Thursday, August 1, 1946. Battle of Athens.

By Brian Stansberry (photographer) - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3739488

A large-scale citizen uprising in Athens and Etowah Tennessee broke out over police corruption and voter intimidation.  Organized veterans were the main figures in the uprising, and the result would permanently change the existing controlled and corrupt system in the region.

Returning GIs being reformers of corruption was a common feature of the post war U.S.

The Atomic Energy Commission was established.

The Fulbright Scholarship was created.

Scandinavian Airlines was founded as a consortium of the flag carriers of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 31, 1946. Cracking Venona.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aircraft, Clement Attlee, Diplomacy, Espionage, Harry S. Truman, Palestine, Personalities, USSR, Venona Files

Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump. Flagellum Dei? Can anything good come out of Donald Trump's Dictatorship? More Labels.

Thursday, July 22, 1976. Japan's last payment to the Philippines. A President has a sane day.

Japan made its final reparations payment to the Philippines for its actions in World War Two.

President Ford's day:

A couple of observations.

First of all, nice to see a daily Presidential agenda that wouldn't read like today's must:

7:15:  President had Coca Cola and goes into a hate filled Tweet rage

8:00:  President claims Joe Biden stole his Coca Cola.

8:15:  President falls asleep. . . 

Secondly, this was election season and Ford was contacting some state delegates, including some from Wyoming, none of whom I've heard of.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 20, 1976. Viking I lands on Mars.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, baseball, Indochina, It was because of the Vietnam War, Mars, NASA, Outer space, Sports, Thailand, The Cold War

Sunday, July 21, 1946. Rationing bread.

The British Ministry of Food, with the approval of the House of Commons, put bread rationing in effect in the United Kingdom.  It was the first time that had occured in the country's history.

Britain continued to deal with food shortages for quite some time after the Second World War.  Bread rationing, which had not occurred during the war, would last until July 1948.  Other types of wartime rationing would continue on and be phased out, with the last rationing ending in 1954.

An oddity of this is that British health was noted to have improved due to rationing.  We don't often think of this occurring, but it did.  Likewise, it was noted that German soldiers in Allied hospitals, who had been getting by on thin rations, recovered from their wounds more quickly than well fed American ones.

Lieutenant Commander James J. Davidson landed a FH-1 Phantom on the deck of the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, becoming the first American to land a jet aircraft on a carrier.

President Gualberto Villarroel of Bolivia was murdered by a mob that stormed the presidential palace.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 10, 1946. "Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack".

Labels: 1940s, 1941, 1946, 79th Congress, Army, China, Chinese Civil War, Imperial Japanese Navy, Nationalist Chinese Army, Pearl Harbor Hawaii, People's Liberation Army, U.S. Navy, World War Two

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

Wednesday, July 14, 1976. Carter and Mondale nominated.

Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were nominated for the 1976 Democratic ticket on the first ballot.

Sen. Barbara Jordan delivering the keynote address, the first woman to do so.

Cesar Chavez nominating California's Governor Jerry Brown.

Canada's House of Commons approved the permanent abolition of the death penalty.

General António Ramalho Eanes was sworn as the new president of Portugal.

Aparicio Méndez, age 71, was appointed to be the new president of Uruguay effective September 1.

A border clash between  El Salvador and Honduras killed several El Salvadoran soldiers.

An earthquake in Indonesia killed 573 people.

German SS special forces leader Joachim Peiper was assassinated in the village of Traves, Haute-Saône, France where he had stupidly been living.  Peiper served only nine years of a life sentence and after various post war occupations, relocated to France under an assumed name.  Discovered shortly before his murder, he gave interviews, and blamed the French defeat in 1940 on French cowardice.  His house there was set on fire and he died within.  His body was found with a .22 pistol in his hand.

Last edition:

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, July 6, 1976. First women at Anapolis. Not nothing the anniversary.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, 2020s, 2026, Department of Defense, Military, Pete Hegseth, Racism, The roles of men and women, The Second Trump Administration, U.S. Navy, United States Naval Academy, Women

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

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

Monday, May 20, 1946. Air disaster in Manhattan, War in Iran, Nationalization of Coal in the UK.

The House of Commons voted to nationalize the British coal industry.  The House of Lords would follow and Royal Assent would be received on July l2.

C-45.  By LanceBarber at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Liftarn using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12001474

A C-45 crashed into the 58th floor of the Bank of Manhattan building killing all five passengers but nobody else, given that it occurred at 8:00 p.m.

Things were not going well in Iran.

We've dealt with this a bit already, but this event was caused by Soviet support for Azerbaijani and Kurdish rebels. 

Cher in high school.

Cherilyn Sarkisian, better known by her stage name Cher, was born in El Centro, California.  Bobby Murcer, the baseball announcer and player, was born in Oklahoma City.

Murcer passed away in 2008, but Cher is still with us.

Last edition:

Sunday, May 19, 1946. Food protests in Japan.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Civil Unrest, Food, Japan, Labor unrest, Occupation of Japan, Railroads, Strike Wave of 1945-1946

Saturday, April 20, 1946. Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry regarding the problems of European Jewry and Palestine.

The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry recommended allowing up to 100,000 Jewish refugees from Europe to be resettled in Palestine but against the are becoming a Jewish state.

It was somewhat of a classic example of shutting the barn door after the horses have broken out.  A Jewish migration to Palestine with the intent to make it a Jewish state was in full swing and events in the Middle East were getting very advanced on their own/  European Jewry had been made massively homeless by World War Two for obvious reasons, but in addition to that the events of the Russian Revolution and the following wars in the bloodlands had created additional incentives for Jewish populations to move.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 18, 1946. Riding clubs, Yugoslavia, minor league baseball, teen queens.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1960s, actors and actresses, Court, Equine Transportation, Josip Broz Tito, law, League of Nations, Personalities, United Nations, Wyoming (Powell), Yugoslavia

Saturday, February 16, 1946. Potato consumption. Frozen food. Helicopters.

Frozen french fries were introduced by Maxson Food Systems of Long Island, New York.

From time to time, we'll have these a lot.

American per-capita potato consumption had interestingly declined since 1910, and was not measured at previous levels until 1962, when french fries were a fast-food restaurant staple.

I would not have guessed that, or frankly anything close to that.

Indeed a decline from 1910 to 1962 really surprises me.

I personally used to grow large volumes of potatoes, picking up where my later father had left off.  Maybe because its because I'm more Irish than most Irish, but I love them.

An item on frying fries:

Chugwater Fry-Off: Are Beef Tallow French Fries Really Better?

The first UN Security Council veto was made by the Soviet Union, killing a resolution concerning the withdrawal of British and French forces from Syria and Lebanon, while it still occupied parts of Iran.  Basically, the Soviet Union wanted the British and French out of Syria and Lebanon (which really was a French thing) while they still had their claws in Eastern Europe, North Korea, Sakhalin, and Iran.

They'd leave Iran, and with the fall of the Soviet Union, they'd leave many other places as well. With the Russo Ukrainian War, they're trying to claw their way back in, however ,and they've never left Sakahlian.

The Sikorsky S-51, the first helicopter sold for commercial rather than military use, although it received military use, was flown for the first time.

The chopper would be manufactured until the late 1950s.

By United States Navy - Scanned from Alexander, Joseph H., Fleet Operations in a Mobile War: September 1950-June 1951, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 2001, p. 39., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72961678

There was major news on the strike wave:

A Denver merchant noted the anniversary of Scouting:

Last edition:

Thursday, February 14, 1946. ENIAC.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Army, Banking and finance, Computers, United Kingdom, Weapons

Monday, February 4, 1946. Weather and War Brides.

National weather forecasts returned to American newspapers for the first time since December 15, 1941.

The SS Argentina arrived in New York City with 452 British war brides, one war groom and 173 children, the first large-scale such arrival.

The partially completed deck of the USS Kentucky (BB 66). February 4, 1946. She'd never be completed and would be scrapped.

Last edition:

Sunday, February 3, 1946. The Gouzenko Affair.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Espionage, German SS, Radio, The Holocaust, The Press, USSR

Saturday, February 2, 1946. Twenty Questions.

There was news on the Elk Mountain disaster, including that miners had a role in discovering the crash.

I wouldn't have associated miners with this incident in any fashion.  Nor did I realize that Elk Mountain was that high. I've been on the neighboring peaks without realizing that.

The Rocky Mountain News reported on the disaster as well.

An advertisement from the same edition of the Sherican Press.:

And this:

I wish.

The USSR annexed the Kurils.

Russia holds them today.

They need to give them back.

The Rocky Mountain News was inspiriting panic.

I loved the Rocky Mountain News in the70s and 80s.  I didn't really realize it had such a tabloid origin, even though it was a tabloid.

Sunspots disrupted radio communication between North America and Europe between 4:05 am and 7:00 am EST.

Twenty Questions, hosted by Fred van Deventer and based on the  on the "Animal, Vegetable or Mineral" parlor game, premiered on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 31, 1946. United Flight 14 crashed into Elk Mountain.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aircraft, Disaster, Wyoming (Elk Mountain)

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.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 27, 1926. The Paul Whitman Orchestra at UW.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Education, Music, University of Wyoming