Showing posts with label 1940s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1940s. Show all posts

Friday, January 30, 2026

Wednesday, January 30, 1946. Roosevelt Dime.

 


The Roosevelt Dime was introduced on what would have been the late President's 64th birthday.  The design replaced the Mercury Dime.


Plans for honoring Roosevelt on the dime commenced very soon after his death.  He's been on the dime so long, I actually can't recall every seeing any other design, although I'm sure that I have.

By TUBS - This vector image includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this file:, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15952232

Transcarpathia (Ruthenia) became the Zakarpattia Oblast of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.  The region of Ruthenia is obscure to Americans, but the Ruthenian Catholic Church is fairly well represented in the U.S. as a significant Eastern Rite branch of Catholicism.

The United Nations passed UNSCR calling on Iran and the USSR to resolve the crisis caused by the Soviet invasion of Iran.

Last edition:

Sunday, January 27, 1946. Die Rückkehr der Demokratie

Saturday, January 30, 1926. Pinks and Greens.

The Allied occupation of the first zone of the Rhineland in Germany ended. 

It was a Saturday.






Mitchell was out.


The Army was just introducing its new service uniform.

1926 was the year the U.S. Army adopted an open collared "service uniform", with a different pattern for enlisted men as opposed to officers.  Here Maj. John B. Coulter is shown wearing the newly introduced uniform.  While the cut is a little different, and breeches are not common now, and were then, this is the same basic color scheme of uniform, "pinks and greens" reintroduced for all ranks in 2018, after having been originally phased out in 1954.  While it was a good looking uniform, it was actually not as practical as its predecessor, given that it was supposed to be a combat uniform.  This would cause the Army to rapidly develop combat specific clothing immediately before World War Two.

Officers had to buy their uniforms (they still do) and Coulter must have just purchased his.  Coulter was a cavalryman (hence the breeches) who had entered the Army in 1912 and who would serve until 1952, retiring as a Lt. General.

Monday, January 26, 2026

Saturday, January 26, 1946. Taking over the packing plants.

It was Chinese New Year.

The Department of Agriculture took over 133 striking meat packing plants.


In the same issue of the Rocky Mountain News, Robert Ruark, famous for his hunting columns, had one about radio telephones.


The Sheridan Press also had a headline on the strike, without the same tone.


The same issue had this advertisement, showing how important equine power still was.



The SS Argentina departed from Southampton for New York with 452 war brides, 173 small children, and one "war bridegroom" married to a WAC.

French troops fought the Viet Quoc Armed Force, Vietnamese nationalist and socialist troops,  at Phong Thổ District. The French would prevail after a two day battle.

Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, whose army this was, was not a Communist party, and in fact it was suppressed by the Communists and many of its members went into exile following the Vietnamese War.

Bikini Atoll was chosen for nuclear tests by the U.S.


Film critic Gene Siskel was born on this day in Chicago.

Last edition:

Friday, January 25, 1946. Soviet nuclear program gets s jump start.

Sunday, January 25, 2026

Friday, January 25, 1946. Soviet nuclear program gets s jump start.

Igor Kurchatov was summoned to Moscow by Stalin and ordered in an evening meeting to spare no expense in developing a nuclear weapon.

The ironic is so thick it's astounding.  The Soviet Union's anti intellectual campaign had resulting in wholesale murder of engineers and scientists early on, and now the country was depending upon them.1

Of course, the Soviets had penetrated the U.S. nuclear effort, which was quite a help.  Indeed, western scientist of all types, cooperative and captive, would be a boon to Soviet post war efforts on all sorts of weapons.

The United Mine Workers rejoined the American Federation of Labor.

Czechs began the expulsion of Germans from Sudetenland.

Sweden began the deportation of Baltic refugees to the USSR.

MacArthur recommended that Hirohito not be put on trial for war crimes.

Allied forces returned control of the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands.

A manhunt was on near Sheridan.


Footnotes:

1.  It is of course worth noting that the U.S., currently in the hands of the GOP, is itself engaged in an outright denial of science and engineering.  Americans can almost take hope in the fact that the USSR, in spite of having murdered intellectuals and scientist, was able to make up the deficit and produce an atomic bomb in short order, suggesting that the current anti science and anti intellectual atmosphere of the GOP lead government migh talso be overcome.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 23, 1946. Soviet Agent installed by Truman.

Friday, January 23, 2026

Wednesday, January 23, 1946. Soviet Agent installed by Truman.

Soviet agent Harry Dexter White was appointed by President Truman to be the American representative to the International Monetary fund despite a warning from the FBI that White had passed secret information to the Soviet Union.

He'd later be exposed by Whitaker Chambers.

The Soviets managed to place an impressive number of operatives into the U.S. government during the 1930s and into the 1940s.  This was in part because the Roosevelt Administration simply didn't take the matter seriously, even though its now very clear that there were warnings, probably mostly from the FBI. There's fairly good reason to believe that McCarthy's "lists" of Soviet agents, which later proved to be quite accurate, probably came from the FBI which had grown frustrated with successive administrations ignoring what it was learning.  The Army likewise had a list of Soviet agents that it closely held, in part out of the reasonable fear that it wouldn't be taken seriously and that if too much was revealed, it'd be leaked.

FWIW, there's every reason to believe that the Soviets continued to attempt to penetrate Western governments after the McCarthy era and also inserted sleeper agents into the U.S.  The great American mini series The Americans is based on this widely known effort, as well as the movie Little Nikita. While known, it isn't particularly paid attention to, today.  As has been noted recently, and not without good reason, there are questions as to whether or not Donald Trump may be a Russian asset of the captive type today, which would explain some of his actions.  He's definitely a Russian asset, but it may be because he simply has a weak 19th Century mind.

The USS Brevard rescued 4,296 Japanese civilians from the ship Enoshima Maru as it sank near Shanghai. The event retains the record for being the largest number of civilians rescued at sea.

The nationwide strike wave had spread to packing plants.


The Army was looking for a way to recruit men into the post war service.


Out Our Way had a cartoon about medical advice, which would still be good advice today.



Last edition:

Tuesday, January 22, 1946. Central Intelligence Group formed.

Thursday, January 22, 2026

Tuesday, January 22, 1946. Central Intelligence Group formed.

The Truman Administration formed the Central Intelligence Group, with its official duties being:

The Central Intelligence Group is a recently created interdepartmental organization in which the State, War, Navy, and sometimes other departments participate. It coordinates all activities of the Government involved in obtaining and analyzing information about foreign countries which this country needs for its national security. It also furnishes interdepartmental analyses of this type of information or use by Government officials.

The immediate predecessor, the OSS, had been disbanded. The Group itself would evolve into the CIA very quickly.

Qazi Muhammed establishing the Republic of Mahabad. He'd be hung by Iran in 1947.

The Socialist Soviet puppet state of the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, also referred to as the Republic of Kurdistan, (Kurdish: کۆماری کوردستان, romanized: Komarî Kurdistan; Persian: جمهوری مهاباد,) was formed in the Soviet occupied portion of northern Iran.

Last edition:

Monday, January 21, 1946. Steelworkers Strike.

Monday, January 19, 2026

Saturday, January 19, 1946. Creation of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal) was created by proclamation of General Douglas MacArthur. 

Bell Aircraft chief test pilot Jack Woolams fle the  XS-1 (X-1) in a non powered flight.  It was the first flight of the aircraft.

Country music singer Dolly Parton was born on this day.

Last edition:

Monday, January 14, 1946. Wartime and Post War foodstuffs.

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Monday, January 14, 1946. Wartime and Post War foodstuffs.

 


I"m putting up this interesting Out Our Way cartoon from this day in 1946 as it refers to something we've discussed here before, and its a bit surprising.

What we've discussed here before is hunting during World War Two.

Here's where we looked at it earlier:

Lex Anteinternet: So you're living in Wyoming (or the West in genera...So what about World War Two?

I've always thought this was one of the more interesting threads on this blog, and it's one of the many ones I post and wonder why there's never any comments on it.  But that's common for blogs.  Usually, they don't get posts.

Anyhow, this cartoon by J. R. Williams sort of confirms what I'd suspected.  Some people supplemented their table fare during the war by hunting.

Williams was, as we've discussed before, a Canadian cartoonist who moved to the U.S. with his family at age 15, locating in Detroit.  He soon dropped out of school and became an apprentice machinist, providing topics for his cartoons which frequently depicted machine shops.  He drifted after that, something not uncommon in that era, and worked as a cowboy in the West, as well as serving a three year stint on the U.S. Army as a cavalryman.  All of that experience likewise reflected itself in his cartoons.  Family life, in spite of his being a bit short (again, not all that uncommon for the time) also featured frequently.  

He became a professional cartoonist in 1922 and remained one until his death in 1957 at age 69.  He'd used the proceeds of his cartoons to buy a ranch in Arizona, before relocating later on to Pasadena, California.  His cartoons carried on to some extent after his death in the hands of other artists.

Anyhow, one of the things about his cartoons is that depict fairly accurate slices of life, and this running gag from 1945-46 no doubt did.  The father has taken an elk and a deer, and the family is keeping it in the ice box.  The part that surprises me is that I really like venison, and these cartoons suggest that this venison was bad, which may be explained in an earlier cartoon I'm not familiar with.

Eighteen nations entered into an Agreement on Reparation from Germany.


"Southern Resorts Fashions" were on the cover of Life.

Last edition:

Sunday, January 13, 1946. The relentless advance of malevolent technology.

Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Sunday, January 13, 1946. The relentless advance of malevolent technology.

A ceasefire between Nationalist and Red troops in China took effect at midnight.  Gen. George C. Marshall had mediated the truce.

The first issue of the Anchorage Daily News was published.

In Japan the luxury cigarette "Peace" was introduced.

The concept of a wrist communication device was introduced in the cartoon Dick Tracy.

I never could stand the cartoon, and the predicted device is a scourge.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 10, 1946. The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

Saturday, January 10, 2026

Thursday, January 10, 1946. The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

The first meeting of the UN General Assembly was held.

Prime Minister Clement Attlee opened the session.

Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium won the post of President of the Assembly. Trygve Lie of Norway was selected as the  first Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Trygve Lie

Last edition:

Sunday, January 6, 1946. A sort of election in some areas of Vietnam.

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

Sunday, January 6, 1946. A sort of election in some areas of Vietnam.

Elections were held in Vietnam in areas controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with  the nationalist but communist dominated Viet Minh Party, led by Ho Chi Minh, winning 230 of the 300 seats in the National Assembly.  The ballot was not secret and ballot papers were filled out in the presence of aides who were "to help comrades who had difficulty in making out their ballots."

It was not a free and fair election, but its interesting that those who will engage in antidemocratic activities still crave the legitimacy of elections.


The election does illustrate the tense situation in Indochina.  The 1945-46 War in Southern Vietnam was over, with the French in control, but in areas of North Vietnam the Viet Minh were. They had not yet fully evolved into an unabashed communist party, and there were non communists in it, but that would not last long.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 2, 1946. Nuptials with the enemy.