Showing posts with label 1946. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1946. Show all posts

Thursday, July 16, 2026

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:

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

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.

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

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.

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

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.

Sunday, July 5, 2026

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.

Saturday, July 4, 2026

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.

Thursday, July 2, 2026

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.

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

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:

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

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.

Monday, June 29, 2026

Saturday, June 29, 1946. Operation Agatha.

The British Army launched Operation Agatha, the arrest of suspected Jewish terrorist in Palestine.  The Haganah escalated terrorist attacks in response.

It was a Saturday.


Last edition:

Friday, June 28, 1946. First Hāfu (ハーフ).

Sunday, June 28, 2026

Friday, June 28, 1946. First Hāfu (ハーフ).

The first recorded birth in Japan of a baby born of a Japanese mother and a father who was an American soldier occupying Japan, was announced on Japanese radio, barely more than nine months after the U.S. commenced occupation of Honshu.

The number of such children born during the American occupation from 1945 to 1952 is unknown, but best estimates put it at less than 5,000.  Small additional numbers had British and Australian fathers, with their fate being particularly harsh as British occupation authorities strictly prohibited liaisons with Japanese females and marriage was not an option.  Many of their children were given up for adoption as orphans.  In contrast,45,000 Japanese women became American war brides.

The entire matter was controversial in Japan, as generally it broke a strict cultural taboo regarding interacting with foreigners in this fashion. Cross cultural marriages were enormously looked down upon in Japan at the time and still somewhat are, albeit to a lesser degree.  The occupation period is the only instance in which Japanese women breached the taboo on a large scale.

In this case, the extremely rapid nature of the conception raises real questions about the nature of consent in the matter.

Comedian Gilda Radner was born in Detroit.

Actress Antoinette Perry form whom the Tony Awards are named died at age 58 of a heart attack. There were signs that it was coming, but as a Christian Scientist, she refused to see a doctor.  

She had been born in Denver, Colorado.

The Family Circle magazine featured a photograph of a cat in a wedding dress on the cover.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 26, 1946. The Nationalist Chinese Strike.

Friday, June 26, 2026

Wednesday, June 26, 1946. The Nationalist Chinese Strike.

Chiang Kai-shek launched a nationwide offensive against the Red Chinese designed to take control of the entire country. A sign that things might not go well occurred when Nationalist pilot Liu Shanben defected to the Communists with a B-24 Liberator.

The Nationalist Army had the edge on paper.  It was larger and much better equipped.  It also had more combat experience, the Red Chinese having sat out much of the Second World War.  The Nationalist also had the benefit of various degrees of U.S. training, and oddly enough, German training before that.

World War Two vintage U.S. poster depicting a Nationalist soldier and his family. The soldier is accurately depicted in a Nationalist uniform, which was based on German uniforms, including the iconic German feldmutze.  He's carrying a 98 rifle, although the straight bolt handle would indicate that it is not a K98k, many of which were supplied to the Nationalist by Nazi Germany.  The rifle instead is a Mauser Standardmodell, a commercial predecessor to the K98k, or perhaps a Chinese made copy.  Of course, this is just an illustration but it's likely based on photographs.  By this point in 1946 many Chinese troops had American equipment of various types, but many infantrymen remained equipped just like this.  Indeed, Chinese soldiers were more likely to carry Mauser bolt actions than any other rifle.

Last edition:

Tuesday, June 25, 1946. The World Bank commences operations.



Thursday, June 25, 2026

Tuesday, June 25, 1946. The World Bank commences operations.

The World Bank commenced operations.

Nationalist Chinese troops killed ten demonstrating middle school students at Xuzhou when their commander, Feng Yu-xiang Fang Jingxing ordered them to be fired on by machine guns.

The US was struggling through a post war meat shortage.  Denver newspapers were reporting that the Office of Price Administration was accordingly being kept in operation and that Denver butcher shops were nearly bare.

The YB-35 flew for the first time.


Long considered a real oddball, the aircraft anticipated the B-2.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 22, 1946. History rhyming