The private medical company Bupa was founded in the UK.[5]
The children's TV game show Juvenile Jury hosted by Jack Barry premiered on NBC. Each episode had a panel of kids giving advice to solve the problems of other kids. The program ran until 1954 and would be revived several times thereafter.
Founded: The International Civil Aviation Organization was founded, more popularly known as ICAO
Amerigo Dumini and two other Italian fascists were sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for the 1924 assassination of the socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti.[6]
Five US Marines participating in Operation Beleaguer were killed and 16 others wounded in battle with a "dissident" Chinese force that attempted to raid the Marine munitions dump near Tangku.[7]
Soviet occupation forces in Germany calculated a shortfall of 1.3 million homes in the eastern zone.[8]
325,000 telephone workers went on strike in the United States with a variety of demands including a $12 weekly pay boost, increased vacation and pension benefits.[10]
Following a series of killings due to labor strife, the Cuban Interior Ministry banned all political meetings that may provoke disorder.[11]
The Pohl trial began in Nuremberg. Oswald Pohl and 17 other SS officers went on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey signed a bill giving the Attorney General power to "restrain" activities of oathbound organizations until they had filed a complete roster of members and other data with the Secretary of State. The law was aimed at tightening controls on communists.[12]
Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher was suspended for the 1947 season by Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler for "accumulated unpleasant incidents in which he has been involved, which the commissioner construes as detrimental to baseball."[13]
Singer Frank Sinatra floored newspaper columnist Lee Mortimer with a punch in the foyer of the Hollywood nightclub Ciro's. Sinatra claimed that Mortimer had insulted him with a racial slur, but the columnist said he didn't even know Sinatra was in the nightclub until he was attacked from behind and held down by two of Sinatra's companions while the singer struck him "two or three more times" and threatened to kill him if he saw him again. Mortimer was known to criticize Sinatra in his newspaper column for his political views and claim that he couldn't sing.[14] Sinatra would be charged with assault, but the charge would be dismissed after he reportedly agreed to pay Mortimer $9,000.[15]
The Big Four conferees at Moscow agreed that major German war plants should be destroyed by June 30, 1948.[7]
Mobster Lucky Luciano was taken ashore by police at Genoa and booked on charges of clandestine expatriation because of his departure from Italy to Cuba in late 1946. Luciano had previously been deported to Italy by the United States after his release from a long prison term.[18]
The site of the future Headquarters of the United Nations was formally dedicated in New York City. UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie declared: "We are proud to have the world capital of the United Nations established here in this great melting pot of the peoples of the world." The UN planned to have its first building on the site completed by the fall of 1948.[19]
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided Mendez v. Westminster, affirming a district court ruling that the segregation of Mexican and Mexican American students into separate "Mexican schools" in Orange County, California was unconstitutional. It was the first ruling in the United States in favor of desegregation.
On Budget Day in the United Kingdom, Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton announced that the deficit in 1946-47 had only been £569 million, which was £157 million lower than expected. Dalton projected a £248 million surplus for 1947-48.[22]
A 90-minute nighttime meeting took place in the Kremlin between Joseph Stalin and US Secretary of State George Marshall. Also in attendance for the Soviets were Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and ambassador Nikolai Novikov, and on the American side the diplomats Walter Bedell Smith and Charles E. Bohlen. Marshall expressed a deep concern at the extent of the rift between the US and Soviet sides that had been made apparent during the ongoing Moscow conference, but Stalin did not think the situation so tragic and explained that after people had exhausted themselves in dispute, they then recognized the need to compromise.[23]
Texas City disaster: The deadliest industrial accident in United States history occurred in the Port of Texas City when 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate aboard a French cargo vessel exploded, triggering a chain reaction of explosions and other fires that killed at least 581 people and injured over 5,000.
The Milch Trial concluded in Nuremberg. Erhard Milch was found guilty of war crimes and responsible for slave labor, but was acquitted of the charge of having knowingly and willfully participated in fatal medical experiments. Milch was sentenced to life in prison.
In Rome, a mob of about a thousand unemployed workers staged a noisy protest outside the Parliament building, stopping private cars and sometimes beating the occupants. One of those assaulted was Italian Foreign Minister Carlo Sforza, who was struck by several fists as he stepped out of his car to go to his office. The Foreign Ministry said that Sforza had been shaken but not seriously hurt.[24]
The British Navy blew up the German naval base at Heligoland with 3,500 tons of explosives. The largest non-atomic explosion ever attempted by man, the blast was reportedly heard as far away as Hamburg and created a red-tinted mushroom cloud twice the size of the island.[25]
The Flick Trial began in Nuremberg. Friedrich Flick and five other leading Nazi industrialists were put on trial for using slave labor, among other crimes.
NBC Radio cut off a broadcast of The Fred Allen Show for twenty-five seconds because the host refused to change his script. The censored bit started off with another actor asking Allen why the program was cut off the previous week. Allen explained, "Well, there's a little man in the company we work for. He's a vice president in charge of program ends. When our program runs overtime, he marks down how much time is saved." Allen was then asked, "What does he do with all this time?" to which he replied: "He adds it all up, 10 seconds here, 20 seconds there, and when the vice president saves up enough seconds, minutes and hours to make two weeks, he uses the two weeks of our time for his vacation." Allen described NBC's action as "sheer stupidity. The radio industry is 25 years old, but some people in it are keeping it in its infancy by such action as this."[27]
Princess Elizabeth gave a radio address on her twenty-first birthday from Cape Town, South Africa. "I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong," Elizabeth said.[28]
During a game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Brooklyn Dodgers, a torrent of racist insults were shouted at Jackie Robinson from the Phillies dugout at the instigation of manager Ben Chapman, which, as Robinson later recalled, "brought me nearer to cracking up than I ever had been." Chapman's behavior angered Robinson's white teammates, and Branch Rickey later commented that "Chapman did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers."[29]
The War Crimes Tribunal in Rabaul sentenced Japanese general Hatazō Adachi to life imprisonment on a charge of being responsible for the atrocities committed by his troops.[30]
In Moscow, the Big Four powers agreed to a deadline of December 31, 1948 to repatriate all of the nearly 2 million German prisoners of war still in Allied hands.[31]
The Big Four Conference in Moscow adjourned with an agreement to meet again later in the year.[1]
Jewish insurgency: four British policemen were killed and six others wounded in an explosion at the police barracks in Sarona, Palestine. The bombs were thought to have been planted by the Stern Gang.[5]
General elections were held in Japan. The Socialist Party won 144 of the 466 seats, making it the largest party in the House of Representatives by an eight-seat margin.
Died:Ana Cumpănaș, 57 or 58, Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian prostitute known as the "Woman in Red" who helped lead the FBI to John Dillinger in 1934 (liver disease)
"Babe Ruth Day" was observed by organized baseball all around the world. Ruth himself gave an address from home plate in Yankee Stadium thanking everyone, and what he and others had to say was piped to other ballparks.[33] In Japan, special exhibition events were held at Korakuen and Nishinomiya Stadiums in which lottery prizes for spectators included pictures of Ruth.[34]
The United Nations General Assembly met to consider the issue of Palestine.[1]
The Kon-Tiki expedition departed from Callao, Peru. Thor Heyerdahl led a six-man crew aboard a wooden raft trying to sail to the Polynesian islands in an attempt to prove his theory that South Americans in pre-Columbian times could have settled Polynesia.
^B. Turner, ed. (2017). The Statesman's Yearbook 2008: The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 995. ISBN9781349740246.
^"Phone Walkout Grips Nation; Long-Lines Ban Isolates City". Brooklyn Eagle. Brooklyn: 1. April 7, 1947.
^ abLeonard, Thomas M. (1977). Day By Day: The Forties. New York: Facts On File, Inc. p. 688. ISBN0-87196-375-2.
^"Dewey Signs Measure To Curb Communists". Brooklyn Eagle. Brooklyn: 1. April 8, 1947.