Friday, August 2, 1901. New colonies.

The British government established colonial governments for Boer territory captured from the Orange Free State and the South African Republic, creating, respectively the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal Colony.

Flag of the Orange Free Colony.

Both are now part of South Africa.

On the same day, Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies for the United Kingdom, stated in the House of Commons that the British concentration camps in South Africa were "the only humane alternative to leaving the women and general on the 'desert veld', which in fact is where they lived in the first place and where they would have been better left.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 1, 1901. Racist Maryland.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, Maryland, Nadir of Race Relations, Nebraska, Racism, Science, Weather

Monday, July 29, 1946. Anping Incident.

Chinese Communists and U.S. Marines engaged in hostilities in Anping, China.  Four Marines and 15 Chinese Communists were killed.

Tensions between the American military mission to China, which had very unclear directives, and the Communist Chinese were increasing.

First group picture of the International Justices of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East since Major General Myron Cramer took the place of Justice Higgins on the bench. Seated, left to right, Justice Patrick, Great Britain; Justice Cramer, United States; Chief Justice Webb, Australia; Justice Mei, China; Justice Zaryanov, Russia. Standing, left to right: Justice Pal, India; Justice Roling, Netherlands; Justice McDougall, Canada; Justice Bernard, France; Justice Northcroft, New Zealand; Justice Jaranilla, Philippine Islands.

Last edition:

Sunday, July 28, 1946. Wells exposes the assault of Sgt. Isaac Woodard, War Crimes in the Philippines, the passing of St. Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, actors and actresses, Apostolic Christianity, Catholic, Christianity, India, Philippines, Racism, Radio, religion, Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, War Crimes

Sunday, July 28, 1946. Wells exposes the assault of Sgt. Isaac Woodard, War Crimes in the Philippines, the passing of St. Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception.

Howard C. Petersen, Assistant Secretary of War, announced that 131,028 American and Filipino citizens, mostly civilians, had died "as a result of war crimes" from December 7, 1941 until the end of World War II.  All but 595 of that figure were Filipino.

St. Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, an Indian native, died at age 35.  She is the first woman of Indian origin to be canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church, and the first canonized saint of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church.

Orson Welles read the affidavit of Sergeant Isaac Woodard on his radio show.  Woodard had been blinded in a race based assault.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 27, 1946. No to a united India.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Bangladesh, British Empire, Ethnicities, Georgia, India, Pakistan, Racism

Friday, July 26, 1946. OPA back in business.

A restored Office of Price Administration issued orders restoring price controls but with less restrictions on raising prices.

Trans Pacific Airlines, laster Aloha Airlines, came into existence.  It continued operations until 2008.

Robert H. Jackson delivered his closing argument at the Nuremberg Trials.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 25, 1946. Crossroads Baker.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Bikini Atoll, Comedians, entertainment, Ethnicities, Georgia, Operation Crossroads, Racism, U.S. Navy, Weapons

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

Saturday, June 1, 1946. Cochin China.

French High Commissioner Georges Thierry d'Argenlieud recognized a French controlled "Autonomous Republic of Cochin-China" in French Indochina in violation of the Ho-Sainteny agreement.  The proto state, which had been a pre World War Two administrative unit, would later become South Vietnam and would lead directly to the French Indochinese War.

Ho Chi Minh was in France negotiating under presumptions raised by the Ho-Sainteny agreement at the time.

Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu is an unusual figure as he was a French diplomat, Admiral, and a Catholic Priest.  From a family of naval officers, he started off in life in that path before becoming a Priest in the 1920s.  During World War Two he was recalled to naval service and would serve the Free French.  He was an ardent Gaullist and it was that, rather than an opposition to Communism, that pushed him towards the creation of Cochin China.

Seriously devout, upon retiring from naval service in 1947, he entered a monastery, where he died in 1964 at age 75.

The Senate granted Truman emergency powers to end strikes. The House had done so the prior week.

Second World War Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu was executed.

Romania tends not to get that much attention in the West and therefore Antonescu, who remains a large and controversial figure in Romania, does not.  His reign was abhorrent and attendant with all the crimes that the Nazis afflicted during World War Two.  He none the less retains a small following.

Last edition:

Thursday, May 30, 1946. First post war Indianapolis 500.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aircraft, Automobile racing, Automobiles, China, Conscription, Disaster, Harry S. Truman, Personalities, Post War United States (and Canada), Railroads, Strike Wave of 1945-1946, Transportation

Friday, May 3, 1946. War Crime Trials in Tokyo and the Battle of Alcatraz

1946         Military Tribunal in Tokyo begins war crimes trials.  One of the principal Japanese defendants was defended by Cheyenne lawyer George Guy.

A prison riot was ongoing at Alcatraz.

Our Our Way took a look at the changing workplace.

Last edition:

Monday, April 29, 1946. Indictment of Japanese leaders.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Japan, Personalities, War Crimes, World War Two

Monday, April 29, 1946. Indictment of Japanese leaders.

Former Japanese Prime Ministers Hideki Tojo, Hiranuma Kiichirō, Kōki Hirota, Kuniaki Koiso, and 24 co-defendants were indicted in Tokyo for war crimes.

James White, the discoverer of Carlsbad Canyon, died at age 63.

Last edition:

Wednesday, April 24 1946. Firsts.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aircraft, Blog Mirror, France, Insurance, Socialism, Soviet Air Forces, U.S. Navy

King Donald's War, Part 4. The Raving Madman threatens to resort to mass war crimes.

The threat of destroying a whole civilization and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified. There are other ways to resolve conflict between peoples. I call on President Trump to step back from the precipice of war and negotiate a just settlement for the sake of peace and before more lives are lost.   

After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem, and his first words were ‘Peace be with you.’ As the Holy Father, in his Urbi et Orbi message on Easter reflected, the peace that ‘Jesus gives us is not a peace that merely silences the weapons, but one that touches and transforms the heart of each of us! Let us make heard the cry for peace that springs from our hearts!’ 

Pope Leo has invited everyone to join him in a prayer vigil for peace on Saturday, April 11. I make a special plea to my brother bishops, the priests, the laity, and all people yearning for true peace to join the Holy Father’s Vigil for Peace, whether virtually, or in parishes, chapels, or before the Lord present in the quiet of their hearts to join with our Holy Father as we pray for peace in our world.

Let us entrust to the Lord ‘all hearts that suffer and await the true peace that only he can give. Let us entrust ourselves to him and open our hearts to him! He is the only one who makes all things new (cf. Rev 21:5).

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 3. The Bunker.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Curragh Mutiny, Curtis B. LeMay, Donald Trump, Iran, Isreal, J. D. Vance, King Donald's War, The Madness of King Donald, the spoken word, United States and Israel v. Iran

Thursday, April 4, 1946. Hirohito lucks out.

The Far Eastern Commission exempted Emperor Hirohito from war crime prosecution.

Richard C. Miller took a series of swimsuit photographs of Marilyn Monroe.  In them, which because of copyright we will not post here, she appears of much more normal proportions than she would later, which is interesting for a variety of reasons we've already covered.

Last edition:

Tuesday, April 2, 1946. MacArthur bans fraternization, Murray tries for national health insurance.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Democratic Party, Douglas MacArthur, Health, Insurance, Irish Canadians, Japan, Montana, Politics, Sex, The relationship between men and women, Truman Administration

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.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, 1946, Cartoons, Daily Living, Deer, Elk, Food, hunting, It was because of World War Two, J.R. Williams, Rationing, The family

Tuesday, December 25, 1945. Christmas.

It was the first peacetime Christmas for much of the World since 1938, although in some areas of the globe new wars and the continuation of old wars raged on.

A souvenir edition of Stars and Stripes was put out for occupation forces in the Pacific.  It featured a 1946 calendar I'll decline to put up of pinup illustrations, in black and white, starting with a clearly Asian woman, chest hidden behind the month, followed by eleven other such girls until the last three months of the year in which the figures are much more clothed and American, with the suggestion being that the surprised GI is surprised in those months by the pursuit of an American girl whom he likely marries.

Japanese Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara was sentenced to death by hanging for his role in the mass execution of the 98 American civilians on Wake Island on October 7, 1943.  He yelled out, prior to his sentencing, that Americans were equally as complicit due to the atomic bomb strikes earlier that year.

According to the Rocky Mountain News:

Truman pardoned 4,000 Federal convicts who had served in the Armed Forces during the war.

The RMN also contained cheesecake for its Christmas edition, with a picture of an 18 year old Miss Finland.

Normally I wouldn't have posted that either, but I'm struck by how much older than 18 she looks.  Photographs of late teens of the era, male and female, tend to show people who look older than the same ages today.

Bill Mauldin was appearing in stateside papers.

The Cold War was clearly arriving.

Noel Redding of the Jimi Hendrix Experience was born in Folkstone, England.  He's pass away in 2003.

Last edition:

Monday, December 24, 1945. Patton laid to rest.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, 1916, Art, China, Christmas, Holidays, Mexican Border War, National Protection War, New Year

Wednesday, December 19, 1945. Unifying the services.

President Truman starts down a road that would turn out like poking a bear:

This is a bit confusing, historically, as what it resulted in is the current Department of Defense, replacing the Department of War (which is further confused by the illegitimate Trump interregnum pretending the Department of Defense is the Department of War), but it had real consequences.  The War Department had effectively been the Department of the Army, as a second Department of the Navy had been created shortly after the War Department and it largely did not oversee the Navy.  The problems associated with that became clear during World War Two, and therefore the desire to bring them under one roof made sense, although the Armed Forces did not like it.

The result was the current Department of Defense and its current, albeit evolved, structure.

U.S. Navy Captain Charles B. McVay III, the commander of the USS Indianapolis, was found guilty in his court-martial for failing to zigzag but  not for failure to order abandon ship in a timely manner. He was sentenced The court sentenced McVay to lose 100 numbers in his temporary rank of Captain and 100 numbers in his permanent rank of Commander. In 1946, at the behest of Admiral Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations, Secretary of the Navy Forrestal remitted McVay's sentence and restored him to duty.  He committed suicide in 1968.

Regarding the Second World War, John Ford's They Were Expendable was released.  I always think of this as a film that was released during World War Two, but it wasn't.  It's director, John Ford,  has been in the Navy, and Robert Montgomery, one of the actors in the film, also had been after having also been an ambulance driver in France up until Dunkirk.  Montgomery would direct part of the film due to Ford breaking his leg, and prove so good at it that his career thereafter evolved in that direction.

The Swiss Parliament passed a law permitting the immediate expulsion of all foreigners with pro-Nazi or fascist views.

British fascist and founder of the British Free Corps John Amery was executed for treason at age 33.  Amery's tragicatory in life is interesting in that it somewhat reminds people of some of the far right incels around now.

Last edition:

Sunday, December 16, 1945. Sinclair boosts wages.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, football, Japan, Petroleum, Strike Wave of 1945-1946, World War Two, Wyoming (Sinclair)

Thursday, December 13, 1945. Crimes against humanity.

Johanna Bormann, 52, SS concentration camp guard; Irma Grese, 22, SS concentration camp guard; Fritz Klein, 57, German Nazi physician; Josef Kramer, 39, German Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; Elisabeth Volkenrath, 26, German concentration camp supervisor were hanged for crimes against humanity

Last edition:

Wednesday, December 12, 1945. Conviction of war criminals.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Aircraft, Cartoons, J.R. Williams, Strike Wave of 1945-1945, U.S. Air Force, Unions

Wednesday, December 12, 1945. Conviction of war criminals.

 Convictions were in the news.

And the Army was hoping veterans would reenlist.

Last edition:

Tuesday, December 11, 1945. Steel Workers announce strike.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Aircraft, Cartoons, J.R. Williams, Strike Wave of 1945-1945, U.S. Air Force, Unions

Friday, December 7, 1945. Command Responsibility.

Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita was found guilty of war crimes in a Manila court and sentenced to death, resulting in the legal principle set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1946 of command responsibility in which a commander can be held accountable before the law for the crimes committed by his troops even if he did not order them.

Hmmm. . . wonder how that might work out today?

Tomoyuki Yamashita. . . who would like to have a word with Pete Hegseth.

The State Department announced plans to resettle 6,600,000 Germans from Eastern Europe in the US and Soviet occupied zones of Germany within eight months.

Last edition:

Wednesday, December 5, 1945. Flight 19.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, A Mystery, Aircraft, Bermuda, Disaster, Florida, France, Socialism, U.S. Navy