The Royal Titles Act conveyed an imperial title on the King of the United Kingdom, with Queen Victoria being the first to receive the title as Empress of India.
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President Truman signed the American Employment Act of 1946.
Prime Minister Attlee announced a plan to transfer power to Indians in Indian no later than June, 1948.
The Allied occupation authorities ended kōshō, licensed prostitution, in Japan.
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The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny began at the port of Colaba. It was the first mutiny in British India since 1857.
The mutiny started over inadequate food. It would rapidly spread.
Pope Pius XII announced the appointment of 32 new cardinals. The Rocky Mountain News had an article about it.
A California Federal Court held that segregation of schools in California was unconstitutional.
President Truman signed the Rescission Act of 1946 reducing (rescinding) the amounts of certain funds already designated for specific government programs, much of it for the U.S. military.
$200 million previously appropriated to the U.S. Army for ordnance service and supplies was transferred to the Army of the Philippines by way of the act.
Eisenhower was in Denver.
Italy brought to an end a rebellion in Italian Somaliland.
Turkey passed a law bringing in the Gregorian calendar as of January 1.
Richard "Pegleg" Lonergan, of New York City's White Hand Gang, was killed along with Aaron Hyams and Neal J. Perry, after arriving drunk at the Adonis Social Club in what was basically an armed bar fight. Al Capone was the hitman.
The Communist Party of India was organized.
The East-West Shrine Game, collegiate footballs first all start game, was played at Ewing Field in San Francisco.
It was a Saturday.
Leyendecker offered a Christmas theme for his Saturday Evening Post illustration.
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Kim Il Sung arrived at Port Wonsan and began to organize the Communist Party of Korea.
Kim was born into a Presbyterian family. He fled to Manchuria in 1920 after being involved in anti Japanese activities. He was in his mid teens at the time and then attended military schools. It was while he was in China that he became interested in Communism. He was a figure in the Chinese Communist Army during the pre World War Two Chinese Civil War and then again during World War Two, crossing into the Soviet Union in 1940. He then joined the Red Army. The Soviets chose Kim in order to have a Communist figure to introduce into Korea even though he was poorly educated and by 1940 his Korean was very poor. His early life is not very well known.
British and French troops complete the suppression of the Việt Minh in Saigon.
New Zealand ratified the UN Charter.
William Joyce was sentenced to death.
The British announced that Indian would shortly be granted home rule.
Shirley temple married Sgt. John Agar, a fellow actor. She was 17 years old. Agar was 25.
The marriage wouldn't last.
Agar had a real drinking problem, although he amazingly lived to age 81. Apparently he's associated with B science fiction movies, but I always associate him with John Ford westerns. He also appeared in The Sands of Iwo Jima. He met Shirley Temple in 1943 when he escorted her to a Hollywood party. She would only have been 15 years old at the time.
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Sukarno became the first President of Indonesia.
B-32 crewman Anthony J. Marchione became the last American to die in WWII when the B-32 he was flying in over Tokyo in a photography mission was attacked by Japanese fighter aircraft in spite of the Japanese surrender. The attack on the two B-32s followed an attack the prior day on B-32s in the same locality, which the bombers were investigating. Staff Sergeant Joseph Lacharite was severely wounded and would take years to recover from his injuries.
The plane he was on was named "Hobo Queen"
The Consolidated B-32 Dominator is an almost forgotten World War Two aircraft. A competitor with the B-29, it was produced as a fallback to the B-29, and plans to replace B-17s and B-24s with the Dominator were cancelled due to production delays. 118 were built.
Indian nationalist, who sided with the Japanese during the war, died at age 48 in an airplane crash in Formosa.
The Soviets invaded the Kuril Islands, which was certainly a questionable act given the Japanese having announced their surrender. The resulting Battle of Shumshu was the last battle of the Second World War.
On the other hand, Japanese forces on the Asian mainland continued to resist Soviet advances there, albeit ineffectively.
The Japanese government was clearly having trouble getting some forces to stand down.
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The Helsinki Accords were signed by the leaders of 35 nations in Finland, including the 15 member states of NATO and the 7 Warsaw Pact nations.
The text: The Helsinki Accords.
The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment commenced in India. It brought television for the first time to 2,500 villages in six Indian states and territories.
"KNM ER 3733", a woman of the species Homo ergaster, assuming that's a distinct from homo erectus, which it probably is not, was discovered by Bernard Ngeneo. She'd passed away 1,750,000 prior.
The Republic of Cabinda declared independence, ineffectively.
The last naturally occurring case of the smallpox virus variola major was found on a woman named Saiban Bibi in the Assam state of India.
The last case of variola minor was found in Somalia, at Merca, in October 1977.
The elimination of the disease is a scientific triumph that occured in an era in which the lethality of diseases was still widely appreciated.
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Operation Babylift concluded.
Congressional staff members, Richard Moose and Charles Miessner, back from South Vietnam released a report stating that "no one including the Vietnamese military believes that more aid could reverse the flow of events."
Their report further stated that evacuation of Americans from Saigon was being resisted by Ambassador Graham Martin and other senior officials.
The cover of Time featured a crying Vietnamese child and the words "Collapse in Viet Nam".
Soviet power lifter Vasily Ivanovich Alekseyev appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Widely admired all over the globe, he died at age 69 of heart problems, something not all that uncommon for the very bulky.
The Federal Election Commission commenced operating.
Sikkim voted to merge into India.
Actor Fredric March passed away at age 77. He acted for many years, but is best recalled by me for his role in The Best Years Of Our Lives.
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President Ford requested Congress to provide South Vietnam: $722 million in military aid and $250 million for economic aid, an absolutely massive amount in 1975 dollars. He also asked for the lifting of Case-Church restrictions in the event U.S. military intervention became necessary to help American citizens in Vietnam. He asked for a response by April 17. . Congress declined and expressed doubt that the aid could arrive in time to be useful, which, quite frankly, absent direct American intervention, was probably correct.
His appeal reinforced by recent successes by the ARVN at Xuan Loc and in IV CORPS. Units of the ARVN were fighting well.
We also start today with a surprising recollection by the Department of Defense recalling events that commenced on this day in 1975.
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The legislature of the Kingdom of Sikkim voted to become part of India.
Lee Elder became the first African American to play in the Masters.
The Masters must be played surprisingly early in the year.
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The ARVN held out against a superior NVA force at the Battle of Xuân Lộc.
South Korea executed eight people who were involved in the People's Revolutionary Party Incident, were hanged. Korea University had been closed the prior day.
The Indian Army invaded the Kingdom of Sikkim in response to a request by the prime minister. The king was placed under arrest.
The National Association of Broadcasters voted 12–3 to designate the first hour of weeknight network television as "Family Viewing Hour", starting with the 1975–76 season, following a requirement set by the FCC which was soon found to be unconstitutional.
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