracle for Breakfast"; Family Circle by Philadelphia-born poet Eve Merriam (originally Moskowitz), 30; The Moving Image by Australian poet Judith Wright, 31.
Poet Countee Cullen dies of uremic poisoning at New York January 9 at age 42.
Juvenile: Mistress Masham's Repose by T. H. White; The Little Island by New York-born author Margaret Wise Brown, 35, illustrations by Leonard Weisgard, 30; The Kid Comes Back by John R. Tunis.
Wanda Gág dies at New York June 27 at age 53.
Painting: Faun Playing the Pipe, Seated Woman, Joie de Vivre, Femme Fleur, and Françoise with a Yellow Necklace by Pablo Picasso, whose mistress Françoise Gilot will give birth next year to his son Claude; Composition with Branch by Fernand Léger; Self-Portrait in the Bathroom Mirror by Pierre Bonnard; Crucifixion (for St. Matthew's Church, Northampton) by London painter Graham (Vivian) Sutherland, 43, who was official war artist from 1941 to 1945; Eyes in the Heat by Jackson Pollock; Seated Blonde and Child and Mother by Milton Avery; Barn Abstraction by Charles Sheeler; Vessels of Magic by Russian-born New York Abstractionist Mark Rothko (Marcus Rothkovich), 42; For All These Rights We've Just Begun to Fight (lithograph) and Nearly Everybody Reads the Bulletin (gouache and ink on masonite) by Ben Shahn. John Steuart Curry dies at Madison, Wis., August 29 at age 48; Joseph Stella at New York November 5 at age 69; painter-designer-photographer László Moholy-Nagy at Chicago November 24 at age 51.
Pablo Picasso founds a pottery at Vallauris, France.
Sculpture: Elegy II and Pelagos (both wood) by Barbara Hepworth. Sculptor Elie Nadelman commits suicide after a long illness at his 16-acre Riverdale, N.Y., estate December 28 at age 64, having amassed (with his wife, Viola) a collection of American folk art numbering some 15,000 pieces.
The color film Ektachrome introduced by Eastman Kodak is the first that a photographer can process himself. Much faster than the Kodachrome introduced in 1935 and 1936, the new film is available initially only in transparency sheet form, but Eastman will introduce it in roll film sizes next year and increase its speed several times (see Kodacolor, 1944; Tri-X, 1954).
Condé Nast editor Alexander Liberman engages Plainfield, N.J.-born photographer Irving Penn, 29, to take black-and-white fashion pictures for Vogue magazine, whose pages will give Penn worldwide prominence. He will establish a freelance advertising photography business at New York in 1952 and continue with Vogue for decades.
Photographer Alfred Stieglitz dies at New York July 13 at age 82, survived by his widow, Georgia O'Keeffe, now 58.
Theater: Those Ghosts! (Questi fantasmi!) by Italian playwright Edouardo De Filippo, 46, 1/12 at Rome's Teatro Eliseo; Born Yesterday by Rochester, N.Y.-born playwright-screenwriter-director Garson Kanin, 34, 2/4 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with New York-born actress Judy Holliday (originally Judith Tuvim), 22, Paul Douglas, Gary Merrill, 1,642 perfs.; Santa Cruz by Swiss playwright Max Frisch, 34, 3/7 at Zürich's Schauspielhaus; Beaumarchais, or the Birth of Figaro by Friedrich Wolf 3/8 at Berlin's Deutsches Theater; Whitman Avenue by Wisconsin-born playwright Maxine Wood (Maxine Flora Finsterwald), 36, 6/5 at New York's Cort Theater, with Canada Lee, Vivian Baber in a play about discriminatory housing practices (Margo Jones is the director), 148 perfs.; The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan 9/6 at London's Lyric Theatre, with Emlyn Williams, Angela Baddeley, Hugh Beaumont in a story based on the 1908 Archer-Shee case, 215 perfs.; The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill 10/9 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with James Barton, Carl Benton Reid, Dudley Digges, 136 perfs.; The Chinese Wall (Die chinesische Mauer) by Max Frisch 10/10 at Zürich's Schauspielhaus; Filomenca Marchurano by Edouardo De Filippo 11/7 at Naples; The Respectful Prostitute (La putain respecteuse) by Jean-Paul Sartre 11/8 at the Théâtre Antoine, Paris; Joan of Lorraine by Maxwell Anderson 11/18 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Ingrid Bergman, Sam Wanamaker as the director of a star playing the role of Joan of Arc (Margo Jones is the real play's director), 201 perfs.; Another Part of the Forest by Lillian Hellman 11/20 at New York's Fulton Theater, with Kentucky-born actress Patricia Neal, 20, Baltimore-born actress Mildred Dunnock, 40, 182 perfs; A Phoenix Too Frequent by English playwright Christopher Fry, 38, 11/20 at London's Arts Theatre, with Paul Scofield, Joan White, 39 perfs.
The American Repertory Theater is founded by actress-director-producer Margaret Webster, now 41, director-producer Cheryl Crawford, now 44, and English actress Eva LeGallienne, but will not survive for long.
Actor Charles Waldron dies at Hollywood, Calif., March 4 at age 71; Philip Merivale at Los Angeles March 12 at age 59; playwright Edward B. Sheldon of a coronary thrombosis at his New York home April 1 at age 60 (almost entirely paralyzed since 1925 and totally blind since 1931, he has remained cheerful to the end); playwright Frederic Hatton dies at Rutland, Ill., April 13 at age 66; actor Lionel Atwill at Pacific Palisades, Calif., April 22 at age 61; Gerhart Hauptmann at Agnetendorf, Silesia, Germany, June 8 at age 83; actress Antoinette Perry of a heart attack at her 510 Park Avenue New York apartment June 28 at age 68 (see Tony Award, 1947); Channing Pollock dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at Shoreham, Long Island, August 17 at age 66; playwright-producer-critic Harley Granville-Barker at Paris August 31 at age 68; actress Laurette Taylor of a coronary thrombosis at her New York home December 7 at age 62; Broadway columnist Damon Runyon of throat cancer at New York December 10 at age 62; melodramatist Lillian Mortimer at Peterburg, Mich., December 18; playwright John Colton at Gainesville, Texas, December 26 at age 60.
Radio: The Bob and Ray Show on Boston's WHDH (daytime) with comedians Robert Brackett "Bob" Elliott, 23, and Raymond Walter "Ray" Goulding, 24, who lampoon popular radio fare with variations such as One Feller's Family; Mr. Trace, Keener than Most Persons; Jack Headstrong, The All-American American; Kindly Mother McGee, The Best Cook in the Neighborhood; and—most notably—Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife, whose characters include Fielding Backstayge ("Harry's long-lost blacksheep brother"), Greg Marlowe ("a young playwright secretly in love with Mary"), Pop Beloved (stage door manager), and neighbor Calvin L. Hoogevin. Bob and Ray will sign off each show with the lines, "Write if you get work," and "And hang by your thumbs."
Talent-show emcee Major Edward L. Bowes dies June 13 at Rumson, N.J., on the eve of his 72nd birthday. He gave up his show in 1943 when earnings dwindled.
Films: Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast with Jean Marais; William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives with Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews; Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart, New York-born actress Lauren Bacall (originally Betty Joan Perske), 21, Ann Arbor, Mich.-born actress Martha Vickers (originally Martha MacVicar), 21; David Lean's Brief Encounter with Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson; David Lean's Great Expectations with John Mills, Valerie Hobson, 29; Sidney Gilliat's Green for Danger with Alastair Sim, 46; Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life with James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Donna Reed; Robert Siodmak's The Killers with New York-born actor Burt (Burton Stephen) Lancaster, 32, North Carolina-born actress Ava Gardner (Lucy Johnson), 23; John Ford's My Darling Clementine with Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Linda Darnell; Carol Reed's Odd Man Out with James Mason; Roberto Rosselini's Open City with Anna Magnani, 38, Aldo Fabrizi; Tay Garnett's The Postman Always Rings Twice with Lana Turner, John Garfield; Vittorio De Sica's Shoeshine with Rinaldo Smerdoni, Franco Interlenghi; Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Stairway to Heaven with David Niven, Detroit-born actress Kim Hunter (originally Janet Cole), 23. Also: John Cromwell's Anna and the King of Siam with Irene Dunne, Rex Harrison; Basil Dearden's The Captive Heart with Michael Redgrave; Ernst Lubitsch's Cluny Brown with Charles Boyer, Jennifer Jones; Irving Rapper's Deception with Bette Davis, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid; Claude Autant-Lara's Devil in the Flesh (Le Diable au Corps) with Gérard Philipe, 24, Micheline Presle (originally Micheline Chassagne), 24; Jean Negulesco's Humoresque with Joan Crawford, John Garfield; Zoltan Korda's The Macomber Affair with Gregory Peck, Joan Bennett; Akira Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth; Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious with Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains; Edmund Goulding's The Razor's Edge with Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney; Dudley Nichols's Sister Kenny with Rosalind Russell; Wilfred Jackson's and Harve Foster's (animated) Song of the South with Bobby Driscoll, James Baskett, Ruth Warrick; Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase with Omaha-born actress Dorothy (Hackett) McGuire, 28, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, now 67; Jean Delannoy's La Symphonie Pastorale with Pierre Blanchar, Michele Morgan; Jean Negulesco's Three Strangers with Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Peter Lorre; Kenji Mizoguchi's Utamaro and His Five Women; Clarence Brown's The Yearling with Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, Claude Jarman Jr.
Some 90 million Americans go to the movies each week, but right-wing groups condemn films such as The Best Years of Our Lives and It's a Wonderful Life (to say nothing of the 1941 films Citizen Kane, The Devil and Miss Jones, and Meet John Doe) for casting bankers and plutocrats in an unfavorable light (see politics [Hollywood "Black List"], 1947).
The J. Arthur Rank Organisation is incorporated with Rank as chairman (see 1934). Now 57, he will be raised to the peerage in 1957, become president of the company in 1962, and be one of the world's leading film producers and distributors.
Actor George Arliss dies of a bronchial ailment at his native London February 5 at age 77; silent-screen star Mae Busch in a San Fernando Valley, Calif., hospital April 19 at age 74; actor Charles Butterworth crashes his car into a lamp post on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, June 14, is thrown from the car, and dies at age 46 of a fractured skull; William S. Hart dies at Los Angeles June 23 at age 75 following a stroke; film pioneer Léon Gaumont at Sainte Maxime-sur-mer, France, August 11 at age 82; former Vitagraph girl of silent movie fame Florence Turner at Los Angeles August 20 at age 59; actor Raimu (Jules Muraire) of a heart attack at Paris September 20 at age 63; Donald Meek of leukemia at Hollywood November 18 at age 68; comedian W. C. Fields of heart failure, dropsy, and a liver ailment at Pasadena, Calif., December 25 at age 66.
Hollywood musicals: Stuart Heisler's Blue Skies with Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Joan Caulfield, music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, songs that include "A Couple of Song and Dance Men"; Vincente Minnelli's Ziegfeld Follies with William Powell, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly; George Sidney's The Harvey Girls with Judy Garland, music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, songs that include "The Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe" (see restaurants [Fred Harvey], 1876); Alfred E. Green's The Jolson Story with Kansas-born actor Larry (originally Samuel Klausman) Parks, 32, and the voice of Al Jolson, now 60, singing "April Showers," "Mammy," "Swanee," and other songs he made famous; H. Bruce Humberstone's Three Little Girls in Blue with June Haver, Vivian Blaine, Celeste Holm, songs that include "You Make Me Feel So Good" and "On the Boardwalk at Atlantic City" by Joseph Myron, lyrics by Mack Gordon.
Stage musicals: Lute Song 2/6 at New York's Plymouth Theater, with Mary Martin, Yul Brynner, Helen Craig, music by Raymond Scott, lyrics by Bernard Harrigan, songs that include "Mountain High, Valley Low," 142 perfs.; Three to Make Ready (revue) 3/7 at New York's Adelphi Theater, with Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Arthur Godfrey, dancer Harold Lang, New Brunswick, N.Y.,-born actress Bibi Osterwald, 26, scenic design by Donald Oenslager, music by Morgan Lewis, lyrics and sketches by Nancy Hamilton in a production staged by John Murray Anderson, songs that include "It's a Nice Night for It," 327 perfs. St. Louis Woman 3/30 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with Newport News, Va.-born singer Pearl (Mae) Bailey, 28, heading an all-black cast, book from an unpublished play by the late Countee Cullen, music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, songs that include "Come Rain or Come Shine," 113 perfs.; Call Me Mister (revue) 4/18 at New York's National Theater, with Betty Garrett, Melvyn Douglas, New York-born comedian Jules Munshin, 31, Hartford, Conn.-born ingénue Maria Karnilova, 25, music and lyrics by Harold Rome, book by Arnold Auerbach and Indiana-born writer Arnold B. Horwitt, 28, songs that include "South America, Take It Away," 734 perfs.; Sweetest and Lowest (revue) 5/9 at London's Ambassadors Theatre, with Hermione Gingold, Henry Kendall, 791 perfs.; Annie Get Your Gun 5/16 at New York's Imperial Theater, with Ethel Merman, Ray Middleton, book based on the life of markswoman Phoebe "Annie Oakley" Mozee of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (see 1883), choreography by Helen Tamiris, music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, songs that include "Anything You Can Do," "Doin' What Comes Naturally," "The Girl That I Marry," "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun," "I Got the Sun in the Morning," "There's No Business Like Show Business," 1,147 perfs.; Pacific 1860 12/19 at London's Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, with Mary Martin, music and lyrics by Noël Coward, 129 perfs.
Composer Sidney Jones dies at his native London January 29 at age 84.
Opera: The Medium 5/8 at Columbia University's Brander Matthew Theater, with music by Italian-born U.S. composer Gian-Carlo Menotti, 34; The Rape of Lucretia 7/12 at Glyndebourne, with English contralto Kathleen (Mary) Ferrier, 34, in her stage debut as Lucretia, Peter Pears as the Male Chorus, Joan Cross as the Female Chorus, music by Benjamin Britten (Ferrier has toured the provinces during the war and sung with the Bach Choir at London). Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, now 30, makes her debut with the Vienna Staatsoper; Italian soprano Renata Tebaldi, 24, her debut at Milan's La Scala; Hollywood, Calif.-born bass Jerome Hines (originally Heinz), 24, his Metropolitan Opera debut as the officer in the 1874 Mussorgsky opera Boris Godunov (he will sing at the Met for 41 years).
Ballet: The Serpent Heart 5/10 at Columbia University's McMillin Theater, with Martha Graham, music by Samuel Barber, choreography by Graham; The Four Temperaments 11/20 at New York's Central High School of the Needle Trades, with Gisella Caccialanza, Tanaquil LeClerq, Todd Bolender, music by Paul Hindemith, choreography by George Balanchine.
Oklahoma-born ballerina Maria Tallchief, 19, quits the Ballets Russes and joins the new Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo started by George Balanchine. Daughter of an Osage chief, Tallchief becomes Balanchine's second wife (see 1947).
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra gives its first concert September 15 at Croydon under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham, who will be its principal conductor until his death in 1961.
First performances: Symphony in Three Movements by Igor Stravinsky 1/24 at New York's Carnegie Hall (Stravinsky's wife, Catherine, died in 1939 and he married his longtime mistress Vera de Bosset in 1940); Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss 1/25 at Zürich; Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra by Darius Milhaud 1/30 at the Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C.; Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra by the late Béla Bartók 2/8 at Philadelphia's Academy of Music; Concerto for Oboe and Chamber Orchestra by Strauss 2/26 at Zürich; Scherzo a la Russe by Stravinsky 3/22 at San Francisco; Sonatina No. 2 for 16 Wind Instruments by Strauss 3/25 at Winterthur, Switzerland; Ebony Concerto by Stravinsky 3/25 at New York's Carnegie Hall, with Woody Herman as clarinet soloist; Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra by Samuel Barber 4/5 at Boston's Symphony Hall; Symphony No. 3 by Charles Ives 4/5 at New York; The Bells symphonic suite by Milhaud 4/26 at Chicago; The Unanswered Question (A Comic Landscape) by Ives (who wrote it in 1908) 5/11 at Columbia University; For Those We Love requiem by Paul Hindemith 5/14 at New York's City Center, with Robert Shaw's Collegiate Chorale, text from the Walt Whitman poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"; Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra by Milhaud 5/26 at Prague; Symphony for Strings by William Schuman 7/12 at London; Symphonie No. 3 (Liturgique) by Arthur Honegger 8/17 at Zürich's Tonhalle; String Quartet No. 2 by Ives (who wrote it between 1907 and 1913) 10/7 at New York's Town Hall; Quartet No. 2 for Strings by Ernest Bloch 10/9 at London's Wigmore Hall; Symphony No. 3 by Aaron Copland 10/18 at Boston's Symphony Hall; Concerto for Cello in E major by Aram Khatchaturian 10/30 at Moscow; Concerto No. 2 for Violoncello and Orchestra by Milhaud 11/28 at New York's Carnegie Hall; Ricercari for Piano and Orchestra by U.S. composer Norman Dello Joio, 33, 12/19 at New York's Carnegie Hall; Symphony No. 2 by Milhaud 12/20 at Boston's Symphony Hall; Minstrel Show by Morton Gould 12/21 at Indianapolis.
The first vinylite phonograph record appears in October. RCA-Victor issues a new recording of the 1895 Richard Strauss work Till Eulenspiegels LustigeStreiche, but vinylite will not supplant shellac until the perfection of long-playing records (see 1948).
The first U.S. magnetic audiotape machine is used to produce the commercial recording Songs by Merv Griffin. Recording studios up to now have produced disks from masters made by recording directly onto an acetate disk, and it has been almost impossible to edit them, but San Francisco-born former U.S. Army Signal Corps lieutenant John "Jack" Mullin, now 32, discovered two German magnetophones at Paris last year, brought them to the United States, and has worked with William A. Palmer to improve them (see communications, 1940). While stationed in England 3 years ago Mullin heard a German radio station broadcasting classical music 24 hours per day without clicks or scratches; the sound quality of his tapes and their editability attracts crooner Bing Crosby, whose dislike for live broadcasts motivates him to give Mullin and Palmer financial backing (see communications [Sony], 1950).
Composer Manuel de Falla dies at Alta Gracia, Argentina, November 14 at age 69 (he has written little since 1926 and has lived in Argentina since 1939).
Popular songs: "La Vie en Rose" by Italian-born Paris composer Louiguy (Louis Guglielmi), 30, lyrics by French chanteuse Edith Piaf (Edith Givanna Gassion), now 31, whose records have entertained French listeners through the war years; "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" by Harrisburg, Pa.-born Los Angeles actor-songwriter Bobby Troup, 29, who sketched out the song last year while driving across the country to California; "To Each His Own" by Raymond B. Evans, 31, lyrics by Jay Livingston, 31 (title song for film); "Put the Blame on Mame" by Allan Roberts and Doris Fisher (for the film Gilda); "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" by James Van Heusen and Eddie De Lange (for the film New Orleans); "Tenderly" by Walter Gross, lyrics by Jack Lawrence; "You Call Everybody Darling" by Sam Martin, Ben Trace, Clem Walls; "Ole Buttermilk Sky" by Hoagy Carmichael and Jack Brooks (for the film Canyon Passage); "Day by Day" by Paul Wexton, lyrics by Sammy Cahn, Alex Stordahl; "Seems Like Old Times" by Carmen Lombardo, 43, and John Jacob Loeb, 35; "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" by Chicago-born songwriter-vocalist Melvin Howard "Mel" Torme, 21, and Robert Wells (Torme appears at New York's Copacabana night club, where disk jockey Fred Robbins dubs him the "Velvet Fog." Country singer Molly O'Day (LaVerne Lois Williams), 23, records "The Tramp on the Street" with her husband, Lynn (originally Leonard) Davis, 32, and their band The Cumberland Mountain Folks.
Songwriter Harry Von Tilzer dies in his sleep at New York January 10 at age 73; Lew Pollock after a heart attack at Hollywood January 18 at age 50; Vincent Youmans of tuberculosis at Denver's Park Lane Hotel April 5 at age 47; James Kendis of a heart attack at his Jamaica, N.Y., home November 15 at age 63.
California-born pianist-composer David Warren "Dave" Brubeck, 25, forms an experimental octet that will give way in 1949 to a trio (see quartet, 1952).
The Basketball Association of America is organized with professional teams that include the New York Knickerbockers (see 1925; NBA, 1948). Joliet, Ill.-born All-American basketball player George Mikan, 22, graduates from DePaul University and signs with the National Basketball League's Chicago American Gears professional team for a record salary of $12,000. The six-foot-ten, 245-pound Mikan averages 16½ points in his rookie year, moves to the Minneapolis Lakers when the Gears team folds, and will play for nine seasons, becoming the game's first superstar (see NBA, 1948).
Former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson dies at Raleigh, N.C., June 10 at age 68 following an auto accident.
King Ranch 3-year-old Assault wins U.S. racing's Triple Crown.
Yvon Petra, 30, (Fr) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon as tournament play resumes after a 6-year lapse; Pauline Betz wins in women's singles. Jack Kramer, 24, wins in men's singles at Forest Hills, Betz in women's singles.
Golfer Sam Snead wins his first and only British Open title.
Minneapolis-born golfer Patricia Jane "Patty" Berg, 28, defeats Betty Jameson in the final round September 1 to win the first U.S. Women's Open. (Named Female Athlete of the Year in 1938 and 1943, Berg will receive the same honor in 1955 and will have 57 career victories in an outstanding professional career.)
The St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series, defeating the Boston Red Sox 4 games to 3.
Former Washington Senators pitcher Walter P. Johnson dies at Washington, D.C., December 10 at age 69.
The Cleveland Browns professional football team founded by Ohio-born coach Paul E. Brown, 38, wins a league title with help from Waukegan, Ill.-born quarterback Otto (Everett) Graham Jr., 24, who has played for Northwestern, starring also in basketball, and will continue with the Browns for 10 successful seasons.
An automatic Pinspotter displayed in prototype at a national bowling tournament in Buffalo, N.Y., by American Machine and Foundry Co. (AMF) begins a revolution in bowling. Devised 10 years ago by Pearl River, N.Y., engineer Fred Schmidt, the patented vacuum Pinspotter has been rejected by Brunswick Balke-Collender, which will scramble to catch up with AMF as bowling becomes the leading U.S. participation sport.
World chess champion Aleksandr Alekhine dies at Estoril, Portugal, March 24 at age 53 on the eve of a title match against Soviet chess master Mikhail Moiseyvich Botvinnik, 35, who has beaten five other seeded World Chess Federation players, including Polish-born U.S. master Samuel Reshevsky, 35, who held the U.S. title from 1936 to 1944. The world title will remain vacant until 1948 (see 1948).
Kansas City, Mo., inventor Joel G. "Jack" Doyle devises the first powered rotary lawnmower for the local Rotary Power Motor Co. Demand from suburban homeowners brings a flood of orders to retail chains that carry the mowers.
The skimpy two-piece bikini swimsuit shown at a Paris show creates a sensation 4 days after the first U.S. Bikini Atoll atomic bomb test. Designed by French mechanical engineer Louis Réard, 49, and modeled by a stripper (Réard describes it as "four triangles of nothing"), it competes with a similar swimsut designed by couturier Jacques Heim, 47, but Réard has better marketing skills. The New York Herald Tribune runs nine articles about the bikini, and Vogue magazine editor Diana Vreeland says it reveals "everything about a girl except her maiden name." Banned at Biarritz and other resorts, it will not be seen on U.S. beaches until the early 1960s.
Frederick's of Hollywood has its beginnings in a New York mail-order business founded by local entrepreneur Frederick Mellinger, 33, who has returned from the war in Europe with the idea of selling sensuous and sophisticated European lingerie by catalogue. He offers racy black panties, bras, and nightgowns at a time when proper young women wear white undergarments. He will move to Los Angeles next year, introduce the first padded bra, and introduce the world's first push-up bra (the "Rising Star") in 1948.
New York fashion designer Ceil Chapman (née Mitchell), 32, wins the American Fashion Critics' Award. Her elaborate, feminine styles have attracted customers who include Greer Garson and Mary Martin.
German clothier Hugo Boss struggles to revive his 23-year-old business, having fallen into bankruptcy before the war. Like so many others, his factory allegedly made uniforms for the SS, the Wehrmacht, and Hitler Youth, and it may possibly have employed prisoners from concentration camps. Boss himself has been ostracized, stripped of his voting rights, and fined 80,000 deutschmarks, and the company will not recover until the early 1970s, when it begins manufacturing high-priced men's suits and sportswear.
Former Lachasse designer Hardy Amies establishes his own London haute couture business, having served in British Intelligence during the war (see 1934). Now 37, he will introduce a ready-to-wear line in 1950 and be dressmaker to the queen beginning in 1955.
Paris couturière Jeanne Lanvin dies July 6 at age 79 after a career in which she has joined with a few others in setting the style for world fashion (see perfumes, 1925; 1927)Her daughter Marguerite will head the house until her own death in 1958, and others will continue the house into the 21st century.
The repeal of U.S. order L85 October 19 permits dressmakers to lengthen skirts, ending wartime austerity.
Estée Lauder, 38, makes her first sale to Saks Fifth Avenue. Born Josephine Esther Mentzer, the New York beautician has joined with her husband, Joseph, 54, to open offices at 501 Madison Avenue and convert a West 64th Street restaurant into a factory producing a moisturizer called Youth-Dew, developed with financial and technical support from A. L. van Ameringen (see 1929). Having opened concessions at beauty salons 2 years ago, the Lauders now close those concessions, add more department stores to their customer base, and will make and market cosmetics whose sales will grow to exceed those of Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein, or Revlon.
Tide is introduced by Procter & Gamble, whose synthetic detergent is the first to be sold in America and the first strong enough for washing clothes as well as dishes (see Persil, 1907). It eliminates the need for repeated rinsings that consume great amounts of water to get rid of soap residue. By the end of 1949 more than one out of every four U.S. washing machines will be using Tide. An orange-and-yellow box designed by Donald Deskey will attract buyers with its concentric circles and promises of a "New washing miracle," "Oceans of Suds," "cleaner CLOTHES, sparkling DISHES," and by 1996 Tide will account for an estimated 30 percent of the $4 billion heavy-duty U.S. laundry detergent industry (P&G will control half the total $4.3 billion laundry-soap business), with P&G's Cheer, the runner-up accounting for about 8 percent. P&G will sell Tide in 20 countries, including China, the Philippines, Russia, and countries in the Middle East.
The new Westinghouse Laundromat is a front-loading machine that requires a low-sudsing soap or detergent.
British-made nylon hosiery goes on sale in December (see 1940). The Allies used parachutes during the war for parachutes, tents, and other material; the stockings are the first nylon consumer goods made in Britain.
Crown Cork & Seal Co. introduces the Spra-tainer—the first seamless, lined, and lithographed aerosol container (see 1945). The pressurized cans will soon be used to package insect sprays, paints, hair sprays, deodorants, shaving cream, and even food products (see food [Reddi-Wip], 1947).
Timex watches are introduced by Norwegian-born U.S. entrepreneur Joakim Lehmkuhl, 51, who in 1940 was sent to New York by his government in exile to take charge of the Norwegian Shipping Center and in 1943 was elected president of Waterbury Watch Co., famous for its Ingersoll watch (see 1892). Lehmkuhl made it a producer of timing mechanisms for bomb and artillery shell fuses and now moves it back into watch production, dropping the Ingersoll name because it is associated with the $1 price. While $1 will no longer buy a watch, Lehmkuhl's mass-produced Timex watches at $6.95 and up will soon account for 40 percent of U.S. wristwatch sales as Waterbury Watch becomes U.S. Time Corp. (see photography [Polaroid], 1950).
Seiko watches are introduced in Japan by K. Hattori & Co. Founder Kintaro Hattori began in 1881 selling foreign-made watches to high government officials. He made his own clocks starting in 1892.
The United States has 610,000 divorces, up from 264,000 in 1940.
Texas gambler and admitted murderer Benny Binion arrives at Las Vegas, Nev., with his family and several suitcases stuffed with cash. He will soon open a hotel under the name Binion's Horseshoe and operate a casino from a table in the hotel's cafeteria, and when desperate gamblers lose their cars, homes, and even ranches, Binion will take possession.
The 105-room Flamingo Hotel and Casino opens in the fall on what will become the Strip on the south side of Las Vegas, beginning the transformation of the Nevada city into a resort of grandiose hotel-casinos. "Murder Incorporated" veteran Benjamin (Hyman) "Bugsy" Siegel arrived from Los Angeles 5 years ago to bet on horses and has built the city's first large hotel-casino with backing from syndicate boss Meyer Lansky, now 42; although it was supposed to have cost $1.5 million its final cost has been $6 million (much of it "skimmed" by Siegel; see crime, 1947); the Flamingo will be relocated and enlarged within 50 years to have 3,642 rooms as hydro-electric power brings air conditioning to make Las Vegas livable even in summer (see Desert Inn, 1950 Kerkorian, 1955; energy [Glen Canyon Dam], 1966).
Alcatraz Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay has a riot beginning May 2 in which two guards and three inmates are killed; U.S. Marines land on the island and help quell the uprising May 4.
London police answer a summons June 21 and rush to a Notting Hill hotel, where the mutilated nude corpse of a 32-year-old woman has been found in bed with its ankles tied to the bedposts. Margery Aimee Gardner has separated from her husband and was dancing the evening of June 20 at a London nightclub with Neville (George Clevely) Heath, 29, who has a history of passing himself off as a military officer and signed the hotel register for the room in which Mrs. Gardner's body has been found. A woman walking her dog at Bournemouth soon afterward discovers the mutilated body of another young woman, Doreen Marshall. Police arrest Heath, a jury finds him guilty of both murders, and he is hanged October 26.
A conference held at Brussels revives the International Criminal Police Commission, establishes new headquarters at Paris, adopts new statutes, and begins using the telegraphic address Interpol (see 1938). It will become the ICPO-Interpol in 1956, move its general secretariat to the Paris suburb of Saint Cloud in 1966, but remain aloof from politics and refuse to go after terrorists, insisting that it must maintain good relations with countries that harbor terrorists (see Kendall, 1985).
Inter-Continental Hotel Corp. is founded by Pan American Airways, which enters the hotel business at the request of the U.S. State Department.
War-torn Europe and Japan rebuild their cities out of the rubble left by the worst destruction thus far in the history of warfare. Some European cities such as Warsaw will be reconstructed in part from photographs to resemble their prewar appearance, Tokyo will be rebuilt very much as it was after the 1923 earthquake.
Window-unit air conditioners made by Carrier Corp. and a flock of competitors proliferate as more Americans discover that they can live in places like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C. that were once almost uninhabitable in summer; New Yorkers can remain in their apartments through July and August without going to summer resorts.
An earthquake in the Aleutian Trench April 1 shifts the sea floor and creates a seismic wave (tsunami). It plucks the Scotch Cap lighthouse from a rock 45 feet above the sea on Unimak, reaches Hawaii 5 hours later, kills 173, and injures 163; an earthquake in Turkey May 31 registers 7.3 on the Richter scale and kills 1,300; a quake at Ancash, Peru, November 10 registers 7.3 and creates landslides that kill 1,400; a quake at Tonankai, Japan, December 20 registers 8.4 and kills 1,330.
Kenya creates a park system following a campaign by wildlife champion Mervyn Cowie, 37, who sent a letter to a prominent Nairobi newspaper 9 years ago proposing the wholesale slaughter of the country's remaining wild animals to make room for more agriculture and other development. Signed simply "Old Settler," the letter nearly backfired when a local farmers' group endorsed the idea, but Cowie was playing the role of agent provocateur, and his conservation efforts have gained wide support.
The chipper-type chain for chainsaws devised by Oregon logger-inventor Joseph Buford Cox will compete with German-made chainsaws produced by Andreas Stihl (see 1926).
Nearly 160 members of the 31-year-old Ecological Society of America who favor preservation of natural areas organize the Ecologists Union and resolve to take "direct action" to save areas threatened with commercial exploitation (see Nature Conservancy, 1950).
Forester-conservationist Gifford Pinchot dies at New York October 4 at age 81. His autobiography will appear next year under the title Breaking New Ground.
The worst red tide in U.S. history begins in November on Florida's west coast, killing fish and shellfish by the millions and spurring efforts by the Fish and Wildlife Service to seek ways to control G. breve (see 1916; 1932).
Mexico launches a major effort to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease, bringing in Spanish-speaking U.S. cowboys to help round up sick animals, paying owners market rates to acquire them, killing them, and burying the carcasses in huge pits. Federal troops enforce the effort, but campesinos (peasants) kill dozens of the men trying to destroy their livestock.
A Japanese land reform act drafted by U.S. occupation authorities dispossesses absentee landlords and sharply limits the amount of cultivable land an individual may own. Tenant farmers decline from nearly one-half the total to one-tenth.
Blizzards destroy wheat crops throughout Europe. Freak storms sweep over much of Britain at harvest time, wrecking crops in Suffolk after a wet summer has ruined hay crops in the north, in the mountains of Wales, and on the southern moors.
Britain announces February 7 that food rations will be cut in response to world shortages, but London's Covent Garden fruit merchants offer bananas March 8 for the first time since the war. A world wheat shortage forces rationing of bread, which was never rationed during the war. The government reduces the unit weight of a one-pound loaf of bread to 14 ounces, the two-pound loaf is reduced to 28 ounces, the four-pound loaf to 3½ pounds, and the measure effectively ends traditional measures of bread weight (see 1916). Restrictions on most other staple foods ensue, and by August there are reports of a black market in chocolate.
Britain announces March 28 that it will launch a program of free school milk and dinners.
The National School Lunch Act signed into law by President Truman June 4 entitles participating schools to funds and surplus foods that assist them in offering meals designed to meet one-third the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of calories, vitamins, and minerals (see 1943; Britain, 1906). The Department of Agriculture "formula menu" offered under the lunch program calls for two ounces of meat or meat substitute, 3/4 cup of fruit or vegetables, and eight ounces of milk (Congress has earlier established a free milk program) (see 1993).
Not by Bread Alone by Canadian-born Arctic explorer Vihjalmur Stefansson claims that a high-fat diet is far superior in every respect to a so-called "balanced" diet. Now 67, Stefansson and his erstwhile companion of Arctic days, Karsten Anderson, participated in the late 1920s in a year-long supervised experiment at New York's Bellevue Hospital in which each man averaged between 2,620 and 2,650 calories per day, at least 2,100 of them derived from animal fat and the balance from animal protein (no eggs or dairy products were included); they thrived, and their "Eskimo diet" will be the basis of many bestsellers (see Keys, 1953).
Court rulings invalidate vitamin D irradiation patents granted to Harry Steenbock in 1927. Steenbock's finding was a "discovery" rather than a patentable invention, say the courts. Even a farmer who lets his alfalfa be exposed to the ultraviolet rays of the sun would technically be infringing on the patents that have produced $9 million in royalties to the Wisconsin Alumni Foundation and funded research programs and professors' salaries.
U.S. bread consumption drops as wheat and flour are exported to starving Europe. Domestic shortages lead to a compulsory long-extraction program, and demand for flour whiteners jumps as Americans are put off by bread that is not as white as usual.
Frozen french fries go on sale February 16 at the New York department store Macy's. U.S. potato consumption has declined steadily since 1910, Maxson Food Systems of Long Island City has introduced the frozen fries, but the company will fail and potato consumption will not reverse its decline until 1962.
Meat packer George A. Hormel dies at Los Angeles June 5 at age 85.
The Office of Price Administration decontrols U.S. meat prices October 15 to ease an acute shortage and ends price controls on all foods and beverages except sugar and rice October 23.
An electric rice saucepan introduced by Konoskuke Matsushita, now 55, is the first low-priced Japanese electrical cooking appliance; it revolutionizes Japanese cooking (see energy, 1918).
An automatic espresso coffeemaker patented by Italian inventor Achille Gaggia will be introduced into England in the early 1950s, enabling Britons to enjoy good coffee in public places for the first time since the old coffee houses that flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries, but machines in British espresso bars will seize up with their own sludge, few people will know how to maintain or repair them, and Britons will be left to suffer weak, unpalatable coffee.
The Osterizer introduced by Racine, Wis., manufacturer John Oster and his sons is a beehive-shaped blender with multiple-speed options instead of the single speed available in the Waring Blendor sold since 1936. Having manufactured hand-operated hair clippers since 1924, Oster has purchased Stevens Manufacturing Co., whose engineer Steven J. Poplawski invented a soda-fountain mixer in 1922.
Americans buy 4.8 million six-ounce cans of frozen orange juice, but most consumers find the product unacceptable (see 1945). The process of concentrating juice by heating it to evaporate much of its water content is well known, but the Florida Citrus Commission has asked research scientists at Lakeland to improve the taste. Louis Gardner MacDowell devises a "cutback" technique that over-concentrates the juice and then adds fresh juice to the concentrate, restoring some of the vitamin C (ascorbic acid) lost in heating; Winter Haven, Fla.-born inventor C. D. (Cedric Donald) Atkins, 32, and Edwin L. Moore help MacDowell refine the process to produce a concentrate whose sweetness, flavor, and acidity are more uniform after dilution than fresh-squeezed orange juice. The three men obtain a patent under an agreement that assigns all rights to the federal government; their new frozen concentrate will find wide acceptance and boom demand for oranges, now in such oversupply that Florida growers have been cutting down trees and replacing them with avocado trees (see 1947).
Nearly 90 percent of the tea consumed in America is now black tea, up from about 30 percent in 1915. The cutoff of green tea from China and Japan at the end of 1941 has increased the percentage of black tea consumed. India and Ceylon continued production through the war and India now supplies about 39 percent of total world tea exports, Ceylon about 26 percent, Java and Sumatra about 18 percent, China about 9 percent, Japan and Taiwan 8 percent.
Arthur Bryant's Bar-B-Cue opens at Kansas City, where local cook Bryant, 44, has taken over a place started by his brother in the city's black section, lightens the hot sauce that his brother uses, and soon has patrons (who sometimes include President Truman) waiting in line to be served barbecued beef, slices of ham, sausages, baked beans in a sweet sauce with chunks of meat, and French fried potatoes—all on white bread wrapped in butcher's paper. There is no table service, patrons in three-piece suits will sit down at formica-topped tables alongside men in work boots, take-out orders will be shipped by air to New York and Hollywood, and Bryant will remain the barbecue chef until his death late in 1982.
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