Timeline 1947

Return to home
1947        Jan 1, Canada’s Citizenship Act of this year became effective. It said that citizens living outside Canada on their 24th birthday would automatically loose their citizenship unless they filled out a form saying they wished to keep it. The law was amended in 1977 and raised the age factor to 28.
    (Econ, 2/3/07, p.39)(www.theshipslist.com/Forms/citizenship.htm)

1947        Jan 2, Mahatma Gandhi began a march for peace in East-Bengali.
    (MC, 1/2/02)

1947        Jan 3, At the top of the record charts:
    Ole Buttermilk Sky by The Kay Kyser Orchestra (vocal: Mike Douglas & The Campus Kids).
          The Old Lamplighter by The Sammy Kaye Orchestra (vocal: Billy Williams).
          For Sentimental Reasons by Nat King Cole.
          Divorce Me C.O.D. by Merle Travis.
    (440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1947        Jan 3, Congressional proceedings were televised for the first time as viewers in Washington, Philadelphia and New York City saw some of the opening ceremonies of the 80th Congress.
    (AP, 1/3/98)
1947        Jan 3, In Trenton, New Jersey, Al Herrin, the handyman who claimed he had no bed to sleep in because he had never slept a wink in his life, passed away at age 92. He was famed for catnapping in chairs but never sleeping in a bed. No bed was found in his living quarters after he died. Doctors said there was evidence that he had gone several months without sleep and they confirmed that if he went that long, it could well be that he was awake his entire life.
    (SFC, 12/4/94, p. S-8)(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)

1947        Jan 4, J. Danforth Quayle (Sen-R-Ind, 44th VP 1989-93) was born. [see Feb 4]
    (MC, 1/4/02)

1947        Jan 5, Great Britain nationalized its coal mines.
    (HN, 1/5/99)

1947        Jan 7, In the US James F. Byrnes resigned as secretary of state and was succeeded by Gen’l. George C. Marshall.
    (EWH, 1968, p.1207)

1947        Jan 8, Gen. George Marshall became US Sec. of State.
    (MC, 1/8/02)

1947        Jan 9, French General Leclerc broke off all talks with Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh.
    (HN, 1/9/98)

1947        Jan 10, The musical fantasy "Finian's Rainbow," with music by Burton Lane and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, opened on Broadway and ran for 725 performances. It is the tale of an Irishman who stole a pot of gold and came to the US to plant it and became rich. Burton Lane (1912-1996) also did "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever."
    (MT, 10/94, p.15)(AP, 1/10/98)(MC, 1/10/02)

1947        Jan 12, In Haifa, Palestine, the Stern Gang drove a truckload of explosives into a British police station. 4 people were killed and 140 injured.
    (SSFC, 4/16/06, p.E4)

1947        Jan 13, British troops replaced striking truck drivers.
    (HN, 1/13/99)

1947        Jan 15, A grisly, still-unsolved murder case came to light in Los Angeles as the mutilated remains of 22-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, known as the "Black Dahlia" for the dark outfits she wore, were found dumped in a vacant lot. Her body was severed at the waist, drained of blood and fully posed in a vacant lot. The Black Dahlia murder case remained unsolved even though 500 hundred men confessed to the murder. In 1977 John Gregory Dunne authored "True Confessions," a novel based on the case. In 1987 James Ellroy authored "The Black Dahlia." In 2003 Steve Hodel authored "Black Dahlia Avenger," in which he held that the killer was Dr. George Hodel, his own father.
    (SFEC, 12/1/96, BR p.3)(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.C16)(AP, 1/15/01)(NW, 4/21/03, p.59)(SFC, 1/2/04, p.D1)(SFC, 4/16/04, p.B7)

1947        Jan 19, The French opened a drive on Hue, Indochina (Vietnam).
    (HN, 1/19/99)

1947        Jan 20, Josh Gibson (35), Negro League slugger, died of a brain tumor.
    (MC, 1/20/02)

1947        Jan 25, American gangster Al Capone died of syphilis in Miami Beach, Fla., at age 48. While he was in prison at Alcatraz Capone composed a song titled “Madonna Mia,” and gave to Vincent Casey, a Jesuit priest, who visited him regularly. In 2009 the song was produced and made available on CD.
    (AP, 1/25/98)(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A6)

1947        Jan 27, Britain agreed to give Burma independence following negotiations with nationalist leader Aung San.
    (SFC, 5/7/02, p.A9)(www.myanmar.gov.mm/Perspective/persp2001/2-2001/uni.htm)

1947        Jan, The first official meeting of the Los Angeles Friars Club was held at the Savoy Hotel in Beverly Hills. Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Jack Benny, George Burns, George Raft, George Jessel, Jonie Taps, Harry Cohn, and Abbot and Costello.
    (SFEC, 9/29/96, DB p.59)

1947        Jan, Arthur Anderson, founder of the Anderson accounting firm (1913), died of a heart attack. Leonard Spacek stepped in as managing partner and prevented the firm from dissolving
    (WSJ, 5/1/02, p.B1)(WSJ, 6/7/02, p.A6)

1947        Jan, Chester Carlson, patent attorney and kitchen inventor, signed a licensing agreement with Haloid Corp. of Rochester, NY, to develop a copy machine. This marked the beginning of Xerox’s copy business. 12 years later, the company launched a practical dry copier. Entrepreneur Joe Wilson propelled Xerox to success. In 2006 Charles D. Ellis authored Joe Wilson and the Creation of Xerox.”
    (WSJ, 8/17/95, p.C-1)(ON, 11/04, p.8)(Econ, 11/18/06, p.86)

1947        Feb 1, Algis Ratnikas, timeliner, was born in a refugee camp in Munich, Germany, to Jonas and Stase Ratnikas from Lithuania.
    (AR, 6/29/02)

1947        Feb 2, The US and Canada announced the continuation of their defense-cooperation under the Permanent Defense Board of 1940.
    (EWH, 1968, p.1207)

1947        Feb 3, Percival Prattis became the 1st black reporter in Congressional press gallery.
    (MC, 2/3/02)

1947        Feb 4, Dan Quayle was born in Indianapolis. He later became vice-president under George Bush (1988-1992). [see Jan 4]
    (DFP, 7/28/96, p.J5)(HN, 2/4/99)

1947        Feb 5, The Soviet Union and Great Britain rejected terms for an American trusteeship over Japanese Pacific Isles.
    (HN, 2/5/99)

1947        Feb 7, Arabs and Jews rejected a British proposal to split Palestine.
    (MC, 2/7/02)

1947        Feb 9, Bank robber Willie Sutton escaped jail in Philadelphia.
    (MC, 2/9/02)

1947        Feb 12, A daytime fireball & meteorite fell and was seen in eastern Siberia.
    (MC, 2/12/02)
1947        Feb 12, General Aung San and 21 delegates of the national races of the mountain regions, the Shan, Kachin and Chin, finally signed the historic Pinlon Accord. They unanimously agreed to independence, not for a fragmented country, but for what has now become known as the Union of Myanmar.
    (AP, 2/12/06)
1947        Feb 12, A record 100.5-kg sailfish was caught by C.W. Stewart off the Galapagos Islands.
    (MC, 2/12/02)

1947        Feb 14, Donna Halper, Boston-based historian, author, educator and radio consultant, was born. Since 1984, Halper has been the advocate for an adult with autism. She continues to do presentations on such topics as media history, women’s history, and popular culture at museums, schools, and historical societies.
    (www.donnahalper.com/dlh.htm)

1947        Feb 15, John Adams, composer (Nixon in China), was born in Worcester Mass.
    (MC, 2/15/02)

1947        Feb 17, The Voice of America began broadcasting to the Soviet Union.
    (AP, 2/17/98)

1947        Feb 18, Gian Carlo Menotti's opera "Telephone," premiered in NYC.
    (MC, 2/18/02)

1947        Feb 19, CBS radio premiere of Villa-Lobos' "Bachianas Brasilieras No 3."
    (MC, 2/19/02)

1947        Feb 20, A chemical mixing error caused an explosion that destroyed 42 blocks in LA.
    (MC, 2/20/02)
1947        Feb 20, Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed  the last viceroy of India.
    (MC, 2/20/02)
1947        Feb 20, The British pledged to leave India by June 1948.
    (HN, 2/20/98)

1947        Feb 21, Edwin H. Land publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera in NYC. It could produce a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds. Polaroid Corp. was co-founded by Land and George W. Wheelwright III (d.2001 at 97).
    (AP, 2/21/98)(SFC, 3/3/01, p.A22)(MC, 2/21/02)

1947        Feb 23, Shakira Caine, actress (Man Who be King), Miss Guyana (1967), was born in Guyana.
    (MC, 2/23/02)
1947        Feb 23, Gen. Eisenhower opened a drive to raise $170M in aid for European Jews.
    (MC, 2/23/02)
1947        Feb 23, Several hundred Nazi organizers were arrested in Frankfurt by U.S. and British forces.
    (HN, 2/23/98)

1947        Feb 24, Franz von Papen was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp for war crimes. Pompous scion of an old aristocratic family, he had become chancellor of Germany in 1932.
    (HN, 2/24/98)

1947        Feb 26, President Truman named Lewis W. Douglas as ambassador to Britain.
    (HN, 2/26/98)

1947        Feb 27, Gidon Kremer, violinist (Tchaikovsky Prize 1970), was born in Riga, Latvia.
    (MC, 2/27/02)

1947        Feb 28, Britain and France signed a 50-year pact to curb Germany.
    (HN, 2/28/98)
1947        Feb 28, There was an anti-Kuomintang demonstration on Taiwan. As many as 20,000 civilians were massacred by the Kuomintang (KMT). A riot was sparked by the arrest of a woman selling contraband cigarettes in Taipei. Crowds attacked the Nationalist Party institutions as Nationalist troops and secret police struck back over the ensuing months. In 1996 a 69 cent postage stamp was planned in commemoration of the “228 Incident.” In 2006 a team from UC Berkeley won a design competition for a 15-acre “228 National Memorial Park.”
    (SFC, 4/6/06, p.B3)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B1)(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A8)(SFC, 4/6/06, p.B3)

1947        Feb, In Germany Rudolf Augstein (23) took over a weekly news magazine from British occupiers and began publishing Der Spiegel (The Mirror). Augstein died in 2002. In 1974 Augstein gave Spiegel’s staff half of the company’s shares.
    (SFC, 11/11/02, p.A20)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.45)

1947        Mar 1, International Monetary Fund began operations.
    (SC, 3/1/02)

1947        Mar 4, France and Britain signed an alliance treaty.
    (HN, 3/4/98)

1947        Mar 5, Communist leader Maurice Thorez declared support for the French sovereignty over Vietnam.
    (HN, 3/5/98)

1947        Mar 6, Winston Churchill opposed the withdrawal of troops from India.
    (HN, 3/6/98)
1947        Mar 6, Ludwig Weber (55), composer, died.
    (MC, 3/6/02)

1947        Mar 9, Keri Hulme, New Zealand novelist (The Bone People), was born.
    (HN, 3/9/01)

1947        Mar 10, The Big Four met in Moscow to discuss Germany.
    (HN, 3/10/98)
1947        Mar 10, One of the largest sunspots ever recorded occurred.
    (Wired, 2/99, p.104)
1947        Mar 10, Piers Corbyn, meteorologist and founder of Weather Action, was born.
    (Wired, 2/99, p.103)

1947        Mar 12, Pres. Truman outlined the Truman Doctrine of economic and military aid to nations threatened by Communism. The doctrine was intended to speed recovery of Mediterranean countries He specifically requested aid for Greece and Turkey to resist Communism.
    (EWH, 1968, p.1207)(AP, 3/12/98)(MC, 3/12/02)

1947         Mar 13, The film "The Best Years of Our Lives" won the Academy Award for best picture; Oscars also went to its director, William Wyler, lead actor Fredric March and supporting actor Harold Russell; Olivia De Havilland won best actress for "To Each His Own"; Anne Baxter won best supporting actress for "The Razor’s Edge."
    (AP, 3/13/97)
1947        Mar 13, The Lerner and Loewe musical "Brigadoon" opened on Broadway for 581 performances.
    (AP, 3/13/97)(MC, 3/13/02)

1947        Mar 14, Billy Crystal, comedian (Soap, SNL, City Slickers), was born in Long Beach, NY.
    (MC, 3/14/02)
1947        Mar 14, The U.S. signed a 99-year lease on naval bases in the Philippines.
    (HN, 3/14/98)

1947        Mar 19, Glenn Close, actress (The Big Chill, Fatal Attraction), was born in Greenwich, Ct.
    (MC, 3/19/02)
1947        Mar 19, Chiang Kai-shek’s government forces took control of Yenan, the former headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party.
    (HN, 3/19/98)

1947        Mar 21, Pres. Truman signed Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to swear allegiance to the United States.
    (MC, 3/21/02)

1947        Mar 24, Congress proposed the limitation of the presidency to two terms.
    (HN, 3/24/98)
1947        Mar 24, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated a NYC East River site to the UN.
    (MC, 3/24/02)

1947        Mar 25, Elton John, [Reginald Kenneth Dwight], English singer (Rocketman), was born.
    (MC, 3/25/02)
1947        Mar 25, a coal mine explosion in Centralia, Ill., claimed 111 lives. Harper’s Magazine commissioned Ben Shawn to create drawings to accompany an article on the disaster.
    (AP, 3/25/97)(WSJ, 12/1/98, p.A20)

1947        Mar 26, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover warned HUAC that communists had launched "a furtive attack on Hollywood" 12 years earlier.
    (SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F2)

1947        Mar, US Sec. of State George Marshall attended a Big Four meeting in Moscow and concluded that the soviets were seeking a European collapse that would bring in Communist governments. He thus decided on what came to be known as the "Marshall Plan."
    (SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)

1947        Apr 1, David Eisenhower, grandson of Pres. Dwight Eisenhower, was born. He later married Julie Nixon.
    (MC, 4/1/02)
1947        Apr 1, The 1st Jewish immigrants to Israel disembarked at Port of Eilat.
    (MC, 4/1/02)
1947        Apr 1, Greece’s King George II died.
    (AP, 4/1/98)

1947        Apr 4, Scientists noted the largest group of sunspots on record.
    (MC, 4/4/02)

1947        Apr 6, The first Tony awards were presented at a dinner in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria on Easter Sunday. They were named in honor of Antoinette Perry (1888-1946), chairman of the board and secretary of the American Theatre Wing throughout World War II.
    (http://americantheatrewing.org/tony/history_of_the_tony_awards.php)

1947         Apr 7, Auto pioneer Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Mich., at age 83. Henry Ford died at the age of 84. Most of his personal estate, valued at $205 million, was left to the Ford Foundation. In 2001 Neil Baldwin authored "Henry Ford and the Jews - The Mass Production of Hate." In 2003 Douglas Brinkley authored "Wheels for the World - Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress." In 2005 Steven Watts authored “The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century.”
    (AP, 4/7/97)(HN, 2/20/98)(SFC, 6/13/03, p.B4)(SSFC, 8/28/05, p.C2)
1947        Apr 7, Arab students, influenced by national socialist movements in Europe, founded the Baath Party. Satia al-Husri, father of Ba’athism, was a disciple of German philosopher Johann Fichte. This became a holiday in Iraq until abolished in 2003.
    (WSJ, 4/3/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/8/03, p.D4)(AP, 7/13/03)
1947        Apr 7, At Mont Pelerin, Switzerland, Friedrich A. von Hayek invited a group of classical liberals to discuss the threat of freedom posed by the expansionist governments of the day. The group founded the Mont Pelerin Society to continue meetings and discussions in the future. They viewed central planning as the single most important threat to liberty.
    (WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A22)

1947        Apr 9, The US Atomic Energy Commission was confirmed. Physicist Robert Oppenheimer was appointed chairman of the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission.
    (MC, 4/9/02)(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.B2)
1947        Apr 9, A series of tornadoes struck Kansas, West Texas and Oklahoma. 181 were killed and some 1,300 injured.
    (AP, 4/9/08)

1947         Apr 10, Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey announced he had purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals. John Sengstacke, black publisher of the Chicago Defender, was instrumental in persuading Mr. Rickey in his decision. In spite of intense pressure and hostility, Robinson's athletic abilities earned him the Rookie of the Year Award in 1947.
    (AP, 4/10/97)(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A1)(HN, 4/10/01)
1947        Apr 10, Ronald Reagan and his wife Jane Wyman provided names to the FBI of Screen Actors Guild members believed to be communist sympathizers.
    (SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F2)

1947        Apr 11, Jackie Robinson played in an exhibition between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees, the first Negro to play in Major league baseball. Jackie Robinson became the first black to play major league baseball as he took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Jackie Robinson officially broke baseball's color barrier when he put on Dodgers uniform No. 42 in April 1947. When Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, talented black athletes toiled in relative obscurity in the Negro leagues despite the exciting caliber of their play. Brooklyn Dodgers' general manager Branch Rickey first approached Jackie Robinson in August 1945 to participate in the "great experiment" of integrating the major leagues.
    (TMC, 1994, p.1947)(AP, 4/11/97)(HN, 4/10/98)(HNPD, 4/10/99)

1947        Apr 12, David Letterman, comedian (Late Night), was born in Indianapolis, Ind.
    (MC, 4/12/02)

1947        Apr 15, Jackie Robinson, modern baseball’s first black major-league player, broke the color barrier and made his official debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on opening day. The Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves, 5-3.
    (AP, 4/15/97)(HN, 4/15/98)

1947        Apr 16, Lew Alcinder (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), professional basketball player, was born. He made his career with the Los Angeles Lakers
    (HN, 4/16/99)
1947        Apr 16, Carol Mosely Braun, later US Senator for Illinois (1992-1998), was born in Chicago.
    (SFC, 1/14/04, p.A2)
1947        Apr 16, Financier and presidential confidant Bernard M. Baruch said in a speech at the South Carolina statehouse: "Let us not be deceived—we are today in the midst of a cold war."
    (AP, 4/16/97)
1947        Apr 16, A lens that provided zoom effects was demonstrated in New York City.
    (HN, 4/16/98)
1947        Apr 16, The French ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, caught fire and blew up, devastating Texas City, Texas. It was America's worst harbor explosion. Another ship, the Highflyer, exploded the following day. The final death toll was 576, and more than 3,000 Texas City residents were left homeless. Property damage ran into  the millions.
    (SFC, 5/4/96, p.E-4)(AP, 4/16/97)(HNPD, 4/17/00)

1947        Apr 17, Jackie Robinson bunted for his first major league hit.
    (HN, 4/17/98)

1947        Apr 18, James Woods, actor (Salvador, Against All Odds), was born in Warwick, RI.
    (MC, 4/18/02)

1947        Apr 19, Murray Perahia, pianist (Avery Fischer Prize-1975, Grammy 1988), was born in NYC.
    (MC, 4/19/02)

1947        Apr 26, Evalyn Walsh McLean, the mining heiress, died at 60. She was the owner of the Hope Diamond and had hocked the 44.52 carat gemstone at a Virginia pawnshop in 1932 to raise cash for the retrieval of the Lindbergh baby. The stone was transferred to a bank by Frank Murphy, an associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The bank sold it to Harry Winston, a noted New York Jeweler, who donated it to the Smithsonian Institute in 1958.
    (Smith., 5/95, p.18-20)(THC, 12/3/97)

1947        Apr 27, It was "Babe Ruth Day" at Yankee Stadium as baseball fans across the country honored the ailing star.
    (AP, 4/27/97)

1947        Apr 28, Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl (d.2002) and five others sailed from Peru aboard a balsa wood raft named the Kon-Tiki on a 101-day, 4,300 nautical mile journey across the Pacific Ocean to Polynesia. They wanted to prove that Peruvian Indians could have settled in Polynesia. Heyerdahl published "Kon-Tiki" in 1950.
    (AP, 4/28/97)(WSJ, 5/22/97, p.A13)(HN, 4/28/99)(SFC, 4/19/02, p.A2)

1947        Apr 29, Irving Fisher (b.1867), American economist, died. His Fisher hypothesis is the proposition that the real interest rate is independent of monetary measures, especially the nominal interest rate.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Fisher)

1947        Apr 30, President Truman signed a measure officially changing the name of Boulder Dam to Hoover Dam.
    (AP, 4/30/97)

1947        May 1, Radar for commercial and private planes was 1st demonstrated.
    (MC, 5/1/02)

1947        May 3, Japan formed a constitutional democracy.
    (MC, 5/3/02)

1947        May 5, Pulitzer prize was awarded to Robert Penn Warren (All the King's Men).
    (MC, 5/5/02)

1947        May 7, The opera "The Mother of Us All," by Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thompson, premiered at the Brander Matthews Theater of Columbia Univ. They wrote it as a meditation on the life of Susan B. Anthony.
    (WSJ, 8/6/98, p.A13)(WSJ, 2/5/04, p.A13)
1947        May 7, "Kraft Television Theater" premiered on NBC.
    (MC, 5/7/02)
1947        May 7, General MacArthur approved the Japanese constitution.
    (MC, 5/7/02)
1947        May 7, Nick DeJohn, former capodecina in the Chicago Family, was strangled and his body stuffed into the trunk of a car parked on a San Francisco street. DeJohn had reportedly fled Chicago after murdering several other gang members and was living in Santa Rosa, California, under an alias at the time of his death.
    (SFC, 2/8/06, p.B5)(http://tinyurl.com/8fjm7)

1947        May 8, The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) convened in Hollywood to hunt for Communists in the film industry. The committed was chaired by J. Parnell Thomas, R-N.J., and the first witnesses called were MGM executive James McGuiness, screenwriter Jack C. Moffitt and composer Hanns Eisler. Robert Vaughn in 1972 authored "Only Victims," an account of the 1947 HUAC hearings on the Hollywood 10. In 1998 Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley authored "Hollywood Party," an account of the activities of the Hollywood 10, who included Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Alvert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Robert Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo.
    (SFEC, 5/18/97, DB p.64)(WSJ, 12/16/98, p.A21)(SFC, 11/2/00, p.A23)

1947        May 11, The B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, announced the development of a tubeless tire.
    (AP, 5/11/97)

1947        May 13, The US Senate approved the Taft-Hartley Act limiting the power of unions. [see Jun 4]
    (MC, 5/13/02)

1947        May 18, John Bruton, Prime Minister (Republic of Ireland), was born.
    (SC, 5/18/02)

1947        May 22, The Truman Doctrine brought aid to Turkey and Greece. President Harry S. Truman relied heavily on Dean Acheson for his most significant foreign policy achievements.
    (EWH, 1968, p.1207)(AP, 5/22/97)(HN, 5/22/98)
1947        May 22, The 1st US ballistic missile was fired.
    (MC, 5/22/02)

1947        May 23, Jane Kenyon, poet (Let Evening Come, Otherwise), was born.
    (HN, 5/23/01)

1947        May 25, Jessi Colter [Miriam Johnson], country singer (I'm Not Lisa), was born in Phoenix.
    (SC, 5/25/02)
1947        May 25, Mitch Margo, rocker (Tokens-Lion Sleeps Tonight), was born in  Brooklyn, NY.
    (SC, 5/25/02)
1947        May 25, Karen Valentine, actress (Love American Style, Room 222), was born in  Santa Rosa, CA.
    (SC, 5/25/02)

1947        May 28, Faith Brown, impressionist, was born.
    (MC, 5/28/02)
1947        May 28, Sondra Locke, actress (Heart Is a Lonely Hunter), was born in Shelbyville, Tenn.
    (MC, 5/28/02)

1947        May 31, Communists grabbed power in Hungary.
    (MC, 5/31/02)

1947        May, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. began the 1st of three 4-year terms as mayor of Baltimore. Congressman Tommy D'Alesandro Jr., elected as mayor of Baltimore, was the city's 1st Italian-American and Catholic mayor and served for 12 years. In 2002 his daughter Nancy Pelosi became the 1st woman to lead a party in the US Congress after Democrats voted 177-29 in support of the liberal from SF. In 2006 Nancy Pelosi was named speaker for the 110th Congress.
    (http://tinyurl.com/u6bdk)(SFC, 11/15/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/2/07, p.A6)
1947        May, In Georgia Sam Turner shot and killed Charlie Lipford and was sentenced to 5 years for voluntary manslaughter. He was paroled after a year and soon jailed again for burglary. In 1951 he walked off a work camp and never looked back until a routine check rounded him up in 1997.
    (SFC,12/10/97, p.A3)

1947         Jun 1, The OPA, which issued WW II rationing coupons, disbanded.
    (DT, 6/1/97)
1947         Jun 1, The development of photosensitive glass was announced in Corning, N.Y.
    (DT, 6/1/97)

1947        Jun 3, In Britain an announcement was made in the House of Commons that India was to be partitioned and that independence would follow. In 2007 Yasmin Khan authored “The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan.”
    (Econ, 7/21/07, p.81)

1947        Jun 4, The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Labor Management Relations Act also known as the Taft-Hartley Act. It provided for an 80-day injunction against strikes that endangered public health and safety. Pres. [see Jun 20]
    (WUD, 1994 p.1447)(AP, 6/4/97)(SFC, 11/27/99, p.C4)

1947        Jun 5, David Hare, British playwright and director (A Map of the World, Slag), was born.
    (HN, 6/5/01)
1947        Jun 5, Secretary of State George C. Marshall in a speech at Harvard Univ. called for a European Recovery Program to be initiated by the European powers and supported by American aid (Marshall Plan). The program was intended to assist European nations, including former enemies, to rebuild their economies. From 1947 to 1952 it helped Western Europe recover by providing some $13 billion worth of technical and economic aid. In 2007 Greg Behrman authored “The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and the Time When America Helped Save Europe.”
    (SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)(AP, 6/5/97)(HN, 6/5/98)(Econ, 9/29/07, p.89)

1947        Jun 8, Sara Paretsky, detective novelist, was born.
    (HN, 6/8/01)
1947        Jun 8, Selden Gile (b.1877), SF Bay Area plein-air painter, died. He was one of the Society of Six, who took their cue from the post-Impressionist painters they saw at the 1915 Panama Pacific Int’l. Exposition.
    (SFC, 5/4/09, p.E3)(http://lawrencebeebe.com/seldengilebiography.html)

1947        Jun 10, California Gov. Earl Warren signed a measure that gave each county the authority to regulate its own air pollution.
    (SFEC,11/10/97, p.A10)

1947        Jun 11, The government announced the end of household and institutional sugar rationing, to take effect the next day. It began May 28, 1942.
    (AP, 6/11/97)

1947        Jun 15, The All-Indian Congress accepted a British plan for the partition of India. Britain partitioned the subcontinent and Pakistan was founded as an independent country.
    (SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(HN, 6/15/98)

1947        Jun 16, Pravda denounced the Marshall Plan.
    (MC, 6/16/02)

1947        Jun 17, Pan Am Airways was chartered as the 1st worldwide passenger airline.
    (Hem., 2/96, p.44)(MC, 6/17/02)

1947        Jun 19, Salman Rushdie, author of "Satanic Verses," was born. His life was later threatened in the Muslim world for what was considered a sacrilegious book.
    (HN, 6/19/99)
1947        Jun 19, The Tucker automobile premiered in Chicago.
    (DT, 6/19/97)
1947        Jun 19, The first plane (F-80) to exceed 600 mph (1004 kph) was flown by Albert Boyd in Muroc, California.
    (DT, 6/19/97)

1947        Jun 20, President Truman vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act, but had his veto overridden by Congress. The act declared the closed shop illegal and permitted the union shop only following a majority employee vote. [see Jun 4]
    (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.C2)(AP, 6/20/97)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1947        Jun 20, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was shot dead at the Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill, at the order of mob associates angered over the soaring costs of Siegel’s pet project, the Flamingo resort in Las Vegas, Nev.
    (AP, 6/20/97)

1947        Jun 23, As a result of the worker strikes in 1946, the US government passed the Taft-Hartley Act that put the brakes on union activities. The Senate joined the House and passed the Taft-Hartley Act over the veto of the president. It prohibited the use of union funds for political purposes and introduced a 60-day notice before a strike or lockout, outlawed the closed shop, and empowered the government to serve injunctions against strikes likely to cripple the nation’s economy. The act prohibited employer payments to a union of its officials except in certain cases, such as payment to an employee benefit fund.
    (EWH, 1968, p.1207)(AP, 6/23/97)(WSJ, 9/2/97, p.A19)(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D9)

1947        Jun 22, Holt, Missouri, experienced a world-record rainstorm when 304.8 mm (1 ft) of rain fell in 42 minutes. June 1947 had been the wettest month of record since record-keeping began in 1888 in northern Missouri. Holt is located in both Clay and Clinton Counties, Missouri and had a population of 405 in 2000.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holt,_Missouri)

1947        Jun 24, Flying saucers were "sighted" over Mount Rainier by pilot Ken Arnold.
    (MC, 6/24/02)

1947        Jun 26, Congress approved the unification of the armed services under a secretary of defense (James V. Forrestal).
    (EWH, 1968, p.1207)

1947         Jun 28, Mark Helprin, novelist (Winter's Tale), was born.
    (HN, 6/28/01)

1947        Jun, In Japan Mount Asama erupted and left 11 people dead.
    (SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)

1947        Jul 1, The Willem Ruys, later Achille Lauro, a 192m long passenger ship, was launched.
    (MC, 7/1/02)

1947        Jul 2, An object crashed near Roswell, N.M. The Army Air Force later insisted it was a weather balloon, but eyewitness accounts gave rise to speculation it might have been an alien spacecraft.
    (AP, 7/2/97)

1947        Jul 3, Soviet Union didn't partake in the Marshall Plan.
    (MC, 7/3/02)

1947        Jul 4, "Wino Willie" Forkner (d.1997) led his South Central LA Boozefighters motorcyclists to Hollister for a weekend of beer-drenched fun. They were all veterans of WW II. He was said to have been the model for Marlon Brando in the film "The Wild One." 3,000 motorcyclists spilled over into Hollister from a nearby racetrack. [see Jul 7]
    (SFC, 6/26/97, p.A17)(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.A1)

1947         Jul 5, Larry Doby signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians, becoming the first black player in the American League.
    (AP, 7/5/97)
1947        Jul 5, Rancher Mac Brazel found unusual debris 75 miles northwest of Roswell, NM, scattered over an area 300 years wide and ¾ of a mile long. This led to rumors of an alien crash. The military said it was a crashed weather balloon.
    (SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D8)

1947        Jul 7, A made-up photo in Life magazine featured a biker in Hollister, Ca. In 1997 bikers returned to Hollister for a 50-year anniversary and began an annual tradition. [see Jul 4]
    (SFC, 7/4/02, p.A18)
    (SFC, 7/4/02, p.A18)

1947        Jul 8, The American League defeated the National League, 2-1, in the All-Star game played at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.
    (AP, 7/8/97)
1947        Jul 8, Demolition work began in New York City to make way for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations.
    (AP, 7/8/97)
1947        Jul 8, In New Mexico the Roswell Daily Record reported the military’s capture of a flying saucer. It became know as the Roswell Incident. Officials later called the debris a "harmless, high-altitude weather balloon. In 1994 the Air Force released a report saying the wreckage was part of a device used to spy on the Soviets.
    (SFC, 6/23/96, p.T4)(USAT, 6/28/96, p.7D)

1947        Jul 9, The engagement of Britain’s Princess Elizabeth to Lt. Philip Mountbatten was announced.
    (AP, 7/9/97)
1947        Jul 9, Spain voted for Franco.
    (MC, 7/9/02)

1947        Jul 10, Camilla Parker Bowles, lover of Prince Charles, was born.
    (MC, 7/10/02)
1947        Jul 10, Arlo Guthrie, singer (Alice's Restaurant, City of New Orleans), was born in Brooklyn.
    (MC, 7/10/02)
1947        Jul 10, Orenthal James Simpson (OJ Simpson), football star, acquitted in trial for the murder of his ex-wife, was born.
    (HN, 7/10/98)

1947        Jul 15, Convertibility of British sterling into US dollars, negotiated as part of a $5 billion US loan to Britain in 1946, came into effect. It caused an immediate run on the pound and was abandoned on August 20.
    (WSJ, 6/20/08, p.A11)

1947        Jul 16, Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat jailed by the Soviets who believed that he was an American spy, reportedly died at the Lubyanka prison in Moscow of an alleged heart attack. He had saved more than 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps. A 2001 Swedish report failed to confirm his death.
    (SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(SFC, 12/23/00, p.A12)(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 2/28/09, p.A7)

1947        Jul 18, President Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act, which placed the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.
    (HFA, ‘96, p.34)(AP, 7/18/97)
1947        Jul 18, An African American patient, code-named CAL-3, was unwittingly injected with plutonium in a SF hospital as part of a treatment for apparent bone cancer.
    (SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.3)
1947        Jul 18, King George VI signed the Indian Independence Bill. In 2008 Peter Clarke authored “The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire.
    (http://indiainteracts.com/columnist/2007/08/15/The-60-days-to-Aug-15-1947India-at-60/)(WSJ, 6/20/08, p.A11)
1947        Jul 18, British seized the "Exodus 1947" ship of Jewish immigrants to Palestine. The British Royal Navy intercepted the ship President Warfield, which had been renamed Exodus by its passengers, forcing the 4,000 Jewish would-be immigrants aboard back to Displaced Person camps in Germany. Britain was still the ruling power in Palestine, which was being wracked by conflict resulting from Jewish national aspirations. The return of the Jewish immigrants, many of them survivors of Nazi persecution, heightened anti-British sentiment among Jews in Palestine and elsewhere. Yossi Harel, commander of the Exodus, died in 2008 at age 90.
    (MC, 7/18/02)(HNQ, 12/4/98)(AP, 4/26/08)

1947        Jul 19, Bernie Leadon (The Eagles: Take It Easy, Best of My Love, One of these nights), was born.
    (MC, 7/19/02)
1947        Jul 19, Brian Harold May (Queen: Crazy Little Thing Called Love,  Another One Bites the Dust), was born.
    (MC, 7/19/02)
1947        Jul 19, Gerard Schwarz, trumpeter, conductor (LA Chamber Orch), was born in Weehawken, NJ.
    (MC, 7/19/02)

1947        Jul 20, Carlos Santana, legendary guitar player, was born in Autlan, Mexico.
    (SSFC, 10/14/07, Par p.18)

1947        Jul 21, Cat Stevens, rock vocalist (Peace Train, Father &  Son), was born as Yusaf Islam.
    (MC, 7/21/02)
1947        Jul 21, Life Magazine featured the photo of a drunk on a motorcycle from the Jul 4 gathering in Hollister, Ca. The photo was later revealed to have been set up for effect.
    (SFEC, 6/29/97, p.A12)

1947        Jul 23, U.S. President Harry S Truman made the first Presidential surprise visit to Capitol Hill since 1789. "Give Em Hell Harry."
    (MC, 7/23/02)

1947        Jul 26, President Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, FBI, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The act forbade the CIA from operating within the US. The CIA was transformed from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), founded by Gen. William Donovan (1941), and was led by Adm. Walter Chilcott Ford (d.1999 at 96) until 1949.
    (SFC, 11/23/96, p.A2)(AP, 7/26/97)(SFC, 11/25/99, p.D9)(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.P8)

1947        Jul 28, Sally Struther, actress (Gloria-All in the Family), was born in Portland, Oregon.
    (SC, 7/28/02)

1947        Jul 30, Arnold Schwarzenegger, 5x Mr. Universe and film star, was born in Thal bei Graz, Austria. In 2003 he was elected governor of California.
    (SSFC, 6/22/03, Par p.4)(Internet)

1947        Jul 31, The Jewish underground Irgun Zvai Leumi said it hanged 2 British sergeants in Palestine.
    (G&M, 7/31/97, p.A2)

1947        Jul, George Kennan in his article "The Sources of Soviet Conflict" in the quarterly Foreign Affairs, which he signed "X," set out the U.S. policy of containment of the Soviet Union. Kennan, born in Milwaukee on February 16, 1904, stated in the article: "It is clear the main element of any U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies…"
    (HNQ, 6/17/98)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A1)
1947        Jul, Senator John Bricker, a republican from Ohio, was shot at twice as he entered the Senate subway. William L. Kaiser, a former Capital police officer, missed 2 times. He had lost money when an Ohio building and loan firm was liquidated.
    (SFC, 7/25/98, p.A6)
1947         Jul, Grand jury records from 2 separate investigations of Alger Hiss between this time and May, 1949, were made public in 1999.
    (SFC, 10/13/99, p.A3)
1947        Jul, Aung San, an independence hero, was assassinated on the eve of becoming Burma’s first prime minister. 6 other members of his interim government were also killed. His daughter was Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. In 1998 Barbara Victor published "The Lady, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Laureate and Burma’s Prisoner."
    (SFEC, 8/23/98, BR p.4)(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A9)
1947        Jul, A prisoner camp in Bad Nenndorf, a spa town in northwest Germany occupied by the British after the war, was closed. In 2005 a Guardian report cited documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act that described the suffering of some of 372 men and 44 women detained at the camp.
    (AP, 12/17/05)

1947         Aug 7, The balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki, which had carried a six-man crew 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean, crashed into a reef in a Polynesian archipelago. [see Apr 28]
    (AP, 8/7/97)

1947        Aug 10, Ian Anderson, rocker (Jethro Tull-Bungle in the Jungle), was born in Scotland.
    (MC, 8/10/02)
1947        Aug 10, William Odom set a solo record by completing a round-the-world flight in 73 hours and 5 minutes, landing at Chicago’s Douglas Airport.
    (AP, 8/10/97)

1947        Aug 14, Daniele Steel, author (Remembrance, Zoya, Star, Daddy), was born in NYC.
    (MC, 8/14/02)
1947         Aug 14, Britain partitioned the subcontinent and Pakistan was founded as an independent country. The Muslim areas in the east and west became independent Pakistan with Mohammed Ali Jinnah as president.
    (WSJ, 1/9/95, A-8)(TMC, 1994, p.1947)(WSJ, 12/21/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)

1947        Aug 15, India gained independence after some 200 years of British rule. Britain partitioned the subcontinent. Prior to independence, 565 princes ruled a third of India. After independence the government let the royals retain their titles and assets in return for incorporating their principalities into the new nation. The 664 princely states of India were given the choice of which country they wanted to join. Although most of the people of Kashmir were Muslim, the maharaja was Hindu and he appealed to India for help. Independence in Pakistan and India led to bloody conflicts and thousands died. In 1999 Fareed Zakaria published "Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India." In 2006 David Gilmour authored “The Ruling Caste,” an account of Britain’s Indian Civil Service (ICS).
    (WSJ, 1/9/95, A-8)(WSJ, 12/21/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-10)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(AP, 8/15/97)(SFC, 6/4/98, p.C2)(WSJ, 1/29/99, p.W7)(WSJ, 2/23/06, p.D8)

1947        Aug 18, The Hewlett-Packard Company was incorporated and reported revenues of $1.5 million. The 111 employees recorded sales of $679,000. In 2007 Michael S. Malone authored “Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company.”
    (SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.M3)
1947        Aug 18, Naval torpedo and mine factory exploded at Cadiz, Spain, killing 300.
    (MC, 8/18/02)

1947        Aug 19, J. Arens and D. van Dorpen synthesized vitamin A.
    (MC, 8/19/02)

1947        Aug 23, An audience at the Hollywood Bowl heard President Truman’s daughter, Margaret, give her first public concert as a singer.
    (AP, 8/23/97)

1947        Aug 24, In Scotland the first annual Edinburgh Festival was held at the Usher Hall.
    (WSJ, 8/22/96, p.A12)

1947        Aug 25, Marion Carl, US Navy test pilot, set a world speed record of 651 mph in a D-558-I at Muroc Field (later Edwards AFB), Ca. He was shot to death in Oregon by a house robber in 1998 at age 82.
    (SFC, 6/30/98, p.A3)(chblue.com, 8/25/01)

1947        Aug 28, Legendary bullfighter Manolete was mortally wounded by a bull during a fight in Linares, Spain; he died the following day at age 30.
    (AP, 8/28/97)

1947        Sep 6, Jane Curtin, was born. She became a successful improvisational comedy performer gained celebrity with her performances on the original cast of TV's 'Saturday Night Live' show in 1975.
    (MC, 9/6/01)

1947        Sep 7, Battles took place between Hindus and Moslems in New Delhi.
    (MC, 9/7/01)

1947        Sep 8, Ann Beattie, writer, was born. Her work included "Chilly Scenes of Winter" and "Picturing Will."
    (HN, 9/8/00)
1947        Sep 8, British government sailed the "Exodus" with fugitives from Nazis.
    (MC, 9/8/01)

1947        Sep 13, WPVI TV channel 6 in Philadelphia, PA., (ABC) began broadcasting.
    (MC, 9/13/01)

1947        Sep 14, Sam Neill, actor (Jurassic Park, Dead Calm, Piano), was born in Omagh, Northern Ireland.
    (http://entertainment.msn.com)

1947        Sep 17, Jeff MacNelly, political cartoonist, was born. He created the comic strip "Shoe."
    (HN, 9/17/00)
1947        Sep 17, Jackie Robinson was named Rookie of Year by Sporting News. [see Sep 19]
    (MC, 9/17/01)
1947        Sep 17, James Forestall (d.1949) was sworn in as first the U.S. Secretary of Defense as a new National Military Establishment unified America’s armed forces.
    (AP, 9/17/97)(HN, 9/17/98)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A4)

1947        Sep 18, The National Security Act went into effect. It created a Cabinet secretary of defense and unified the Army, Navy and newly formed Air Force into a National Military Establishment. The US Air Force was carved out of the old Army Air Corps. The act established the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
    (HFA, ‘96, p.38)(AP, 9/18/97)(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A3)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A4)

1947        Sep 19, Jackie Robinson was named 1947 "Rookie of Year." [see Sep 17]
    (MC, 9/19/01)

1947        Sep 20, Former Republican New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (1933-45) died.
    (AP, 9/20/97)(MC 9/20/01)

1947        Sep 21, Stephen King, author, was born in Portland, Maine. He is best known for supernatural and horror tales including Carrie (1974), Shining (1977) and Kujo (1981).
    (HN, 9/21/00)(SSFC, 7/2/06, Par p.16)
1947        Sep 21, Marsha Norman, playwright, was born. Her work included "Getting Out" and "'Night Mother."
    (HN, 9/21/00)

1947        Sep 22, A Douglas C-54 Skymaster made the first automatic-pilot flight over the Atlantic.
    (HN, 9/22/98)

1947        Sep 23, Nikola Petkov, leader of Bulgaria  party, was hanged.
    (MC, 9/23/01)

1947        Sep 24, The World Women’s Party met for the first time since World War II.
    (HN, 9/24/98)

1947        Sep, Ahmet Ertegun (1923-2006) and Herb Abramson formed Atlantic Records in New York City. The new independent record label concentrated on gospel, jazz and R&B music. The first recording sessions took place in November. In 2001 Ertegun authored his memoir "What’d I Say."
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Erteg%C3%BCn)(WSJ, 7/6/01, p.W10)

1947        Oct 3, The 1st telescope lens 200" (508 cm) in diameter completed.
    (MC, 10/3/01)

1947        Oct 4, Max Karl Ernst Planck (b.1858), German physicist ( Nobel 1918), died.
    (WUD, 1994 p.1101)(MC, 10/4/01)

1947         Oct 5, In the first televised White House address, President Truman asked Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursdays to help stockpile grain for starving people in Europe.
    (AP, 10/5/97)

1947        Oct 7, French troops in Indochina launched Operation Lea, to capture Viet Minh positions near the Chinese border.
    (HN, 10/7/98)

1947        Oct 10, The Rodgers' and Hammerstein's musical "Allegro," premiered in NYC.
    (MC, 10/10/01)

1947        Oct 13, The popular children's television show, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, premiered as a local Chicago show. In its first year, the show's name varied between "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" and ":Junior Jamboree," but it was essentially the same show.
    (http://www.kukla.tv/)

1947        Oct 14, Air Force test pilot Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager (24) flew the experimental Bell X-1 [Bell XS-1] rocket plane aircraft and broke the sound barrier to Mach 1.07 for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., which was then called Muroc Army Air Field. The area has the largest dry lake bed in the world, a 44-square mile area known as Rogers Lake. Suspended from the belly of a Boeing B-29, Glamorous Glennis was dropped at 10:26 a.m. from a height of 20,000 feet. Yeager (who had broken two ribs in a riding accident the night before) fired the four rocket motor chambers in pairs, breaking through the sound barrier as he increased airspeed to almost 700 mph and climbed to an altitude of 43,000 feet. The XS-1 remained at supersonic speeds for 20.5 seconds, with none of the buffeting that characterized high-speed subsonic flight. The 14-minute flight was Yeager’s ninth since being named primary pilot in June 1947. The Air Force and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (the forerunner of NASA) did not make the event public until Jun 10, 1948.
    (SFC, 8/5/96, p.A3)(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A7)(AP, 10/14/97)(HNPD, 10/14/98)

1947        Oct 19, Yehudi Menuhin (d.1999), violin maestro, married ballerina Diana Gould (d.2003 at 90), his 2nd wife, in London. Lady Diana later authored "Fiddler’s Moll."
    (SFC, 2/1/03, p.A19)

1947        Oct 20, Hollywood came under scrutiny as the House Un-American Activities Committee re-convened in Washington and opened hearings into alleged Communist influence and infiltration within the motion picture industry.
    (SFEC, 5/18/97, DB p.64)(AP, 10/20/97)
1947        Oct 20, The House Un-American Activities Committee re-convened in Washington and opened public hearings on alleged communist infiltration within the motion picture industry in Hollywood. Among those denounced as having un-American tendencies were: Katherine Hepburn, Charles Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson. Among those called to testify was Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan, who denied that leftists ever controlled the Guild and refused to label anyone a communist. An oral history of 36 of those called before Congress was published in 1998: "Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist" by Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle.
    (SFEC, 5/18/97, DB p.64)(AP, 10/20/97)(WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A17)(HN, 10/20/98)

1947        Oct 24, Kevin Kline, actor (Sophie's Choice, Big Chill), was born in St. Louis.
    (MC, 10/24/01)
1947        Oct 24, Series of forest fires burned $30 million of timber in the New England States.
    (MC, 10/24/01)

1947        Oct 26, Hillary Rodham Clinton, First lady (1993-2001), was born.
    (HN, 10/26/98)(MC, 10/26/01)

1947        Oct 27, "You Bet Your Life," starring Groucho Marx, premiered on ABC Radio. The show was transferred to TV on NBC in 1950 and lasted until 1961.
    (SFC, 6/5/97, p.A26)(AP, 10/27/97)
1947        Oct 27, The Hindu maharajah of Muslim-majority Kashmir joined India. The accession, not recognized by Pakistan, led to a war.
    (SSFC, 12/30/01, p.A22)(SFC, 6/8/02, p.A20)

1947        Oct 29, Richard Dreyfuss, actor (Jaws, Nuts, Mr. Holland's Opus), was born in Brooklyn, NY.
    (MC, 10/29/01)
1947        Oct 29, Former first lady Frances Cleveland Preston died in Baltimore at age 83.
    (AP, 10/29/97)

1947        Oct, Forest fires burned one-third of Mount Desert Island in Bar Harbor, Maine.
    (HT, 3/97, p.12)

1947        Nov 1, Man O' War (Big Red), racehorse and triple crown winner, died.
    (MC, 11/1/01)

1947        Nov 2, Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden airplane, known as the Spruce Goose, on its only flight, which lasted 70 sec. over Long Beach Harbor in California. The plane had an 8-story tail and a 320-foot wingspan. It was designed to take seven hundred soldiers into battle. The plane had a wing span longer than a football field, and was powered by 8 engines and was crafted out of 200 tons of plywood. The war ended before the plane was deployed, but Hughes proved the Spruce Goose's was air-worthy.
    (AP, 11/2/97)(SFC, 7/29/98, p.A20)(HN, 11/2/98)(MC, 11/2/01)
1947        Nov 2, Jawaharlal Nehru said: "We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given, and the Maharaja has supported it not only to the people of Kashmir but the world. We will not, and cannot back out of it. We are prepared when peace and law and order have been established to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations. We want it to be a fair and just reference to the people, and we shall accept their verdict. I can imagine no fairer and juster offer."
    (http://tinyurl.com/8sovl)

1947        Nov 12, Hans van Meegeren (1889-12947), Dutch painter and forger, was tried for forgery and convicted of “obtaining money by deception” and “appending false names and signatures with the intent to deceive.” He was given the minimum sentence of one year and then the court petitioned Queen Wilhelmina that he be pardoned, but he died 6 weeks later.
    (ON, 12/07, p.12)
1947            Nov 12, Baroness Emmuska Orczy (b.1865), Hungarian-born British author (“Scarlet Pimpernel” 1905), died in London, England.
    (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/orczy.htm)

1947        Nov 16, 15,000 demonstrated in Brussels against mild sentences of Nazis.
    (MC, 11/16/01)

1947        Nov 19, A 200" mirror arrived at Mt. Palomar observatory.
    (MC, 11/19/01)

1947        Nov 20, "Meet the Press" made network TV debut on NBC.
    (MC, 11/20/01)
1947        Nov 20, Princess Elizabeth (future Queen Elizabeth II) married Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, in a ceremony broadcast worldwide from Westminster Abbey.
    (HN, 11/20/98)(SFEM, 1/26/97, p.44)(AP, 11/20/97)

1947        Nov 24, John Steinbeck’s novel "The Pearl" was first published.
    (AP, 11/24/97)
1947        Nov 24, Congress voted to cite the Hollywood Ten, who opposed the HUAC hearings, as "unfriendly witnesses" for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about alleged Communist influence in the movie industry. At the same time 50 top Hollywood executives convened and decided to discharge or suspend the Hollywood Ten until acquittal or declaration that they were not Communists. Among the ten were director Edward Dmytrak, who later recanted and gave names of suspected Communists, Lester Cole, and writer Ring Lardner Jr. Lester Cole later wrote "Hollywood Red."
    (SFEC, 5/18/97, DB p.65)(AP, 11/24/97)

1947        Nov 25, movie studio executives meeting in New York agreed to blacklist the "Hollywood Ten" who were cited a day earlier and jailed for contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
    (AP, 11/25/99)
1947        Nov 25, The Big Four met to discuss Germany and the European economy.
    (HN, 11/25/98)

1947        Nov 26, France expelled 19 Soviet citizens, charging intervention in internal affairs.
    (HN, 11/26/98)

1947        Nov 28, Jacques-Philippe Leclerc (44), WW II hero (liberator of Paris), died.
    (MC, 11/28/01)

1947        Nov 29, The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the partitioning of Palestine [Jerusalem] between Arabs and Jews. It was to be the heart of an Arab Palestinian state.
    (SFC, 10/18/96, C8)(AP, 11/29/97)(SFC, 1/22/98, p.B12)

1947        Nov 30, David Mamet, playwright and director (Speed the Plow, House of Games), was born in Chicago.
    (MC, 11/30/01)
1947        Nov 30, A day after the UN decree for Israel, Jewish settlements were attacked.
    (MC, 11/30/01)

1947        Nov, For the first time in the history of leukemia, a complete remission of an acute leukemia was achieved using exchange transfusion developed by Dr. Marcel Bessis. Dr. Irving Wexler (d.1997 at 86) and Dr. Alexander Wiener later described the successful use of exchange transfusion, complete blood replacement, as a treatment for infants who suffered from anemia and jaundice due to the Rh factor co-discovered by Dr. Wiener.
    (http://tinyurl.com/2gmou6)(http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/117)

1947        Dec 1, Aleister Edward S. Crowley (72), British occultist, died. In 2000 Lawrence Sutin authored "Do What Thou Wilt, A Life of Aleister Crowley."
    (SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.12)(MC, 12/1/01)
1947        Dec 1, Godfrey Harold Hardy (b.1877), English mathematician, died. Non-mathematicians usually know G.H. Hardy for “A Mathematician's Apology,” his essay from 1940 on the aesthetics of mathematics.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._H._Hardy)

1947        Dec 2, 13th Heisman Trophy Award was awarded to John Lujack, Notre Dame (QB).
    (MC, 12/2/01)
1947        Dec 2, Syrian mob burned a synagogue where the Aleppo Codex was hidden. Nearly two-thirds of the pages were retrieved by congregant, Mourad Faham. But 196 pages vanished, including books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, as well as pages from other books.
    (AP, 9/27/08)

1947        Dec 3, The Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" opened on Broadway with Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski and Jessica Tandy as Blanche DuBois and Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski. Brando’s first film was "The Men" directed by Fred Zinnemann.
    (TMC, 1994, p.1947)(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A19)(SFEM,10/19/97, DB p.11)(AP, 12/3/97)

1947        Dec 4, Tennessee William's play "A Streetcar Named Desire" premiered on Broadway starring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy. [see Dec 3]
    (HN, 12/4/00)

1947         Dec 6, Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Truman.
    (AP, 12/6/97)

1947        Dec 7, Johnny Bench, baseball catcher (Reds), was born.
    (MC, 12/7/01)
1947        Dec 7, Nicholas Murray Butler (b.1862), former presidential advisor and president of Columbia Univ. (1902-1945) and won the Nobel Peace Prize winner (1931) died. In 1940, Butler completed his autobiography with the publication of the second volume of “Across the Busy Years.” In 2006 Michael Rosenthal authored “Nicholas Miraculous,” a biography Butler.
    (WSJ, 1/25/06, p.D10)(http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1931/butler-bio.html)

1947        Dec 12, The United Mine Workers union withdrew from the American Federation of Labor.
    (AP, 12/12/97)

1947        Dec 15, Arthur Machen (b.1863), Welsh author of classic horror stories, died.
    (WSJ, 10/30/07, p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen)

1947        Dec 16, The point-contact transistor was invented at Bell Labs.
    (SFEC,12/14/97, p.A1)

1947        Dec 18, Steven Spielberg, director (ET, Close Encounters, Jaws), was born in Cincinnati.
    (MC, 12/18/01)

1947        Dec 23, Truman granted a pardon to 1,523 who had evaded the World War II draft.
    (HN, 12/23/98)
1947        Dec 23, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, unveiled what was soon to be called the transistor, short for the electrical property known as trans-resistance, which paved the way to a new era of miniaturized electronics. The device was improved by William Schockley as a junction transistor. All 3 received a Nobel Prize in 1956. The events are described in the 1997 book by Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson: "Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age."
    (WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.4)(AP, 12/23/97)

1947        Dec 24, An estimated 20,000 communists, led by guerrilla General Markos Vafthiades proclaimed the Free Greek Government in northern Greece. They issue a call to arms to establish the regime throughout the nation.
    (HN, 12/24/98)

1947        Dec 26, Heavy snow blanketed the Northeast, burying New York City under 25.8 inches of snow in 16 hours. A record 26.4 inches fell and led to 77 deaths.
    (AP, 12/26/97)(Econ, 2/18/06, p.28)

1947        Dec 27, Buffalo Bob Smith (1917-1998) and puppet Howdy Doody starred on the first nationally broadcast children’s TV show. It ran to Sep. 30, 1960. The show was produced by Martin Stone and was shot in NBC studio 3-K at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The characters Clarabell the Clown (Bob Keeshan later Captain Kangaroo), Dilly Dally, Chief Thunderthud, Princess Summerfall, Phineas T. Bluster and Flub-a-Dub were featured. The theme song was based on the French ditty: "Ta-ra-ra-Boom-der-e." The show ran for 2,543 episodes. Rufus Rose was the puppeteer for most of the shows. The Rose family later fought with the Detroit Institute of Arts for possession of the original show puppet.
    (SFC, 9/9/96, p.A18)(AP, 12/27/97)(SFC, 6/19/98, p.B6)(SFC, 7/31/98, p.D7)(SFEC, 2/27/00, p.A3)
1961        Dec 27, Tony Bennett, starring in the Venetian Room of the SF Fairmont Hotel, made his 1st solo public performance of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
    (SSFC, 2/4/07, p.F1)
1947        Dec 27, The new Italian constitution was promulgated in Rome.
    (HN, 12/27/98)

1947        Dec 28, Victor Emmanuel (b.1869-1947), also known as Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy (1900-1946), Emperor of Ethiopia (1939-1943) and King of Albania (1939-1943), died.
     (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Emmanuel_III_of_Italy)

1947        Dec 29, Ship carrying Jewish immigrants were forced back from Palestine.
    (MC, 12/29/01)
1947        Dec 29, Hans van Meegeren (b.1889), Dutch painter and forger, died. In 2006 Frank Wynne authored “I Was Vermeer.”
    (WSJ, 10/14/06, p.P10)(http://denisdutton.com/van_meegeren.htm)

1947        Dec 30, Rumania's King Michael was exiled when the Soviet backed Communists took over. King Michael of Romania agreed to abdicate, but charged he was being forced off the throne by Communists.
    (SFC, 6/27/97, p.A16)(AP, 12/30/97)(HN, 12/30/98)

1947        Dec 31, Roy Rogers, cowboy singing star, married Dale Evans, cowgirl singing star. Their horses, Trigger and Buttermilk, also got along.
    (SFEM, 1/25/98, p.69)

1947        Max Beckmann, German artist, made his oil painting "Self-Portrait with Cigarette."
    (SFEC, 2/1/98, BR p.6)

1947        Rene Magritte painted "The Liberator."
    (SFC, 5/4/00, p.B5)

1947        Jackson Pollock became notorious for his adoption of the process of "drip painting." Laying the canvas on the floor, he would alternate between pouring or dripping paint on it and contemplating it, often for weeks at a time. His works "Galaxy" and "Lucifer" dated to this year.
    (V.D.-H.K.p.362)(WSJ, 11/10/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 10/1/00, DB p.41)

1947        Scrooge McDuck, created by Disney artist Carl Barks (d.2000 at 99), first appeared in a story called "Christmas on Bear Mountain."
    (SFC, 8/26/00, p.A19)

1947        B. Gerald Cantor (1917-1996), financier, began to buy sculptors by Rodin after seeing "Hand of God" at the NY Metropolitan. He eventually acquired hundreds of Rodin works.
    (SFC, 7/6/96, p.A20)

1947        Ruth and Augustus Goetz wrote the play "The Heiress" based on the William James work Washington Square.
    (SFEC, 11/10/96, DB p.61)

1947        Arthur Miller wrote his play "All My Sons."
    (WSJ, 5/20/98, p.A12)

1947        Anna Balakian (d.1997 at 82) wrote "The Literary Origins of Surrealism."
    (SFC, 8/16/97, p.A18)

1947        Quentin Bell published "On Human Finery," a study of fashion. In the Veblen tradition he suggested a 4th category of conspicuous waste: "conspicuous outrage," the style flaunted by fops and dandies. He published a study of John Ruskin in 1963, "Victorian Artists" (1967) and "A New and Noble School" (1982), a study of the pre-Raphaelites. He also wrote a 2 volume biography of Virginia Woolf (1972), and a personal memoir of Bloomsbury, "Elders And Betters," titled "Bloomsbury Recalled" in American editions.
    (SFC, 12/19/96, p.C10)

1947        The book "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown (d.1952) was published by Harper & Bros.
    (WSJ, 9/8/00, p.A6)

1947        Truman Capote’s first novel "Other Voices, Other Rooms" was published. It was about his unfulfilled yearning for a close relationship with his father. It was made into a film in 1997.
    (SFEC,11/23/97, DB p.43)(SFC, 1/16/98, p.D9)

1947        Marjory Stoneman Douglas (d.1998 at 108) published "The Everglades: River of Grass," a natural and political history of the Florida Everglades. she also led the campaign to establish Everglades National Park.
    (SFC, 5/15/98, p.D7)

1947        "The 21 Balloons" by William Pene duBois was published.
    (SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)

1947        James Marston Fitch (d.2000 at 90) authored "American Building: The Environmental Forces That Shape It."
    (SFC, 4/13/00, p.C2)

1947        Ed Flynn (1891-1953), depression-era Bronx County machine boss, authored his autobiography “You’re the Boss.”
    (WSJ, 10/14/06, p.P10)

1947        C.S. Forester wrote "Mr. Midshipman Hornblower," in which he described his character Horatio Hornblower as a 17-year-old midshipman in the English Navy. Hornblower was loosely based on the life of Adm. Lord Nelson. Forester wrote 11 Hornblower books and also wrote "The African Queen." Hornblower was made into a 4-part A&E TV miniseries in 1999. Earlier Hornblower novels dated back to 1937.
    (WSJ, 7/10/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 4/5/99, p.A20)

1947        John Hope Franklin (b.1915) authored “From Slavery to Freedom.”
    (SSFC, 11/13/05, p.M6)

1947        Friedrich A. von Hayek wrote "The Road to Freedom."
    (WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A22)

1947        Marguerite Henry (d.1997 at 95) wrote her children’s novel "Misty of Chincoteague." The book was made into a movie in 1961. It focused on the annual swim of wild ponies between the islands of Assateague and Chincoteague off the coast of Virginia. In all she wrote 59 books.
    (SFC,11/28/97, p.B8)

1947        "Kon-Tiki" by Thor Heyerdahl of Norway was published by Rand McNally.
    (SSFC, 11/18/01, p.A28)

1947        Hammond Innes (d.1998 at 83) published his thriller "The Lonely Skier." It was made into the 1948 film "Snowbound."
    (SFC, 6/12/98, p.A26)

1947        Gertrude Legendre (1902-2000) wrote her autobiography "The Sands Ceased to Run." She wrote a 2nd autobiography in 1987: "The Time of My Life."
    (SFC, 3/13/00, p.B2)

1947        Primo Levi (d.1987) authored the memoir "If This Is a Man." It recounted some of his war time experiences in Nazi death camps and was translated into English as "Survival in Auschwitz."
    (WSJ, 6/14/02, p.W10)

1947        Janet Lewis published her historical novel "The Trial of Soren Qvist."
    (SFC, 12/5/98, p.C2)

1947        Thomas Mann (1875-1955), German writer, wrote "Doctor Faustus." A new English translation was made in 1998 by John E. Woods.
    (V.D.-H.K.p.367-368)(WSJ, 12/26/95, p. A-5)(SFEC, 4/5/98, BR p.6)

1947        William Ormond Mitchell (d.1998 at 83), Canadian writer, published his first novel "Who Has Seen the Wind." It was about a boy on the prairies who comes to grips with birth, death, justice and faith.
    (SFC, 2/28/98, p.A19)

1947        James Michener wrote "Tales of the South Pacific" for which he won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize. It was the basis for the Broadway musical "South Pacific."
    (SFC, 10/13/97, p.A7)

1947        A.A. Milne, author of "Winnie the Pooh," gave publisher E.P. Dutton the original stuffed animals of the stories he began writing in 1926 for his son, Christopher Robbin. The animals were turned over to the New York Public Library in 1987. In 1998 the British requested that they be returned to England.
    (SFC, 2/5/98, p.A12)

1947        Willard Motley wrote his novel "Knock on Any Door." It was about a sensitive hoodlum named Nick Romano whose motto was "Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse." It was made into a 1949 film with John Derek and Humphrey Bogart.
    (SFEC, 7/26/98, Par p.2)

1947        Mary Ovington wrote "The Walls Came Tumbling Down," a history of the NAACP.
    (SFEC,12/797, BR p.6)

1947        J.F. Powers (d.1999 at 81) published his first collection of short stories: "Prince of Darkness.'
    (SFC, 6/17/99, p.C4)

1947        Raymond Queneau (d.1976), Parisian surrealist, published "Exercises in Style."
    (SFEC, 8/2/98, BR p.4)

1947        Paul A. Samuelson, economist, published "Foundations of Economic Analysis." This work put economics on a firmer mathematical base.
    (WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)

1947        Jose Saramago, a metalworker of Portugal, authored his first novel "Terra do Pecado" (Country of Sin). He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998.
    (USAT, 10/9/98, p.16A)(SFC, 10/9/98, p.A2)

1947        Jean-Paul Sartre published his existentialist work: "Being and Nothingness."
    (WSJ, 1/18/98, p.A16)

1947        Z.V. Togan (1890-1970) published “The Origins of the Kazaks and ôzbeks.
    (http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carrie_books/paksoy-5/)

1947        "Headache and Other Head Pain" by US neurologist Harold G. Wolff was published.
    (WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A1)

1947        The radio show "The Adventures of Philip Marlowe" was created by Gene Levitt and Robert Mitchell with Gerald Mohr as the Raymond Chandler detective.
    (SFC, 11/27/99, p.C4)

1947        John Cage composed "Music for Marcel Duchamp."
    (WSJ, 8/9/99, p.A16)

1947        Erich Wolfgang Korngold composed his Symphony in F sharp.
    (WSJ, 3/5/99, p.W10)

1947        The Loewe & Lerner song "Almost Like Being in Love" was a hit song from a Broadway musical.
    (WSJ, 5/18/99, p.A24)

1947        Kurt Weill wrote an opera based on the Elmer Rice play "Street Scene."
    (WSJ, 11/4/96, p.A21)

1947        The Lerner and Loewe musical "Brigadoon" opened on Broadway. It was directed by Robert Lewis (d.1997 at 88). The show starred Marion Bell (d.1997 at 78) as the innocent young woman in the mysterious Scottish town that comes back to life for one day every 100 years.
    (AP, 3/13/97)(SFC,11/25/97, p.A22)(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)
1947        The Broadway show "High Button Shoes" played with burlesque star Joey Faye (d.1997).
    (SFC, 4/28/97, p.A18)
1947        Red Buttons (1919-2006) appeared on Broadway in George Abbott’s musical “Barefoot Boy With Cheek.”
    (SFC, 7/14/06, p.B9)
1947        Eugene O’Neill’s play “A Moon for the Misbegotten” failed. It did not gain recognition as being among his best works until decades later.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_O'Neill)

1947        Joan Sutherland made her operatic debut in Sidney.
    (WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A20)

1947        Composer Paul Bowles settled in Tangiers after leaving New York. He began writing stories and novels that included "The Sheltering Sky."
    (SFEC, 4/5/98, p.C13)

1947        Robert Lewis founded the Actors Studio with Elia Kazan and Cheryl Crawford as a training ground for professional actors.
    (SFC,11/25/97, p.A22)

1947        Photographers Robert Capa, David Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson and George Rodger founded the Magnum photography agency. Eve Arnold became their first female member as a stringer in 1952. In 1997 Russell Miller published "Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History."
    (WSJ, 5/29/98, p.W4)(Econ, 10/27/07, p.100)

1947        Jose Limon founded the Limon Dance Company [NYC].
    (WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A20)

1947        The first Cannes Film Festival was held.
    (SFC, 5/13/96, p.D-2)

1947        A grainy, black and white porn film that allegedly featured Marilyn Monroe was discovered in 1997. A Spanish film Festival in Madrid planned to show the film despite claims that it was a fake. Marilyn was 21 at this time and known as Norma Jean Baker.
    (SFC, 1/18/97, p.D3)

1947        The ABC Radio show "Candid Microphone," developed by Allen Funt, premiered. A year later it became a TV program and later "Candid Camera."
    (SFC, 9/7/99, p.C2)

1947        NBC featured Jinx Falkenburg (d.2003) and husband Tex McCrary on the television show "At Home."
    (SFC, 8/29/03, p.A28)

1947        The radio show "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon" was created. In 1955 it became a TV series with Richard Simmons.
    (SFC, 1/15/03, p.A19)

1947        The "Mary Kay and Johnny" TV show began on the DuMont network with Johnny and Mary Kay Stearns. It later moved to NBC and CBS.
    (SFC, 12/11/01, p.A28)

1947        Eddie Anderson, publicist and jazz buff, claimed to have waved a check for $1000 in front of Joe Glaser, the manager of Louis Armstrong, and got Armstrong to play an "All-Star" session without the big band. The group performed at Town Hall and played old-time tunes like "Muskrat Ramble," and "Butter and Egg Man."
    (WSJ, 6/26/97, p.A16)

1947        Aaron Copland composed "In the Beginning," a setting of the first part of Genesis.
    (SFC,12/13/97, p.C16)

1947        Composer Lou Harrison wrote his "Suite No. 1."
    (SFEC, 7/27/97, DB p.38)

1947        Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), bandoneon player, recorded his album "El Desbande" with Orquesta Tipica in Buenos Aires.
    (BAAC, 1/96, p.4,5)(Esq., 5/91, p.60,61)(WSJ, 2/18/97, p.A18)

1947        Marion Sumner (d.1997 at 77), mountain fiddler, recorded "My Eyes Are Still Dry."
    (SFC, 8/21/97, p.C4)

1947        Samuel Barber composed "The Serpent Heart." It was revised and became "Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance."
    (SFC, 10/5/96, p.E1)

1947        Charles Brown wrote his song "Merry Christmas Baby." He was playing piano and singing for Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers.
    (SFEC, 12/15/96, DB p.52)

1947        Sonny Rollins (17) started playing bebop on tenor sax with Thelonius Monk while still in high school.
    (SFEM, 10/6/96, p.9)

1947        Louis Marshall Jones (d.1998 at 84), aka Grandpa, joined the Grand Ole Opry. He used the "drop-thumb technique" for playing the banjo. He joined "Hee Haw" in 1969 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1978.
    (SFC, 2/21/98, p.A19)

1947        Country singer Ernest Tubbs led the first country music concert at Carnegie Hall. He convinced Billboard Magazine to drop the term "hillbilly." The new musical designation "country and western" was introduced.
    (Hem., 4/97, p.69)

1947        Eureka weather station was built on Ellesmere Island, the largest and northernmost of Canada’s Queen Elizabeth Islands. Ellesmere is nearly as big as England and Scotland combined.
    (NG, 6/1988, 752-753)

1947        Joseph Lloyd "Wally" Walcott (d.1998 at 101) opened Wally’s Paradise in Boston’s South End neighborhood. He attracted jazz stars from New York to play there.
    (SFC, 3/24/98, p.B2)

1947        The Islander Hotel was opened by Roy Kelley (d.1997 at 91) in Hawaii. This began his Outrigger Chain that grew to 29 by 1997. His 2nd hotel, The Outrigger, was the first building in Hawaii with an automatic elevator.
    (SFC, 3/8/96, p.A21)

1947        In Nevada the Las Vegas Vic was unveiled. It was replaced by a newer version in 1951 and its sidekick, Vegas Vicky (aka Sassy Sally), was built in 1980.
    (SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)

1947        Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village were built in NYC with the help of tax breaks to provide homes for public sector workers and soldiers returning from WW II. Only whites were allowed until some nasty scenes in the 1950s. In 2006 the MetLife Insurance Co. sold the 80-acre complex to an investment group for $5.4 billion.
    (Econ, 10/21/06, p.43)

1947        Robert Hutchins (1899-1977), president of the Univ. of Chicago, and Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001), American philosopher, launched the Great Books Foundation.
    (WSJ, 11/10/08, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_Foundation)

1947        Billy Graham decided to become a full-time traveling evangelist after having organized groups in 48 states for the new Youth for Christ movement.
    (SFEC, 10/20/96, Par, p.4)

1947        James Brunot took over the Criss-Cross Words business from architect Alfred Mosher Butts (1899-1993), the inventor of the word game, and renamed it Scrabble.
    (WSJ, 6/28/01, p.B1)

1947        Virginia Graham (d.1998 at 86) co-founded the Cerebral Palsy foundation.
    (SFC, 12/25/98, p.B6)

1947        Gladys Sargent (1900-1996) formed Pets and Pals in San Francisco, a non-profit animal protective society that went nationwide.
    (SFC, 10/1/96, p.A24)

1947        The first Annual Festival of Houses and Gardens was organized by Historic Charleston.
    (Hem. 1/95, p. 70)

1947        The Coro Foundation held its first 9-month internship program to train participants for careers in public service.
    (SFC, 8/29/96, p.C4)

1947        John C. Lincoln, a Cleveland industrialist, endowed the Lincoln Foundation to teach and expound on the ideas of Henry George, a 19th century economist who argued for a single tax based on property values.
    (WSJ, 5/28/99, p.B4)

1947        The first national convention of the Tip Toppers, a club for tall people, was held in Los Angeles.
    (SFC, 10/16/96, p.C2)

1947        Christian Dior premiered his 1st post was collection. It was dubbed "The New Look" and "Bar" suit for women.
    (WSJ, 1/20/03, p.B1)

1947        Johnny Mize, baseball first baseman, hit 51 home runs and struck out only 42 times. He later was put into the Hall of Fame.
    (SFEC, 1/3/99, Z1, p.8)

1947        The Nobel Prize for Literature was won by Andre Gide of France.
    (SFEC, 6/13/99, BR p.4)

1947        The Nobel Peace Prize was won by the Quakers (The American Friends Service Committee).
    (SFC, 2/5/97, p.A11)

1947        Pres. Truman raised $17 billion to fund the Marshall Plan in Western Europe.
    (TMC, 1994, p.1947)
1947        Pres. Truman raised margin requirements of futures to 33% as wartime controls ended and food prices soared.
    (Econ, 10/11/08, SR p.16)

1947        $400 million in military aid to Greece was approved by the US Congress in the first substantial action under the Truman Doctrine, which was intended to curb Soviet expansion. By 1947, two years of escalating violence between Communist and anti-Communist forces in Greece had erupted in all-out civil war.
    (HNQ, 3/10/99)

1947        The US began holding a seat on the Human Rights Commission based in Geneva. It lost its elected seat in 2001.
    (WSJ, 5/4/01, p.A1)

1947        Frank Wisner was recruited by Dean Acheson to join the US State Department's Office of Occupied Territories. In 1948, the CIA created a covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). Frank Wisner was put in charge of the operation and recruited many of his old friends from the NYC Carter Ledyard law firm. Wisner later coined the term “mighty Wurlitzer” to describe the orchestration of the agency’s activities.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wisner)

1947        California’s racial laws were abolished.
    (SFEC,10/19/97, p.C3)
1947        The Pet’s Rest Cemetery was established in Colma, Ca.
    (www.colmahistory.org/History.htm)

1947        Eight white and 8 black activists of the newly formed Congress of Racial Equality set off on a 2-week "Journey of Reconciliation" through 4 southern states to explain and test the 1946 Morgan decision against segregation on interstate buses.
    (SFC, 8/4/00, p.D2)

1947        Prisoners at the Folsom Prison, Ca., began producing license plates.
    (SFC, 9/21/98, p.A24)

1947        John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers, went before Congress to testify on the Mar 25, Centralia, Ill., mine disaster.    
    (WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 3/25/97)

1947        Massachusetts executed its last inmate and functionally abolished capital punishment.
    (WSJ, 4/8/06, p.P8)

1947        Herbert Magidson (d.1977) and his wife Shirley Magidson (1925-2008), industrial designers from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute of Technology, moved to Los Angeles and set up shop as Metric products Inc. They made wire axles for Mattel toys and later underwires for bras. From this they expanded to manufacturing molded cups for bras and swimsuits. Both were active in social affairs and supported numerous social causes.
    (WSJ, 7/19/08, p.A5)

1947        John Trumpey moved to Annapolis, Md., and purchased the Annapolis Yacht Yard in Eastport with his sons. They manufactured the custom Trumpey houseboats and cruisers.
    (BS, 5/3/98, p.4B)

1947        Bert J. Brock of Ohio bought a pottery manufacturing plant in Lawndale, LA County, and incorporated it as B.J. Brock and Co. The firm, which produced high quality tableware and ovenware care Brock Ware, closed doors around 1955.
    (SFC, 5/4/05, p.G5)

1947        The Venetian Room opened at the SF Fairmont Hotel. It closed in 1989.
    (SSFC, 2/4/07, p.F1)

1947        Robert M. Luby (d.1998 at 88) co-founded Luby’s Cafeterias.
    (WSJ, 8/17/98, p.B7)

1947        The new Florida Foods Co. changed its name to Minute Maid. Their initial powder orange juice proved more drinkable as a juice concentrate. Founder John Fox hired Bing Crosby as his 1st spokesman.
    (SFC, 1/20/03, p.B4)

1947        Dr. Edwin H. Land announced the "instant" camera. It was the first camera to use a paper roll to produce pictures right after they were taken.
    (SFC, 6/12/96, Z1 p.5)

1947        Parker Brothers launched the board game Clue.
    (Econ, 11/22/03, p.81)

1947        Walter S. Mack, president of Pepsi-Cola, hired an all-black sales force led by Edward F. Boyd to sell Pepsi directly to blacks.
    (WSJ, 1/9/07, p.B1)

1947        Tonka toys were introduced by Mound Metalcraft, located in Mound, Minnesota, near Lake Minnetonka.
    (SFC, 8/23/06, p.G7)

1947        Raytheon introduced its 1st microwave oven, the Radarange.
    (AH, 10/01, p.36)

1947        Topps Co. of Brooklyn began wrapping bubble gum in comics and calling it Bazooka. In 2006 the company relaunched Bazooka.
    (SFC, 1/13/98, p.A19)(WSJ, 7/8/06, p.A5)

1947        Joseph Lowenbach Steiner (d.2002 at 95) and his 2 brothers founded Kenner Products Co. The firm launched the Bubble Rocket in 1949, the Easy-Bake Oven in 1963, and the Spirograph in 1966. General Mills acquired the company in 1967.
    (SFC, 5/16/02, p.A20)

1947        Many high schools began to offer driver education courses.
    (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1947        The first offshore oil rig out of sight of land was set up by Kerr-McGee, Phillips Petroleum and Stanolind Oil & Gas 10 miles off the Louisiana coast.
    (WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)

1947        Bell Labs invented cellular phone technology.
    (WSJ, 8/21/06, p.A2)

1947        Gerard Kuiper of Holland and Texas discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars.
    (SFC, 11/29/96, p.A17)

1947        Willard Libby, American chemist, discovered Carbon-14 dating.
    (NG, March 1990, p. 126)

c1947        Lawrence MacKenzie (d.2002), doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley, was one of 3 men who discovered astatine, element 85, the 1st element to be synthetically manufactured. It was formed by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles. He also helped build the 1st cyclotron.
    (SFC, 7/22/02, p.B5)

1947        The Washington Dept. of Fisheries sent biologists John Glude and Cedric Lindsay to Japan to find a replacement for their declining West Coast Olympia oyster. They found the Kumamoto oyster (Crassostrea sikamea) and shipped seedlings that were planted throughout Puget Sound. [see 1968 Gigomoto]
    (WSJ, 4/4/96, A-12)

1947        Ed Lowe, a sand hauler in Cassopolis, Mich., recommended some baked clay for a customer's cats instead of sand. Lowe's father manufactured the clay absorbents for factory oil messes. The customer's cats took a liking to it and Mr. Lowe put it on the market as Kitty Litter and became very rich.
    (SFC, 12/29/99, Z1 p. 1)(WSJ, 2/23/00, p.A1)

1947        Earl Tupper applied for a patent for an “Open Mouth Container and Nonsnap Type of Closure Therefore.”
    (WSJ, 7/30/08, p.A13)

1947        The antibiotic penicillin became available. It was a wonder drug that killed Staph germs but after a decade some strains grew resistant.
    (SFC, 5/29/97, p.A4)

1947        Psychologist Theodore Sarbin suggested to a medical conference that medicine would benefit if the doctor could be replaced by a machine programmed to make judgments about the best treatment for a patient. He suggested using a Hollerith machine, an IBM computer of this time.
    (Econ, 3/17/07, p.85)(www.eatg.org/news/newsitem.php?id=1308)

1947        Cassiopeia A, the gaseous remains of a supernova, was first detected as a radio source. It would have visible from Earth in 1667, but no record from that time indicates that it was noticed.
    (Econ, 9/2/06, p.72)

1947        The College Board helped to create the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which developed and administered SAT exams (scholastic aptitude testing for college entry). ETS was founded in New Jersey by Henry Chauncey (d.2002 at 97). In 1999 Nicholas Lemann authored "The Big Test," an analysis of the SAT and its history.
    (WSJ, 8/27/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/29/99, p.A20)(SFC, 12/5/02, p.A29)

1947        The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by Bedouin at the caves of Qumran in Jordan. The scrolls predated the Christian gospels, but contained many similarities. They also contained some differences from the traditional (Masoretic) text of the Hebrew Bible. In 1955 Edmund Wilson published "The Scrolls from the Dead Sea." In 1998 Hershel Shank published "The Mystery and meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls." From 1978-1998 over 6,000 books were written about the scrolls. The discovery date was later contested as were many of the historic circumstances surrounding the scrolls.
    (WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W11)(WSJ, 6/22/98, p.A20)

1947        Drillers in Canada reached the ancient buried reefs (100 to 400 meters thick) of the Devonian epoch and marked the beginning of the Canadian oil boom.
    (DD-EVTT, p.176)

1947        Pierre Bonnard (b.1867), French painter, died. In a 1935 notebook he wrote: "Draw your pleasure, paint your pleasure, express your pleasure strongly."
    (WUD, 1994 p.169)(WSJ, 10/9/02, p.D8)

1947        Willa Cather, American writer, died. She grew up in Nebraska and spent time in NYC as an editor. She wrote over 15 books including: "O, Pioneers!" "My Antonia" (1918) and "The Song of the Lark." In 2000 Joan Acocella authored "Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism.’
    (WUD, 1994, p.233)(RBI, 1989)(SFEC, 4/2/00, BR p.4)

1947        Vivienne Eliot, 1st wife of T.S. Eliot, died in an asylum. In 2002 Carole Symour-Jones authored "Painted Shadow: The Life of Vivienne Eliot, First Wife of T.S. Eliot, and the Long-Suppressed Truth About Her Influence on His Genius."
    (SSFC, 4/28/02, p.M5)

1947        Henry Ford (1863-1947) died. He had founded Ford Motor in 1903 and introduced the moving assembly line at his Highland Park, Mich., plant in 1913. In 1914 he introduced his $5 a day pay that made it possible for the average worker to buy a car.
    (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1947        William Crapo Durant (1861-1947) died. He was a salesman who founded GM in 1908 with 25 companies. He was not a good manager and was kicked out from GM in 1920. He then started Durant Motors, but with no success.
    (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1947        Ernst Lubitsch, film director, died.
    (SSFC, 12/17/00, DB p.60)

1947        Nicholas Roerich (b.1874), Russian-born set designer, died. A Nicholas Roerich Museum was later established in NYC. www.roerich.org
    (WSJ, 4/2/02, p.A20)

1947         Alfred North Whitehead (b.1861), English philosopher and mathematician, died. He philosophized that God was neither prophetic nor unchanging.
    (AP, 4/11/97)(SFC, 10/14/00, p.A24)

1947        Arab students, influenced by national socialist movements in Europe, founded the Baath Party. Satia al-Husri, father of Ba’athism, was a disciple of German philosopher Johann Fichte.
    (WSJ, 4/3/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/8/03, p.D4)

1947        Paula von Preradovic, Austrian poet, wrote a new Austrian anthem after the old one was pinched by the Germans.
    (Econ, 11/24/07, SR p.3)

1947        Bangladesh as part of Pakistan gained independence from Britain.
    (SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)

1947        Britain amid post-war rationing and food shortages introduced the snoek, a relative of the barracuda, to a hungry nation.
    (Econ, 11/1/08, p.66)
1947        An Egyptian and Ugandan water agreement led to the construction of Uganda’s Owen Falls Dam and authorized Egyptian engineers to monitor Nile water releases.
    (WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A1)

1947        In Germany Helmut Kohl joined the Christian Democratic Union.
    (WSJ, 1/19/00, p.A18)
1947        Albert Speer (d.1981), German architect, was tried at Nuremberg as a major war criminal. He had served as Hitler’s rearmament minister. Speer served 20 years in Spandau prison and was released in 1969. 6 others were also sentenced to long prison terms, including Rudolph Hess, Hitler’s former deputy, who committed suicide in Spandau in 1987. In 2007 Norman J.W. Goda authored “Seven Prisoners, Four Powers: Tales From Spandau.”
    (SSFC, 10/6/02, p.M3)(WSJ, 2/17/07, p.P13)
1947        The Organization Gehlen was founded by Gen. Reinhard Gehlen. Many of his recruits were ex-Nazis. It later became known as the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence service.
    (Econ, 9/2/06, p.50)
1947        A German neurologist coined the term prosopagnosia (face blindness), to describe the condition of a young man who, due to a bullet wound to the head, had lost his ability to recognize people.
    (WSJ, 1/5/07, p.A1)

1947        India passed an Industrial Disputes Act. Chapter 5B barred establishments with over 100 workers from laying off employees without the permission of the state government.
    (Econ, 6/3/06, Survey p.12)
1947        In India the “Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act” was adopted to provide relief to the city’s migrants following partition with Pakistan. Rents were set to 1940 levels to prevent gouging. By 2006 the measure had been extended over 20 times and property development was severely impeded as tenants fought to hold on to rent-controlled apartments.
    (WSJ, 6/5/06, p.A6)
1947        In India Rajshri, an entertainment conglomerate, was founded.
    (WWW, 1947)
1947        At the time of India’s partition and the creation of Pakistan, many Muslim Biharis moved to what was then East Bengal. In 1971, when war broke out between West Pakistan and East Pakistan (or Bangladesh), the Biharis, who mostly considered themselves Pakistani, sided with West Pakistan.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biharis)
1947        Vittal Mallya (d.1983), formed UB Group in India when he bought a controlling interest in Kingfisher Beer.
    (SSFC, 10/26/03, p.I3)
1947        India’s population was about 340 million.
    (SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A27)

1947        The first airport duty-free store opened at Shannon Airport.
    (WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)

1947        In Italy the Ferrari automobile began to be manufactured.
    (WSJ, 6/9/97, p.A1)

1947        In Pakistan Mohajirs are Muslims who migrated from India after the subcontinent was partitioned. They were politically dominant in the southern province of Sindh.
    (SFC, 2/12/98, p.C3)(WSJ, 10/8/98, p.A13)

1947        The Colorado Party began its rule over Paraguay.
    (Econ, 1/10/04, p.31)
1947        In Paraguay a failed military insurrection left some 8,000 people dead.
    (AP, 8/2/04)

1947        Jerzy Giedroyc (d.2000 at 94), Polish émigré, founded the Kultura literary magazine outside of Paris. Co-founder Zofia Hertz (d.2003 at 92) continued the magazine.
    (SFC, 9/19/00, p.B2)(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.A27)

1947        Poland decreed that Auschwitz be preserved as a museum and testimony to Nazi atrocities.
    (WSJ, 8/14/02, p.A8)

1947        Chief Rabbi Alexander Safran was dismissed from his post and forced to leave Romania, making his home in Geneva. He had refused to cooperate with the new Jewish Democratic Committee, saying it was a Communist body intent on breaking up traditional Jewish organizations and bringing Jewish life in Romania to a standstill.
    (AP, 7/28/06)

1947        In Russia Sgt. Mikhail Kalashnikov (b.1919) created the AK-47 automatic rifle. In 2008 Michael Hodges authored AK 47: The Story of a Gun.”
    (SFC,11/3/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 6/3/08, p.A19)
1947        Isaiah Oggins, American-born graduate of Columbia Univ. and Soviet spy, was executed under the direction of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. In 2008 Andrew Meier authored “The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin’s Secret Service.”
    (WSJ, 9/25/08, p.A19)

1947        The family-owned Olayan Group was founded in Saudi Arabia and grew to became one of the country’s largest private conglomerates.
    (WSJ, 1/16/08, p.A10)

1947        In Scotland the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) was started as an antidote to war-time austerity. Accompanying the EIF when it first opened was the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Fringe started life as a more accessible and less highbrow accompaniment to the "main" festival, literally on the fringe of it.
    (Econ, 5/5/07, SR p.15)(www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/edinburgh/festival/index.html)

1947        Father Tiso ruled Slovakia while it was a Nazi state and in this year he was captured by the Americans and executed for war crimes. During his rule 70,000 Slovakian Jews were sent to Nazi death camps.
    (WSJ, 4/26/96, p.A-11)

1947        Apparel retailer H&M was established in Sweden. The company expanded into Europe and opened its 1st US stores in 2000. Its 1st SF store opened in 2005.
    (SFC, 11/19/05, p.C1)
1947        In Sweden the first Saab automobile, a prototype, was produced.
    (Sky, 9/97, p.97)

1947        In Thailand Phibun Songkhram, a wartime pro-Japanese leader, led a Military coup. The military retain power until 1973.
    (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1243059.stm)

1947-1948    Dmitri Shostakovich composed his A-Minor Concerto for violin and orchestra. The piece was written for violinist David Oistrakh.
    (WSJ, 1/24/96, p.A-12)

1947-1948    Farley Mowat, author, lived with the Inuit people in the Arctic. He later wrote "Never Cry Wolf."
    (SFC, 5/7/96, p.A-8)

1947-1963    The Louvin Brothers of Alabama, born Ira and Charlie Loudermilk, recorded their country music, a mix of bluegrass, gospel, blues and antique fold ballads. A boxed set of their recordings called "Close Harmony" was put together by Richard Weize of Bear Family Records, Hamburg, Germ.
    (WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W3)

1947-1971    In southern California Montrose Chemical Co. manufactured DDT during this period and released about 2,000 tons of the pesticide into sewers that flowed to the ocean. In 2007 fish caught off Los Angeles County's coast still contained high levels of DDT, banned since 1972, decades after a manufacturer dumped tons of the pesticide into sewers, creating a toxic plume on the ocean bottom.
    (AP, 1/28/07)

1947-1978    The US governed the Northern Marianas Islands as a UN Trust Territory. The natives largely abandoned fishing and Spam and Budweiser became staples.
    (SFEC, 3/7/99,Z1 p.4)

1947-1990    The Rick Brant Science Adventure Series was published during this time. Rick and his pal Scotty have the kinds of adventures all boys would like to have.
    (WWW, 1947)
1947-1990    This period in India came to be known as the “License Raj,” as the country operated a planned economy with extensive red tape.
    (Econ, 11/15/08, SR p.9)

Go to 1948