October 24, 1946: V-2 rocket takes first picture of Earth from outer spaceOctober 1, 1946: Twelve convicted Nazi war criminals sentenced to be hanged October 16October 15, 1946: Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring poisons himself, avoids execution
The following events occurred in October 1946:
October 1, 1946 (Tuesday)
The day after the verdicts were rendered in the Nuremberg Trials, sentences were pronounced. Twelve of Nazi Germany's most murderous leaders were given two weeks more to live, with hangings scheduled for October 15.[1]
Mensa, the high IQ society, was founded in Oxford, the United Kingdom, by Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware. According to the website for the American organization, "the date is now the recognized founding date for the organization", based on Berrill when the first piece of Mensa literature was printed.[2]
The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 8–4 to win the second game of a best-of-3 series in the first National League playoffs ever played, and advanced to the 1946 World Series to face the Boston Red Sox. Both teams had finished with 96-58 records at the end of the regular season.[8]
October 4, 1946 (Friday)
On the eve of the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday, and a month before midterm elections, U.S. President Harry S. Truman announced that he had cabled British Prime Minister Clement Attlee to say that he endorsed immediate immigration of over 100,000 Jewish refugees into Palestine. Truman's rationale was that the British-mediated conference between Arabs and Jews had been adjourned until December, and that "In view of the fact that winter will come before the conference can be resumed, I believe and urge that substantial immigration into Palestine cannot await a solution."[9] Attlee was furious at Truman's sudden public statement, and forecast that it would only increase violence in the region, while leaders of Arab nations felt that they had been betrayed, and Truman's opponents criticized the decision as a clumsy bid for Jewish voters.[10] "It may well have been Truman's desperate political straits that led him to such a blatantly political gambit," observed one later historian.[11]
The Nag Hammadi library was saved for posterity, as the Coptic Museum in Cairo accepted the ancient scrolls into its permanent collection. Twelve complete manuscripts and eight pages of a 13th had been buried in a sealed jar in the 4th century AD and not unearthed again until December 1945. The text "begins at the approximate time that the Dead Sea Scrolls leave off", notes one author.[12]
Republican Senator Robert A. Taft called the Nuremberg Trials "an outrage against justice", controversially arguing that they were carried out under ex post facto laws and that the making of war "should not be made a personal crime."[14]
October 6, 1946 (Sunday)
The "11 points in the Negev" program saw the simultaneous construction of 11 Jewish settlements in separate parts of British Palestine, going up overnight in the Negev Desert.[15][16]
Twenty-three people, most of them teenage schoolboys, died when a Fairey Firefly airplane struck a school in Apeldoorn, in the Netherlands. The 21-year-old pilot, on his first solo flight, was flying low over his parents' house in a misguided stunt, and the left wing clipped the roof of the school gymnasium, dropping burning fuel inside. The dead included the pilot and his mother, who suffered a fatal heart attack.[17]
Voters in the U.S. territory of Alaska participated in the first referendum on the question of statehood.[19] At the time, the total population was less than 85,000 people, and it took two months to tally all of the ballots. The final result of the advisory resolution was 9,630 to 6,822 in favor of Alaska someday becoming the 49th state of the United States, a goal which would finally be attained on January 3, 1959.[20]
Born:
Dennis Kucinich, American politician who became the "Boy Mayor of Cleveland" at age 31 (1977-1979), later U.S. Representative for Ohio 1997 to 2013; in Cleveland
Tage Erlander began a 23-year service as Prime Minister of Sweden, which would last until 1969. The Education Minister was elected as the new leader of Sweden's ruling Social Democratic party, succeeding the late Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson.[21]
One of the most spectacular meteor showers visible from Earth was seen after the planet passed through the debris left by Comet Giacobini-Zinner. A greater number of meteors (referred to as Giacobinids or Draconids) burned up in the atmosphere than usual because of a closer approach. The comet and the Earth came within 131,000 miles of each other.[22]
George Adamski saw a UFO for the first time, hovering near Mount Palomar toward San Diego, and began a career in ufology. He claimed trips in UFOs beginning in 1952.[24]
The brochure Communist Infiltration of the United States was released by U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Eventually, 400,000 copies were distributed.[25]
A V-2 rocket launched by the United States from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico reached an altitude of 100 miles and sent back unprecedented information about the Sun, providing the first photograph of the solar ultraviolet spectrum.[26]
Tsinghua University reopened in China with an enrollment of 3,000 students, more than nine years after the Army of Japan had looted the campus.[27]
The Missouri city of Centerville, located in Phelps County, was renamed Doolittle in honor of aviation pioneer and Medal of Honor winner Jimmy Doolittle.[28]
Major General Lewis B. Hershey, director of the Selective Service, announced the end of the draft. Persons scheduled to report to their local draft board on or after October 16 had their inductions cancelled.[29] The Selective Service Act expired on March 31, 1947, with no further inductions.[30] A new draft act was signed into law on June 24, 1948.[31]
Article 3 of the Allied Control Council Directive 38 was put into effect in the Soviet Zone of Germany, and remained in effect when the zone became the German Democratic Republic. With vague language making it a criminal offense for anyone to have, after May 8, 1945, "endangered or possibly endangered the peace of the German people or the peace of the world through propaganda for National Socialism or militarism or by the invention or diffusion of tendentious rumors", the law was applied to fire 520,000 former Nazi party members from jobs, and to convict more than 11,000 people between 1948 and 1964.[32]
Born:Jack Fuller, American journalist and publisher; in Chicago (d. 2016)
By a vote of 9,297,351 oui to 8,165,744 non, voters approved a new constitution for France, creating that nation's "Fourth Republic", which provided for a weak, and indirectly elected president. The upper house of parliament, the French Senate, was replaced by a weaker "Council of the Republic"; promulgated on October 27, the new constitution would last less than 12 years, until the establishment of the "Fifth Republic" in 1958.[33]
The Muslim League agreed to join the Interim Government of India, accepting five of the 12 seats on the Executive Council, reversing an earlier decision not to participate. Participation lasted less than a year, with the League creating the nation of Pakistan from the Muslim sections of British India.[34]Jawaharlal Nehru, future Prime Minister of India, continued as the Minister for External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations, while the future Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaqat Ali Khan, became the interim government's new Finance Minister.[35]
With Americans facing a shortage of meat, President Truman reluctantly ended all price controls. In a nationwide radio address at 9:00 pm Eastern Time, Truman described the situation and then told his listeners, "There is only one remedy left— that is to lift controls on meat. Accordingly, the secretary of agriculture and the price administrator are removing all price controls on livestock, and food and feed products therefrom— tomorrow."[36] With no ceiling imposed by the Office of Price Administration, meat prices doubled and production increased.[37]
A truce between Dutch and Indonesian armies was signed at 6:00 pm at the residence of Sir Philip Christison with the Republic of Indonesia and the remaining colonies of the Dutch East Indies co-existing separately. The agreement broke down within a few months, and on July 20, 1947, the Netherlands attacked the republic. Full independence was not achieved until December 27, 1949.[38]
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) founded with the opening of a multinational conference in London. "ISO" is not an abbreviation for the organization's name in any language, and was based on the Greek word isos, meaning equal.[39]
Hours before he was scheduled to be the first Nazi war criminal to hang following his conviction in the Nuremberg Trials, Gestapo founder Hermann Göring avoided the hangman's noose by poisoning himself. During his imprisonment, Goering had concealed, on his person, a glass vial of cyanide inside a .25 caliber brass cartridge. Suspicion originally fell upon Goering's lawyer, his wife and his barber as people who might have provided him with his means of suicide, but an investigation by the Allied powers concluded that Göring had kept the cartridge hidden even before his arrest.[43]
Former German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop first to be hanged
One by one, the ten remaining Nazi war criminals on death row after the Nuremberg Trials were hanged in a gymnasium on the premises of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. Taking the place of Hermann Göring as first in line was Joachim von Ribbentrop, 53, the German Foreign Minister, who dropped from the gallows at 1:16 a.m., with Master Sergeant John C. Woods handling the duties as the U.S. Army's hangman. Ribbentrop was followed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, 64; Ernst Kaltenbrunner, 43, Commander of the German SS national police; Alfred Rosenberg, 53, Minister of Eastern Occupied Territories, 1941–45; Hans Frank, 46, Governor General of Poland, 1939–45; Wilhelm Frick, 69, Interior Minister 1933–43, "Protector of Bohemia and Moravia" 1943–45; Julius Streicher, 61, propaganda publisher; Fritz Sauckel, 51, administrator of "labor deployment" for 5,000,000 workers imported from occupied territories; and General Alfred Jodl, 56, Supreme Commander of Nazi armed forces. The last was Arthur Seyss-Inquart, 54, Reichskommissar of the Netherlands 1940–44, who was dropped at 2:45[45]
The RMS Queen Elizabeth made her first voyage as a luxury ocean liner, after having been used to carry British troops during World War II. Ironically, Sir Percy Bates, who had been chairman of the Cunard Line when the ship was first commissioned, died on the same day of its commercial debut.[46]
Gordie Howe made his National Hockey League debut, scoring a goal for the Detroit Red Wings in his first game, a 3–3 tie with Toronto.[47] Howe played in the NHL in five decades (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s), appearing in 1,767 NHL and 419 WHA games. His final goal was scored on April 9, 1980, in his penultimate game, for the Hartford Whalers in an 8-4 playoff loss to Montreal.[48]
A Russian language translation of Strategic Position of the British Empire, a top secret document stolen from the War Office, was delivered to Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. The extent of betrayal of Britain's security was not revealed until 1999, after the end of the Cold War.[49]
The OPA removed all price controls on coffee, effective immediately.[50]
Born:Bob Seagren, American pole vaulter; in Pomona, California. Seagren broke the world record four times between 1966 and 1972.
USS Ranger, the first American ship designed to serve as an aircraft carrier, was decommissioned. The ship, which had proved to be imperfect for takeoffs and landings of planes, was sold as scrap three months later.[52]
Born:Howard Shore, Canadian film score composer known for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy; in Toronto
Partido Independista Puertoriqueño, the Puerto Rican Independence Party, was founded in San Juan with Dr. Gilberto Concepción de Gracia as its first president, setting as its mission "to labor for the immediate recognition of the full sovereignty of the people of Puerto Rico" in order to create "a free, independent and democratic Republic" separate from the United States.[54]
Nationalist Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek made his first visit to the island of Taiwan. After flying over from Nanjing, Chiang was greeted at Taipei by the province's Governor, Chen Yi. After the Chinese Communist Party took control of the mainland in 1949, Chiang fled to Taiwan and ruled it as the Republic of China until his death in 1975.[55]
The second major land reform law in Japan was passed after being drafted by the American occupying authority. After the "Law for the Special Establishment of Independent Cultivators" took effect, the percentage of Japanese farmland farmed by sharecroppers renting from landlords, would drop from 46% to 10%.[56]
The Soviet Army carried out the simultaneous roundup of all persons in Soviet occupied Germany who were deemed essential to the Soviet missile program, then shipped them and their families by train to the USSR. Rocket scientists at Mittelwerk had been attending a late night party held in their honor by General Gaidukov, and then were told that they would be moving.[58]
In what came to be known as part of the Corfu Channel Incident, a convoy of Royal Navy ships was sailing through the Straits of Corfu as part of a British test of Albania's defenses, which had fired on two cruisers in May. The destroyer HMS Saumarez struck a mine at 2:53 pm, and HMS Volage collided with a second mine at 4:31 pm while towing Saumarez.[59] In all, 44 men were killed and 42 seriously injured in the explosions.[60]
The first photograph ever taken of the Earth from outer space (an altitude of 100 km or more) was made after a V-2 rocket was fitted with a movie camera, then fired from New Mexico to an altitude of 105 kilometers (65 mi). The camera was destroyed after returning to Earth, but the film survived.[63]
With the war crimes trials of top Nazi leaders having completed, indictments were handed down against 20 Nazi physicians, two administrators and an attorney for war crimes including euthanasia murder, human experimentation and medical torture. The Doctors' Trial, a series of trials, conducted at Nuremberg, would begin on December 9, 1946, and last until July 20, 1947.[65]
Vice-Admiral Ross T. McIntire, who had served as the physician to the President for Franklin D. Roosevelt, revealed the details of FDR's medical history, final illness, and a minute-by-minute account of the President's death on April 12, 1945. The news was occasioned by the publication, by G.P. Putnam's Sons, of McIntyre's book White House Physician.[66]
October 26, 1946 (Saturday)
White House Press SecretaryCharlie Ross announced that "for the first time in the history of White House travels, the President of the United States has his own private railroad car". The 286,520 pound, armor-plated Ferdinand Magellan car had been owned by the Association of American Railroads, which provided it for presidential use after U.S. entry into World War II. The Association sold the luxurious "rolling fortress" to the federal government for ten dollars.[67]
The real estate group "American Community Builders" announced the creation of a new suburb of Chicago, with the name of Park Forest, Illinois. The first homes were opened in August 1948, and on February 1, 1949, the village was incorporated.[72]
October 29, 1946 (Tuesday)
Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov surprised the U.N. General Assembly by calling for universal disarmament and the banning of all nuclear weapons, while hinting that the United States' monopoly on the atomic bomb might have ended.[73]
In a secret briefing Major General Lauris Norstad told President Truman that the only means of preventing the Soviet Union from invading Western Europe would be an air assault against 17 Soviet cities with atomic weapons. At the time, the U.S. had the means to assemble no more than nine bombs.[74]
European jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt arrived in the United States for the first time at the expense of Duke Ellington. Reinhardt, who flew from Paris to New York, came to the U.S. without his guitar nor anything more than the clothes that he had been wearing.[75]
At the RCA Research Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey, the first demonstration was made, privately, of "simultaneous color television", which would be refined by NBC and would become the system approved in the United States for color TV broadcasting. Unlike the sequential system developed by CBS, which would have required a rotating color wheel inside of a set, the RCA process transmitted images in three colors onto the screen.[76]
The United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France signed an agreement establishing the Caribbean Commission. The agreement entered into force on August 6, 1948, and the Commission lasted until September 15, 1961, when it was replaced by the Caribbean Organization[77]
The Indonesian rupiah was introduced with a radio broadcast by Vice-President Mohammad Hatta, who urged his fellow Indonesians to use the money as a symbol of independence and economic development. The first attempt to create the new currency had been thwarted in January, when Dutch colonial authorities had seized control of the printing office and confiscated the original run of notes.[78]
^Yŏnhap Tʻongsin, North Korea Handbook, (M.E. Sharpe, 2003) p54
^Ying Zhu and Stanley Rosen, Art, Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema (Hong Kong University Press, 2010) p23
^Air Force Association, Air Force Fifty (Turner Publishing Company, 1998) p43
^Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present (Random House, Inc., 2007)
^"39 KILLED IN AIRLINER CRASH", Miami Daily News, October 3, 1946, p1
^"Cards Win Pennant, Beat Dodgers, 8-4", New York Times, October 4, 1946
^"Truman Pledges U.S. To Help Speed Entry Of Jews in Palestine", Pittsburgh Press, October 4, 1946, p1
^"Truman Arouses Britain with Yom Kippur Demand to Lower Palestine Bars", Montreal Gazette, October 5, 1946, p1; "Yom Kippur Blunder" (editorial), Hartford Courant, October 5, 1946, p6; "Truman Vote Bid Seen By Arabs", Toledo Blade, October 7, 1946, p2
^Michael J. Cohen, Truman and Israel (University of California Press, 1990) p143
^Gregg Braden, The Isaiah Effect: Decoding the Lost Science of Prayer and Prophecy (Random House, Inc., 2001) p46
^"Sweden's Premier Dies- Stricken on Street After Cabinet Meeting", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 7, 1946, p5
^"Taft Hits Nuernberg Trial as Outrageous". Brooklyn Eagle. Brooklyn. October 6, 1946. p. 1.
^Leslie Stein, The Hope Fulfilled: The Rise of Modern Israel (ABC-CLIO, 2003) p253; "Jewish Army Seizes Site of Arsenal-- Lightning Operation Hamstrings Scheme For Protection", Windsor Daily Star, October 7, 1946, p1
^"Stunting Pilot Killed As He Causes 13 to Die-- 12 Boys Burn to Death When Plane Hits School; Own Mother Drops Dead", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 8, 1946, p1; "Plane Strikes School; 21 Die" Pittsburgh Press, October 8, 1946, p1; "Accident Toll Now Totals 23", Sarasota Herald, October 9, 1946, p8
^"Jap Legislators Accept Anti-War Constitution", Pittsburgh Press, October 7, 1946, p1; Ray A. Moore and Donald L. Robinson, Partners for Democracy: Crafting the New Japanese State Under MacArthur (Oxford University Press US, 2004) p184
^"Alaska Will Take Statehood Vote", October 8, 1946, p10
^Gerald E. Bowkett, Reaching for a Star: The Final Campaign for Alaska Statehood (Epicenter Press, 2009) p14
^Olof Ruin, Tage Erlander: Serving the Welfare State, 1946-1969 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990) p36
^David H. Levy, David Levy's Guide to the Night Sky p48; "Record Shower of Meteors Wednesday May Occur as Comet Tail Hits Globe", Montreal Gazette, October 8, 1946, p14; "Meteors In Sky Over Chicago Are 'Brighter Than Any Stars'", Baltimore Sun, October 10, 1946, p3
^"O'Neill, Eugene", The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Volume 2 p1004
^Brenda Denzler, The Lure of the Edge: Scientific Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs (University of California Press, 2003) p41
^Richard Gid Powers, Not Without Hhonor: The History of American Anticommunism (Yale University Press, 1998) p197
^William E. Burrows, This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age (Random House, Inc., 1999) p133 "Armed Forces Send V-2 Rocket 102 Miles High In New Mexico, Attain Rate of 3,600 M.P.H.", New York Times, October 11, 1946; "Camera in Rocket Pictures Earth From 65 Mile Altitude", Milwaukee Journal, November 20, 1946, p24
^Stacey Bieler, "Patriots" or "Traitors"?: A History of American-educated Chinese Students (M.E. Sharpe, 2004) p293
^Michael Karl Witzel, et al., Greetings from Route 66: The Ultimate Road Trip Back Through Time Along America's Main Street (Voyageur Press, 2010) p50
^"Army Draft Stopped For Rest Of Year", Toledo Blade, October 12, 1946, p1
^"Draft Which Sent 10,020,637 To War Ends Tonight; Conscientious Objectors In Camps Will Be Released", Toledo Blade, March 31, 1947, p3
^"Truman Signs Draft Measure", Toledo Blade, June 24, 1948, p1
^Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Harvard University Press, 1997) p73
^ abSophie Boyron, The Constitution of France (Bloomsbury, 2012)
^"League Decides to Enter Interim Govt." The Sunday Indian Express (Madras), October 14, 1946, p1; Radhey Shyam Chaurasia, History of Modern India, 1707 A. D. to 2000 A.D. (Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2002) p388
^"CRISIS OVER PORTFOLIOS RESOLVED", Indian Express (Madras), October 27, 1946, p1
^"All Meat Controls Taken Off by Truman", Milwaukee Journal, October 15, 1946, p1
^Denise M. Bostdorff, Proclaiming the Truman Doctrine: The Cold War Call to Arms (Texas A&M University Press, 2008) p43
^Rosihan Anwar, Sutan Sjahrir: True Democrat, Fighter for Humanity 1909-1966 (Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2010) p78-79
^Willy Kuert (1946). "The Founding of ISO". Friendship Among Equals(PDF). International Organization for Standardization (published 1996). pp. 13–22. Retrieved 2018-05-29. "It's all in the name". International Organization for Standardization. Retrieved 2018-05-29. "ISO's name". Archived from the original on 2010-12-27.
^Guha, Ramachandra (2019). India After Gandhi (Fourth ed.). HarperCollins. p. 375. ISBN978-0-06-297806-6.
^Chapman Pincher, Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage against America and Great Britain (Random House, Inc., 2009) p360
^"OPA Lifts Coffee Controls", New York Times, October 18, 1946, p1; Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World (Basic Books, 2010) p211
^Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff, French West Africa (Stanford University Press, 1957) p84
^Stanley Sandler, World War II in the Pacific: An Encyclopedia (Taylor & Francis, 2001) p56
^Craig Nelson, Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon (Penguin, 2010); Norman M. Naimark, The Russians in Germany: a history of the Soviet Zone of occupation, 1945-1949 (Harvard University Press, 1995) p220-221
^"38 Britons Die as Destroyers Run into Mines", Montreal Gazette, October 24, 1946, p1
^"U.N. Assembly Opens Today, Truman to Keynote Aims; Bevin Accents Peace Basis", Montreal Gazette, October 23, 1946, p1
^"Daluege Hangs for War Crime— Carried Out Hitler's Order for Lidice Massacre", Montreal Gazette, October 24, 1942, p1
^Abigail Foerstner, James Van Allen: The First Eight Billion Miles (University of Iowa Press, 2007) p76
^C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford: Building a Discipline, a University, and Silicon Valley (Stanford University Press, 2004) p285
^Wolfgang Uwe Eckart, Man, Medicine, and the State: The Human Body as an Object of Government Sponsored Medical Research in the 20th Century (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2006) p165
^"Truman Has Own Railroad Car", Miami Daily News, October 27, 1946, p1
^Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc, Unity and Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1967) p16
^"1st Free Vote in Venezuela", Milwaukee Sentinel, October 28, 1946, p1; John Duncan Powell, Political Mobilization of the Venezuelan Peasant (Harvard University Press, 1971) p67
^Alfred K. Mann, For Better or for Worse: The Marriage of Science and Government in the United States (Columbia University Press, 2000) p68
^Howard Jones, "A New Kind of War": America's Global Strategy and the Truman Doctrine in Greece (Oxford University Press US, 1997) p24
^Dominic A. Pacyga, Chicago: A Biography (University of Chicago Press, 2009) p316
^David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1996) p164; "World Disarmament Is Urged by Molotov", Milwaukee Journal, October 30, 1946, p1; "Molotov UN Address Held Most Alarming Yet", Los Angeles Times, October 30, 1946, p1
^Timothy J. Botti, Ace in the hole: why the United States did not use nuclear weapons in the Cold War, 1945 to 1965 (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996) p4-5
^Michael Dregni, Gypsy Jazz: In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing (Oxford University Press US, 2008) p102
^Albert Abramson, The History of Television, 1942 to 2000 (McFarland, 2007) p22
^Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949: Multilateral, Vol. IV (U.S. Department of State, 1970)
^Mavis Rose, Indonesia Free: A Political Biography of Mohammad Hatta (Equinox Publishing, 2010) p62
