British military police swept the Ruhr and Rhineland and arrested 76 Nazi industrialists.[1]
The Army–Navy Game was played in Philadelphia between two undefeated teams ranked the best two in the country. Army defeated Navy 32-13 before a crowd of over 100,000 that included President Truman. It was the first Army-Navy game to be televised, although only in the New York and Philadelphia areas.[2]
The Arab League voted in Cairo to boycott all goods from Jewish Palestine.[3]
The U.S. Supreme Court decided International Shoe Co. v. Washington, a landmark ruling that held that a party, particularly a corporation, may be subject to the jurisdiction of a state court if it has "minimum contacts" with that state.
U.S. General George C. Marshall testified at the Pearl Harbor inquiry that he did not anticipate the attack but that an "alert" defense would have prevented all but "limited harm."[7]
General MacArthur ordered the arrest of former Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe and eight others as war criminals.[7]
The United Nations preparatory commission deadlocked 8–8 on the question of whether the selection of the location of a permanent home for the organization should be made via secret ballot or placed on public record.[8]
Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita was found guilty of war crimes in a Manila court and sentenced to death.[3]
The U.S. State Department announced plans to resettle 6.6 million Germans from Eastern Europe in the U.S. and Soviet occupation zones of Germany in the next eight months.[7]
United Steelworkers voted unanimously to begin a nationwide steel strike on January 14. 700,000 workers planned to walk out to back up demands for a $2-a-day increase in wages.[13]
Died:Juana Bormann, 52, German SS concentration camp guard (hanged for crimes against humanity); Henri Dentz, 64, French general (died serving a life sentence in prison for collaborating with the Axis); Irma Grese, 22, German SS concentration camp guard (hanged for crimes against humanity); Fritz Klein, 57, German Nazi physician (hanged for crimes against humanity); Josef Kramer, 39, German Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (hanged for crimes against humanity); Elisabeth Volkenrath, 26, German concentration camp supervisor (hanged for crimes against humanity)
Sinclair Oil Corporation ended a long wage dispute by agreeing to grant an 18% pay boost with a 40-hour week to the Oil Workers International union.[16]
Charles Lindbergh spoke in public for the first time since 1941 when he addressed the Aero Club in Washington, D.C., advocating a world organization backed by military power and based on Christian principles.[21]
The Sodder children disappearance occurred in Fayetteville, West Virginia. A fire destroyed the home of George and Jennie Sodder and nine of their ten children. Four of the nine were rescued, but the bodies of the other five were never found. Some mysterious circumstances surrounding the fire and subsequent developments led the Sodders to believe for the rest of their lives that the five missing children survived.
Pope Pius XII broadcast his annual Christmas message listing the "fundamental prerequisites for a true and lasting peace." The pope called for "collaboration, good will, [and] reciprocal confidence in all peoples. The motives of hate, vengeance, rivalry, antagonism, and unfair and dishonest competition must be kept out of political and economic debates and decisions."[25]
Born:Lemmy, founder and frontman of the rock band Motörhead, born Ian Kilmister in Burslem, Staffordshire, England (d. 2015); Nicholas Meyer, screenwriter, producer, author and director, in New York City
Japanese Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara was sentenced to death by hanging for his role in the mass execution of the 98 American civilians remaining on Wake Island on October 7, 1943. Before the verdict was read Sakaibara declared in an outburst that the Americans who planned and carried out the atomic bomb attacks on Japan should be regarded "in the same light as we."[26]
The War Brides Act was enacted in the United States to allow alien spouses, natural children, and adopted children of American troops to enter the U.S. as non-quota immigrants, "if admissible".
A United Nations spokesman said that the committee would choose a site in the "general areas" of either Boston or New York City as a permanent home for the organization.[28]
^"Steel Strike Called". Pittsburgh Press. Pittsburgh: 1. December 11, 1945.
^"B-29 Flies From Coast In Record 5 ½ Hours". Brooklyn Eagle. Brooklyn: 1. December 12, 1945.
^Blake, Kristen (2009). The U.S.-Soviet Confrontation in Iran, 1945–1962: A Case in the Annals of the Cold War. New York: University Press of America. p. 33. ISBN978-0-7618-4492-1.
^ abcdYust, Walter, ed. (1946). 1946 Britannica Book of the Year. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. p. 16.
^Abramson, Albert (2003). The History of Television, 1942 to 2000. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 16. ISBN978-0-7864-1220-4.
^Holston, Kim R. (2013). Movie Roadshows: A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showings, 1911–1973. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 263. ISBN978-0-7864-6062-5.