Friday, July 19, 1946. The Equal Rights Amendment fails to pass.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, secured a 38 to 35 vote in favor in the US Senate, but failed to make the 2/3ds majority requirement.

Thirty-eight states ratified the amendment after it ultimately passed through Congress, but only thirtyfive of those made the March 1979 deadline.  Wyoming passed it on January 26, 1973.  Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, South Dakota, and North Dakota later rescinded their votes in favor of it, but its not clear that a state can actually do that.

The "Ghost Rocket" events in Sweden took a major turn when a large number of witnesses saw a gray, winged rocket crash into Lake Kölmjärv.

The source of the rockets, if they were rockets, has never been determined.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 18, 1946. The murder of Maceo Snipes.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Ethnicities, Georgia, Ku Klux Klan, Racism, Women

Thursday, July 18, 1946. The murder of Maceo Snipes.

African American World War Two veteran Maceo Snipes was murdered after voting in the Taylor County Georgia Democratic Party primary. He was the only Black person to vote in the entire county.  Four men were involved in the killing, two were later identified as Edward Williamson and Lynwood Harvey, also WWII veterans.  The KKK had been particularly active in the county.  Williamson claimed self defense, asserting that Snipes had pulled a knife on him in a confrontation about a debt.  In 1985 he committed suicide, overcome by guilt.

Snipes and his mother were both sharecroppers on Homer Chapman's land in Butler, Georgia.

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 17, 1946. African Americans were allowed to vote in Georgia's primary election for the first time.

Labels: 1940s, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1947 in the movies, 1960s, 1964, Austria, Clothing, Collaborators, Ethnicities, Georgia, It was because of World War Two, law, Racism, Teenagers, Women, Yugoslav Partisans, Yugoslavia

Wednesday, July 17, 1946. African Americans were allowed to vote in Georgia's primary election for the first time.

 African Americans were allowed to vote in Georgia's primary election for the first time.

At the time Georgia used an odd primary system similar to the archaic electoral college, which needs to be abolished.  In this instance, "county units" determined the candidates, so while James V. Carmichael received more votes than former Governor Eugene Talmadge, with the help of the African American vote, Talmadge received the nomination.

The county unit system was abolished in 1964.

U.S. trademark protection was reestablished for Austrians.

Chetnik general Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was executed by the Communist Yugoslavian government. 

The Second World War was extremely complicated in Yugoslavia, and unlike the movie treatment you'll occasionally see regarding them, the loyalties of various partisan bands in the country were varied and changed.  The Chetniks started as a royalist anti German movement and actually fought alongside the Communist partisans in the early part of World War Two, but by the end, they were collaborating with the Germans.

The Rocky Mountain News ran an article about a 16 year old girl who was, well, a creepy fan of a trombonist and made up a lurid tale of how he was involved with her, in the hopes that it'd destroy his marriage and he'd marry her.  The headline referred to her as a "Bobby Soxer", the oldest use of that term, which I'd associated with the 1950s, that I've ever seen, although apparently that's just a misimpression on my part.  The Wikipedia article on the demographic subset composed of teenage girls has several photos from 1946.

"Bobby Soxer", January 1946.

Apparently the origin of the term for short sox worn by young women dates back to 1943 and appeared in Life as early as 1944.

Months ago colored bobby sox folded at the top were decreed, not by anyone or any group but, as usual, by a sudden mysterious and universal acceptance of the new idea. Now no teen-ager dares wear anything but pure white socks without a fold. [

Life magazine, Dec. 11, 1944.

The term was particularly associated, apparently, with the fans of Frank Sinatra and oddly enough the Rocky Mountain News used it in that context on the same day as Life did in the quote immediately above. The News used it as late as 1972 in the context of an all girls softball league.

I probably shouldn't have been surprised, as I'm aware of, but have not seen, the film The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, which is a well known film featuring Cary Grant and an 18 year old Shirley Temple.  It was released in 1947.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 16, 1946. New agencies. Sentencing the perpetrators of the Malmedy Massacre.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1948, 1950s, 1951, Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office, German SS, Korea, Malmedy Massacre, Occupation of Korea, Social Security Administration, South Korea, The Cold War, US Grazing Service

Tuesday, July 16, 1946. New agencies. Sentencing the perpetrators of the Malmedy Massacre.

The Bureau of Land Management was created within the U.S. Department of the Interior, by merging the Grazing Service and the United States General Land Office..

The BLM, which does good work, has been one of the most abused and derided agencies in the American West.

The Social Security Administration replaced the three member Social Security Board.

A US Army tribunal at Dachau sentenced 46 former members of the Waffen SS, including Joachim Peiper, to death for the Malmedy Massacre

On March 20, 1948, 31 of the death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.  In 1951 all the remaining death sentences were commuted, including Peiper's.  

US occupation authorities instituted a strict ban on civilian passage across the 38th parallel.

Last edition:

Monday, July 15, 1946. Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation, loan to the UK, birth of Linda Ronstadt.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Country Rock, Economics, Ethnicities, Harry S. Truman, Mexican Folk, Music, Pop Music, United Kingdom, World War Two

Monday, July 15, 1946. Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation, loan to the UK, birth of Linda Ronstadt.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was conferred a Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation.

The Senate approved an emergency loan to the United Kingdom.

Linda Ronstadt in 1976.

Musical great Linda Ronstadt was born in Tucson.  Still living, but unable to sing due to Parkinson's, Ronstadt was a commanding singer of the 1970s and had a very long career thereafter, ranging from Country Rock, to pop, to Mexican Folk music.  She's never married, but did raise two adopted children.

Last edition:

Monday, July 8, 1946. Germans ordered to go home.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aircraft, Austria, Germany, Howard Hughes, Nazi Germany, Occupation of Austria, USSR

What did German soldiers eat during World War II?

 

Monday, July 8, 1946. Germans ordered to go home.

The Soviet military government of Austria began deporting Germans who had moved to the country after 1938.  54,000 would be repatriated to a Germany.

The News reported about a Hughes' accident.

Last edition:

Sunday, July 7, 1946. Mother Cabrini canonized.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Catholic, Christianity, Immigration, Italy, Jimmy Carter, Personalities, Protestant, religion, United States

Sunday, July 7, 1946. Mother Cabrini canonized.

Italian born Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was canonized by Pope Pius XII, the first American citizen to receive the same.

She was the founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  She is the Patron Saint of Immigrants.  She  founded 67 orphanages, schools and hospitals throughout the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean region, and in Europe during her lifetime.

The Presbyterian Church and the Episcopal Church, at that time probably the wealthiest church in the United States and the Church of the wealthy to some extent, announced they would merge, an odd announcement given their real theological differences.  

Not too surprisingly, the merger did not in fact occur.

U.S. Navy Ensign Jimmy Carter married Rosalynn Smith in Plains, Georgia.  They'd be married for 75 years.

Last edition:

Friday, July 5, 1946. Introduction of the bikini.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Clothing, France, France (Paris), It was because of the Cold War, Men, Scandal, Sex, Swimming, The differences between men and women, Women

Friday, July 5, 1946. Introduction of the bikini.

French engineer and fashion designer Louis Réard revealed the first modern bikini, modeled by Micheline Bernardini, at a the Piscine Molitor in Paris. 

Louis Réard had been unable to find a fashion model to wear the two piece barely there swimwear, which he'd renamed for the location of the American atomic tests earlier that week, so he hired Bernardini, who was an 18 year old nude dancer.  She later moved to Australia, but reprised the photo shoot at age 58.

The scandalous nature of the swimsuit is somewhat misunderstood. Two piece women's swimsuits had been on the market since the 1930s.  The popular thesis that the scandal had something to do with merely being two piece is in error, as is the myth that the upper garment, not the lower, created the scandal.  It was actually the latter, as the waste line of the bikini was dropped down so that the naval was exposed, which was not the case with earlier two piece suits.  Réard received thousands of supporting letters, mostly from men.

Regarding the pool, the title character of Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi is named after the Piscine Molitor.

While we have often died the decline into sexual immorality in the west to the December 1953 introduction of Playboy, this does demonstrate that the antecedents of that had been going on for some time, and were accelerating post World War Two.  Even the very first bikini, worn on this day, effectively left nothing for the imagination.  Current ones are effectively being nude in public without getting arrested.

July 5 is National Bikini Day.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 4, 1946. Philippine Independence.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Concentration camps, Harry S. Truman, India, It was because of World War Two, Judaism, Philippines, Poland, Racism, The Holocaust, Truman Administration, War Crimes

Thursday, July 4, 1946. Philippine Independence.

The US recognized the independence of the Republic of the Philippines.

An armed uprising sparked by rent issues occured in Kadavendi, India.

The Kielce pogrom took place in Poland in which 40 Jews were murdered by a mob in Kielce, Poland.  The police did not intervene.  The event, in which soldiers and police participated, was sparked by a false accusation of kidnapping.

Female Stutthof Concentration Camp Guards Elisabeth Becker, Wanda Klaff was hung for war crimes.

Stutthhof is unusual in that the majority of the inmates there were Catholic Poles, many of whom were ethnic Germans.

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 3, 1946. Breaking the meat famine in Denver.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Canadian Army, Food, Immigration, Office of Price Administration, Post War United States (and Canada), Rationing

Wednesday, July 3, 1946. Breaking the meat famine in Denver.

 Well, I guess you could more easily get meat.

An odd illigal immigration story was reported on.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 2, 1946. They were Nazis, but maybe they didn't know what they were doing?

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1946 at the movies, 2026 Election, Colorado (Denver), Immigration, inflation, Office of Price Administration, Philippines, Post War United States (and Canada), Post WWII Occupation of Germany, Rebecca Bextel

Tuesday, July 2, 1946. They were Nazis, but maybe they didn't know what they were doing?

The Luce–Celler Act of 1946 was signed into law giving all Philippines citizens living in the United States the right to become naturalized U.S. citizens.

Lucius Clay

Deputy Military Governor of the American Zone of Occupation in Germany Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay pardoned all Nazis under 27 years old, except for those accused of war crimes, and restored one million men to German citizenship.

His act was based on the presumption that men of that age had largely not appreciated what they were doing.

The great postwar accomodation of the Nazis in West Germany had begun.

The News discussed the first OPA free day.

Of note, the Pappy O'Daniel was the Senator from Texas, for which he'd previously been Governor.  Hh also hosted a radio show.  He'd become Senator O'Daniel in the controversial 1941 special election following the death of Morris Sheppard by defeating defeated Lyndon Johnson by 1,311 votes.  He as a Southern, anti Roosevelt, Democrat.  He ran again for governor in 1956 and 1958 during which he claimed Brown v. Board of Education was part of a Communist conspiracy. He finished third in the Democratic primaries both times. After his 1958 loss he accepted the nomination of the Constitution Party, but did not appear on the general election ballot due to the state's "sore loser" law.  That nomination is somewhat interesting in context in that far right wing wackadoodle Rebecca Bextel, who is from the well funded Teton County carpetbagger wing of the GOP, is running on their ticket this year due to moronic thesis that cross over Democrats are going to get Barlow nominated for the GOP Governor slot and then she can come in and save the day by all the real Republicans voting for her in the general, something that shows a real deficit in mathematical understanding.

Orson Wells released The Stranger, his first film noir.

Last edition:

Monday, July 1, 1946 Crossroads Able.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Bikini Atoll, boats and ships, Economics, Office of Price Administration, Operation Crossroads, Pacific, Post War United States (and Canada), Sex, U.S. Navy, United States Air Force Academy, Weapons

Monday, July 1, 1946 Crossroads Able.

 

Crossroads Able, "Gilda" July 1, 1946.

Atomic weapons were detonated, this time on Bikini Atoll, for the fourth time in human history.   The testing was on ships.  The device was not on target, so the impact was less than expected.

It was front page news, of course, but it was mixed with economic news and concerns.

Ameican troops were fighting German uniforms again, but over a different cause.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 30, 1946. Wartime powers expire.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, actors and actresses, Communism, Economics, Internment of Japanese, It was because of World War Two, Office of Price Administration, Poland, Rationing, Teenagers, Trucks, USSR, War Assets Administration, Women

Sunday, June 30, 1946. Wartime powers expire.

The OPA's emergency wartime powers ended at midnight in spite of an effort by President Truman to extend them.

The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) authority also expired at midnight as did the authority of the War Relocation Authority.

Surplus military vehicles  were being sold.

Sunday was apparently the cheesecake edition of the News.  A photo of an actress was given the full page treatment for no other discernable reason, while later in the paper the famous Jane Russell Outlaw poster was also.

And an add depicted teenagers advertising at home.

A sham election in Poland placed the country under the Communist Party and approved the post war borders with the USSR.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 29, 1946. Operation Agatha.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Art, British Army, Hagenah, Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, Operation Agatha, Palestine