4 January – Theodore Schurch is hanged at HM Prison Pentonville by Albert Pierrepoint, the only British soldier executed for treachery committed during World War II and the last person to be executed in Britain for an offence other than murder.
10 March – British troops begin withdrawal from Lebanon.
15 March – Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee announces that Britain is granting India's wish for independence. On 24 March, the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India arrives in New Delhi for discussions.
7 October – The BBC Light Programme transmits the first episode of the daily radio magazine programme Woman's Hour (initially presented by Alan Ivimey) which will still be running more than 70 years later and of the daily adventure serial Dick Barton – Special Agent.
10 October – First community arts centre opened, at Bridgwater in Somerset.
11 November – Stevenage, a village in Hertfordshire, is designated by the Attlee government as Britain's first new town to relieve overcrowding and replace bombed homes in London. The new town is set to have around 60,000 residents once it is completed and the first homes are expected to be ready by 1952 and the town fully developed by the early 1960s. The town's centerpiece will be a revolutionary pedestrianised central shopping area.[14]
Bush DAC90 bakeliteradio introduced: it becomes the best-selling model for some years.[11]
Publications
January – launch of Penguin Classics under the editorship of E. V. Rieu, whose translation of the Odyssey is the first published in the series[17] and will be the country's best-selling book over the next decade.[18]
Joint Committee of the Building Research Board and the Fire Offices' Committee's first report on fire safetyGeneral Principles and Structural Precautions.[19]