1946

1946
The Face Of The Nation broadcast on The Home Service. Harold Abrahams and Charlie Buchan appeared on The Light Programme's Calling All Sportsmen. Japan's Emperor Hirohito surprised his subjects with the news that he was not descended from the Shinto Sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami and that 'The Emperor is not a living God.' He added that his people had to 'proceed, unflinchingly, toward elimination of misguide practices of the past,' including 'the false conception that the Emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world.'
Gilbert Thomas's Deviation South broadcast on The Light Programme.
The Armchair Traveller broadcast on The Light Programme. At a congressional hearing, Admiral Harold Stark testified that more than two months before the United States entered the war, President Roosevelt had ordered American warships to destroy German and Italian naval, land, and air forces encountered if requested by British officers. William Joyce was hanged for treason at Wandsworth nick. Joyce's biographer Nigel Farndale suggested on the basis of documents made public for the first time in 2005 that Joyce had made a deal with his prosecutors not to reveal links he had to MI5 - and, specifically, to Maxwell Knight. In return, Joyce's wife, Margaret, known to radio listeners as 'Lady Haw-Haw', was spared prosecution for high treason. Of the thirty two British renegades and broadcasters caught in Germany at the end of the war, only Margaret Joyce, who died in London in 1972, was not charged with treason. John Richard Baldwin born in Sidcup.

The first episode of Knocking At Your Door and Harry Alan Towers' Anchors Aweigh - featuring Jose Iturbi's interviews with Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson - broadcast. The Reichskleinodien, treasures of the Holy Roman Empire which had been taken from Austria after the Anschluß, were returned to Vienna by General Mark Clark. Theodore Schurch, a British soldier, was executed under the Treachery Act at Pentonville Prison. Schurch had been captured by Axis forces at Tobruk during the North African campaign in 1942. Soon afterwards, he began working for both Italian and German intelligence. He often posed as a prisoner of war to gain the trust of Allied prisoners, including Lieutenant Colonel Sir David Stirling, initiator of the Special Air Service. Schurch was arrested in Rome during March 1945 and charged with nine counts of treachery and one count of desertion. He was the last person to be executed in Britain for an offence other than murder.
Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution, escaped from the American detention camp in Oberdachstetten, where he had eluded detection under the alias of Lieutenant Otto Eckmann. Eichmann then assumed the name of Otto Neninger and remained in hiding. In 1950, he made his way to Austria, then Italy and, as 'Ricardo Klement', started a new life in Argentina. He avoided capture until May 1960, when agents of Mossad kidnapped him and was extremely hanged in 1962. Newcastle United's four-two victory over Barnsley in the FA Cup saw the club debuts of Bobby Corbett, Bobby Cowell, Charlie Crowe, Charlie Wayman, Joe Harvey and Jackie Milburn - in the case of the latter, the first of three hundred and ninety seven games for The Magpies in a career which lasted until 1957, during which time he would win three FA Cup winners medals and score two hundred and one goals. (Milburn had also apeared for the club during unofficail wartime fixtures since 1943, scoring a further thirty eight goals in ninety five apearances.)
Roger Keith Barrett born in Cambridge.
The first episode of Men Of God broadcast on The Home Service.
France resumed its protectorate relationship over Cambodia, following an agreement signed by King Norodom Sihanouk. Under the pact, France would manage all of Cambodia's foreign affairs and grant autonomy to the Cambodian people.
Robert Alan Krieger born in Los Angeles. Lawrence Huntington's Night Boat To Dublin - starring Robert Newton, Raymond Lovell, Guy Middleton, Muriel Pavlow and Herbert Lom and Maurie J Wilson's The Voice Within - starring Barbara White, Kieron Moore and Brefni O'Rork - premiered.
Harold Cole, a British sergeant called by some 'the worst traitor of World War II,' was killed in a shootout with police in Paris. Cole had landed in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force, then deserted in 1941, betraying more than one hundred and fifty people to the Gestapo. For the first - and, so far only - time in the history of the FA Cup, the Third Round was played over two legs. There were aggregate wins for, amongst others, Manchester United (seven-three over Accrington Stanley), West Ham United (six-one against Arsenal), Middlesbrough (eleven-six against Leeds United), Wolverhampton Wanderers (twelve-three over Welsh non-leaguers Lovells Athletic) and Derby County (nine-nil against Luton Town).
The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly convened, with delegates from fifty one nations meeting in London. Conducted from a laboratory in Belmar, New Jersey, by the Evans Signal Laboratory, Project Diana bounced radar waves off the Moon for the first time, proving that communication was possible between Earth and outer space. Manchester City completed an eight-four aggregate win over Barrow in the Third Round of the FA Cup. Chelsea defeat Leicester City three-one and Sheffield Wednesday beat Mansfield Town five-nil.
Malcolm Little was arrested in Boston for breaking and entering. During his six years in prison, he joined the Nation of Islam, discarded his slave name and became Malcolm X. Anwar Sadat was arrested in Cairo on charges of conspiracy in the assassination of Amin Uthman. After two years imprisonment, he was acquitted and, in 1970, became President of Egypt.
George Sidney's The Harvey Girls - starring Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury - premiered.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was created. By 1948, the tribunal would obtain twenty five convictions, seven of them death sentences, for Japanese war criminals, including former Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō.
Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France. The move has been described as 'a bold and, ultimately foolish, political ploy,' with de Gaulle apparently hoping that, as a war hero, he would be soon brought back as a more powerful executive by the French people. He was succeeded by Félix Gouin. David Keith Lynch born in Missoula, Montana.
President Truman created the post of Director of Central Intelligence and established the Central Intelligence Group, predecessor to the CIA. In a ceremony two days later, Truman presented the new Director, Rear Admiral Sidney Souers, with a black hat, a black cloak and a wooden dagger. The first episode of The Home Service's Nature Parliament broadcast as part of the Children's Hour strand, introduced by Derek McCulloch (Uncle Mac). Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren born in Stoke Newington.
Igor Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements was performed for the first time, by the New York Philharmonic orchestra.
The Soviet Union's quest for the atomic bomb began, as Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov was summoned to Moscow by Stalin. Kurchatov was ordered to 'spare no expense' in getting nuclear weapons.
Bikini Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands, was selected as the test site for United States nuclear bombs.
The FA Cup Fourth Round saw aggregate wins for Queens Park Rangers (five-three against Southampton), Sheffield Wednesday (eleven-two over York City), Sunderland (seven-six against Bury), Aston Villa (thirteen-three over Millwall) and Bradford Park Avenue (nine-five against Manchester city). The Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia was established with the promulgation of a new constitution that established a federation of six constituent republics and Slovenia.
Roy William Neil's Terror By Night - starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Alan Mowbray and Dennis Hoey - premiered. Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen born in Liverpool.
Two unusually large sunspots disrupted radio communication between North America and Europe.
Friedrich Jeckeln, SS commander during the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union, was hanged in public at Pobeda Square in Riga, along with five of his officers.
Maclean Rogers' The Trojan Brothers - starring Patricia Burke, David Farrar and Bobby Howes - starring.
Tessa Charlotte Rampling born in Sturmer, Essex.
Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase - starring Dorothy McGuire - premiered. Michael Grady born in Cheltenham.
Peter William Postlethwaite born in Warrington.
In what has been described as the beginning of the Cold War, Stalin addressed a national radio audience in his first major public speech since the end of World War II. Stalin said that another war was 'inevitable' because of the 'capitalist development of the world economy' and that the USSR would need to concentrate on national defence. T Coronae Borealis, nicknamed the Blaze Star, was observed. Charles Lucky Luciano, the Mafia boss, was transported from a New York prison and deported to his native Italy. Jennifer and Susan Baker born in London.
The first stand-alone episode of Stand Easy - 'a civvy street rag' starring Cheerful Charlie Chester and Arthur Haynes - broadcast on The Light Programme.
Sergeant Isaac Woodard, an African-American army veteran, was beaten and blinded by the police chief in Batesburg, South Carolina. Woodard's maiming attracted national attention on Orson Welles's radio show and was later dramatised in the 1958 movie Touch Of Evil, as well as in Woody Guthrie's song 'The Blinding of Isaac Woodard'.
The Bank of England was nationalised, with the signing of a bill by King George VI.
The Sikorsky S-51, first helicopter sold for commercial rather than military use, was flown for the first time. Arthur Ian Lavender born in Birmingham.
Uprisings against colonial rule took place across Asia, with disturbances in Egypt, India, Singapore and Indonesia. Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman born in Hammersmith.
The Long Telegram was sent from the US Embassy in Moscow to the Department of State and would become the basis of American foreign policy for nearly fifty years. At more than eight thousand words, it was the longest telegraphed message sent to that time. The author, George Kennan, the chargé d'affaires, was responding to a specific inquiry from the State Department and his answer was the containment strategy, to keep the Soviet Union from spreading Communism further without going to war. The first attacks in the Texarkana Moonlight Murders took place when a couple on a date, Jimmy Hollis and his girlfriend, Mary Larey, were attacked and seriously injured. Both survived, but six other people would be attacked over the next three months, five of them fatally, by a serial killer who has never been identified. Oswald Mitchell's Loyal Heart - starring Percy Marmont, Harry Welchman and Patricia Marmont - premiered.
Tomoyuki Yamashita, who led the Japanese conquest of Singapore and the Philippines, was executed by hanging in Manila for war crimes, followed by Seichi Ohta, who had headed security for Japan's thought police (kempei tai) and interpreter Takuma Higashigi.
Juan Perón won the vote for President of Argentina in what was considered the first truly open election since 1928.
The Scandinavian phenomenon of 'ghost rockets' was first observed, in the skies over Finland.
Tom Chadbon born in Luton.
Ho Chi Minh, the newly elected President of Vietnam, sent a telegram to President Truman, asking that the United States use its influence to persuade France not to send occupation forces back into Vietnam and to 'interfere urgently in support of our independence.' Truman's reply was that the US would support France so Ho sought assistance from the Soviet Union instead.
North Korea's Communist Party leader and future President, Kim Il Sung, was saved from assassination by an alert Soviet officer. YT Novichenko caught a hand grenade that had been thrown at Kim during a rally.
Fifteen Soviet armoured brigades invaded Iran's Azerbaijan region, while additional brigades deployed along the borders of Turkey, Iraq and Bulgaria. The US Consul at Tabriz would later opine that 'Though not a shot was fired, the Battle of Azerbaijan was as significant in its outcome as Bunker Hill, Bull Run, or the First Battle of the Marne.' Norman Walker's They Knew Mister Knight - starring Mervyn Johns, Nora Swinburne, Joyce Howard and Joan Greenwood - premiered.
Winston Churchill delivered his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. The former Prime Minister was accompanied by President Truman. Churchill surprised few with his attack on the spread of Soviet Communism, as he said 'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.' Murray Seafield St George Head born in London.
Sentimental Journey - starring John Payne and Maureen O'Hara - premiered in New York. David Jon Gilmour born in Cambridge.
The Bolton Stadium Disaster at Burnden Park, at the time was the worst tragedy in British sporting history. Thirty three fans were crushed to death and another four hundred injured during an FA Cup Quarter-Final between Bolton Wanderers and Stoke City. There was an estimated eighty five thousand crowd crammed into Burnden Park for the game, at least fifteen thousand over-capacity. The disaster led to Moelwyn Hughes's report, which recommended more rigorous control of crowd sizes. The game ended in a goalless draw with Bolton winning the replay, two-nil. Alexandra Lendon Bastedo born in Hove.
Rudolf Höss, the Commandant of the Auschwitz death camp, was arrested by British military police near Flensburg, where he had been working on a farm under the alias Franz Lang. Höss, who confessed to overseeing the murder of millions of prisoners, mostly Jewish, was himself executed at Auschwitz in April 1947.
General Draža Mihailović, Chetnik leader who oversaw the massacre of Bosnians and Croatians during the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia, was captured in a mountain cave near Višegrad after two years in hiding. Mihailović was executed in July. Liza Mary Minnelli born in Los Angeles. To Each His Own - starring Olivia De Havilland - premiered.
George Templeton's Naughty Nanette - starring Bob Graham and Dorothy Porter - premiered.
The Nat King Cole Trio recorded '(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66' for Capitol Records.
Humphrey Jennings' A Defeated People - starirng William Hartnell - premiered.
Cheryl Molineaux born in Hendon.
Rosemary Faith born in Newtonabbey.
Timothy Leonard Dalton Leggett born in Colwyn Bay.
The United States Army made its first successful launch of an American-built rocket out of the atmosphere, using a combination of American and German scientists in adapting the V-2 rockets seized after the Allied victory. The rocket reached an altitude of fifty miles.
President Truman sent an ultimatum to Stalin demanding that the Soviets comply with their agreement to withdraw their troops from Iran. In the FA Cup Semi-Finals, two goals from Chris Duffy helped Charlton Athletic defeat Bolton Wanderers at Villa Park. Alan George Bleasdale born in Liverpool.
The first episode of Alistair Cooke's Letter From America broadcast on The Home Service. It would continue, weekly, on the BBC until shortly before Cooke's death in 2004. When the two thousand eight hundred and sixty ninth and last show was broadcast on Radio 4 in February 2004, it had become the longest-running radio commentary programme in history. The Cabinet Mission to India began as Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and Admiral AV Alexander arrived in New Delhi to begin the negotiation of self-government for the people of British India. Frederick Colin Petersen born in Kingaroy, Queensland.
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were defused when the Soviet government made the announcement on Moscow Radio that it would withdraw all troops from Iran within six weeks.
The BBC began its Russian Service, broadcasting short wave radio programming toward the Soviet Union.
Peter Doherty and Jackie Stamps each scored twice as Derby County beat Birmingham City four-nil in the FA Cup Semi-Final replay at Maine Road.
The results of the first general erection in India were certified. Over a four-month period, voting was conducted for the Provincial Assemblies in each of the eleven provinces. The Congress Party formed the majority in the legislatures for Bombay, Madras, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, the Central Provinces, Orissa, Assam and the North West Frontier while the Muslim League won power in Bengal and Sind. In Punjab, a coalition of Unionists, Congress and Sikhs formed a ministry. Sheila Ruskin born in London.
The longest official football game in history took place at Edgeley Park, when Stockport County hosted Doncaster Rovers for a replay of a Division Three North Cup tie. The teams had played to a two-two draw at Doncaster and were tied two-two again at the end of ninety minutes and extra time. A 'golden goal' rule then applied, with the first team to score winning. A goal by Les Cocker of Stockport after fifty three minutes was disallowed by the referee and play continued. By 7pm, the game was called after three hours twenty three minutes due to bad light. Doncaster won the next replay at home, four-nil, on 3 April.
A round-up of Nazi activists was carried out throughout the American and British zones of Germany, with seven thousand Allied soldiers carrying out arrests. What was described as 'a well-financed attempt to revive Nazism' was foiled after the December 1945 capture of ringleader Arthur Axmann.
Ronald Frederick Lane born in Plaistow. Lawrence Huntington's Night Boat To Dublin - starring Robert Newton, Raymond Lovell, Guy Middleton, Muriel Pavlow and Herbert Lom - premiered.
Nicholas Jones born in London. Compton Bennett's The Years Between - Michael Redgrave, Valerie Hobson and Flora Robson - premiered. An article, in the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, brought attention to the existence of a diary, written by a teenage girl who had died in a Nazi concentration camp. Historian Jan Romein wrote, under the headline Kinderstem (A Child's Voice), '[T]his apparently inconsequential diary by a child ... embodies all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence at Nueremberg put together.' Published in the Netherlands as 1947 as Het Archterhuis: Dagboekbrieven (The Attic: Diary Notes), the book would be translated into English as Anne Frank: The Diary Of A Young Girl in 1952.
David John Hill born in Holbeton. Paul Barrelet's Bad Company - starring Mabel Constanduros, Diana Dawson and Gordon Begg - premiered.
Jane Asher born in Willesden.
Acting on a tip from a geisha house, American officials unearthed two billion dollars worth of gold, silver and platinum that had been hidden in the muddy bottom of Tokyo Bay. An officer of the Japanese Army had carried out the concealment of the precious metals in July 1945, shortly before the surrender of Japan.
Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life and William Wyler's The Best Years Of Our Lives, began filming on the same day. Yvonne Georgina Elizabeth Simpson born in Marylebone.
Alan Philip Eric Knott born in Belvedere, Kent.

The Bell X-1 experimental jet airplane made its first powered flight, with Chalmers Slick Goodlin taking the first of the three prototypes, X-1-1, on a flight from the Muroc Army Air Field. John Nicholas Ball born in Leamington Spa. Juan Bustillo Oro's No Basta Ser Charro - starring Jorge Negrete and Lilia Michel - premiered.
Sh'erit ha-Pletah members of Nakam, the Jewish Avengers, carried out a plan to poison former members of Hitler's SS. A group of Jewish employees at a bakery in Nuremberg placed arsenic on the bottom of thousands of loaves of bread to be delivered to a prisoner-of-war camp housing SS men. Over two thousand men at Stalag Thirteen became ill, none fatally, in the week that followed. In France, the Loi Marthe Richard took effect and the system of government-regulated houses of prostitution came to an end. Arzamas-Sixteen was established at the site of the Russian town of Sarov, as a secret centre for the construction of nuclear weapons Clement Attlee authorised Stafford Cripps, the leader of the Cabinet Mission to India, to agree to the partition of the colony into separate nations. The predominantly Hindu provinces became the Dominion of India, while the mostly Muslim provinces became the Dominion of Pakistan. Christopher Strauli born in Harpenden.
Chinese Communist leader Zhou Enlai announced the beginning of a war against the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, one day after Soviet troops had withdrawn from Manchuria.
Production began of the first Nikon cameras. The United States army revealed the existence of its previously secret night vision device, the Snooperscope, which had been used by snipers during the Second World War. Marsha Hunt born in Philadelphia.
The United States made its first successful launch of a V-2 rocket, tested at the White Sands Proving Ground. In all, sixty three were fired for various purposes as part of American development of its own missile program.
The Virginian - starring Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy, Sonny Tufts and Barbara Britton - premiered.
The League of Nations, in its last meeting, transferred its assets to the United Nations and disbanded at midnight Geneva time. Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills born in Marylebone.
Timothy James Curry born in Grappenhall, Cheshire. George Marshall's The Blue Dahlia - starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake - premiered.
The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry issued its recommendations on the future of Palestine, including allowing up to one hundred thousand Jewish refugees from Europe to be resettled in the area, but barring a Jewish state.
John F Kennedy, the twenty eight-year-old son of former US Ambassador to Britain Joseph Kennedy, announced his candidacy for the House of Representatives.
The patent for the first Vespa scooter was filed by the Italian company Societa Rinaldo Piaggio. Inexpensive, reliable and fast, the Vespa soon became popular worldwide. Grave robbers in Milan stole the remains of Benito Mussolini from an unmarked pauper's grave. The body, taken by admirers of Italy's Fascist dictator, was located in August at a monastery in Pavia. Howard Hughes's 1943 movie The Outlaw - starring Jane Russell - finally went on general release.
A Marian apparition - wherein observers claim to see the Virgin Mary - was reported to have occurred near the Bavarian village of Marienfried. Fritz Kuhn, the would-be American fuehrer who led the Nazi German American Bund, was released from an internment camp in his native Germany, after American authorities concluded that he no longer posed a threat to security.
Virginia Anne Northrop born in London. Jennifer Stoller born in Finchley.
Derby County beat Charlton Athletic four-one in the first post-war FA Cup final at Wembley after etxra time. Charlton's Bert Turner became the first player in history to score for both sides (a feat equallyed by Tommy Hutchison in 1981).
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was convened to try the leaders of Japan for Class A crimes, which were reserved for those who participated in a joint conspiracy to start and wage war. Former Japanese Prime Ministers Hideki Tojo, Kiichiro Hiranuma, Koki Hirota and Kuniaki Koiso and twenty four co-defendants were indicted in Tokyo for crimes, ranging from the murder of thousands of Americans at Pearl Harbour, to conspiracy 'to secure military, naval, political and economic domination of the whole world.' Basil Dreaden's The Captive Heart - starring Michael Redgrave, Rachel Kempson, Frederick Leister, Mervyn Johns amd Rachel Thomas - premiered.
Joanna Lamond Lumley born in Srinagar, Kashmir.
Tay Garnett's The Postman Always Rings Twice - starring John Garfield and Lana Turner - premiered. Six inmates unsuccessfully tried to escape from Alcatraz Prison, leading to a riot. Bruce Robinson born in London.
Willie Francis was strapped into the electric chair, awaiting execution at St Martinville, Louisiana, but got only a mild shock when the circuits failed. Francis had been convicted of the murder of a local pharmacist. Francis's was eventually executed on 9 May 1947.
Despite being the leader of the party that won the 1946 Japanese general election, Ichirō Hatoyama was barred from becoming Prime Minister of Japan, after the American occupational authority vetoed the choice. Shigeru Yoshida became Prime Minister instead.
The first cricket county championship game since 1939 began at Lord's Middlesex beating Leicestershire by sixty five runs. For the first time, the United States invited the rest of the world's nations to watch nuclear testing, bringing eleven other member nations of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission to view Operation Crossroads in July.
King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicated and was succeeded by his son, Umberto II.
Donovan Philips Leitch born in Maryhill, Glasgow. David Thomas Mason born in Worcester. Maureen Diane Lipman born in Hull. Bedlam - starring Boris Karloff and Anna Lee - and A Night In Casablanca - starring The Marx Brothers - premiered. An American-launched V-2 rocket reached a record high altitude, seventy five miles above the White Sands. Prior to the flight, a man from Dorchester, Massachusetts, had volunteered to ride inside the nose cone of the reassembled German missile. The US Army politely declined his offer to become the first astronaut in history. 'Experts said that there was room in a V-2 for a human being and he probably could survive the three thousand five hundred mile-an-hour top speed,' noted a report. 'But added there was no known means of escaping alive before the rocket crashed to Earth.'
Sixty-one SS members, who had carried out exterminations at the Mauthausen concentration camp at Dachau, were convicted of murdering seventy thousand people. Forty-nine of them were executed; the other twelve were released from prison by 1951.
Timothy Peter Pigott-Smith born in Rugby.
Lew Landers's Thunder Mountain - starring Tim Holt and Martha Hyer - premiered. Yutte Stensgaard born in Jutland, Denmark.
Joan Blackham born in Wolverhampton.
Irving Berlin's musical Annie Get Your Gun - starring Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley - premiered at the Imperial Theatre, Broadway. The show introduced the hit songs 'There's No Business Like Show Business' and 'Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)' and ran for eleven hundred and ifty nine performances. Clement Attlee informed the House of Commons that the Cabinet Mission had rejected the Muslim League proposal for an independent State of Pakistan. The six-point plan for a Federal Union of India included a provision that legislation would have to be approved by a majority of both the Hindu legislators and the Muslim legislators. At the Institute of Radio Engineers convention in San Francisco, Major Jack Mullin of the Army Signal Corps, demonstrated the Magnetophon and its magnetic recording tape, which he had found in Germany. With Mullin as a consultant, the Ampex company developed the first American audiotape recording systems.
The Bell X-1 supersonic jet aircraft was unveiled to the general public at an exhibition at Wright Field. Readings from James Joyce's A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man broadcast on The Light Programme.
According to Swedish athlete Gösta Carlsson, he was visited on this date by aliens, who landed their space craft at a forest clearing near Kronoskogen and gave him information about natural remedies, which he used to found two successful companies. The UFO-Memorial Ängelholm was erected at the site in 1963.
André René Roussimoff born in Grenoble. Roger Sloman born in Harlesden. Trevor Michael Adams born in London.
By a vote of three hundred and twenty four to one hundred and forty three, the House of Commons passed a bill to nationalise the coal mining industry. Cherilyn Sarkisian born in El Centro, California. Paul L Stein's Lisbon Story - starring Patricia Burke, David Farrar, Walter Rilla and Austin Trevor - premiered.
Doctor Louis Slotin, a physicist at the Los Alamos research centre, was fatally injured during an experiment with a subcritical nuclear assembly, a plutonium core and two halves of a beryllium sphere. The purpose was to measure the increase in radiation as the two hemispheres (which deflected neutrons back into the plutonium) were moved closer together.The screwdriver slipped and the beryllium pieces came together, causing a critical reaction. Slotin knocked the halves apart, saving the other seven men in the room, while absorbing a lethal dose of radiation that a radiologist described as a '3-D sunburn' to all the cells of his body. Slotin died nine days later.
George Best born in Belfast.
Anthony May born in Reigate. Lawrence Huntingdon's Wanted For Murder - starring Eric Portman, Dulcie Gray, Derek Farr, Roland Culver and Stanley Holloway - premiered.
Thailand was invaded soldiers of the French Army, who crossed the Mekong River from Laos, at that time part of French Indo-China. The troops were supported by planes and artillery and clashed with local forces while pursuing Communist rebels. Roy William Neil's Dressed To Kill - starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce and Patricia Morison - premiered.
Phil Karlson's Behind The Mask - starring Kane Richmond, Barbara Reed, George Chandler and Dorothea Kent and John E Blakeley's Under New Management - starring Nat Jackley, Norman Evans, Dan Young, Betty Jumel and Nicolette Roeg - premiered.
Michael Ronson born in Kingston Upon Hull.
In Vietnam, the French colonial government created an administration for the minority Montagnard population, separate from the Vietnamese people, with the headquarters at Buôn Ma Thuột. Lewis Collins born in Birkenhead.
John Sturges's The Man Who Dared - starring Forrest Tucker - premiered.
Charles Lamont's She Wrote The Book - starring Joan Davis, Jack Oakie and Kirby Grant - premiered. Heathrow Airport was officially opened for civilian use.

The first television licence was introduced costing two pounds. Penicillin first went on sale to the general public in Britain. The antibiotic had been made available at pharmacies in the United States beginning in March 1945. Brian Denis Cox born in Dundee.
Lance Comfort's Bedelia - starring Margaret Lockwood, Ian Hunter, Barry K Barnes and Anne Crawford - premiered.
Penelope Alice Wilton born in Scarborough. Arthur Crabtree's Caravan - starring Stewart Granger, Jean Kent, Anne Crawford, Dennis Price, Robert Helpmann and Gerard Heinz - premiered.
The US Army recovered a treasure trove of jewellery and manuscripts that had been stolen by a group of American officers from the Friedrichshof Castle in Kronberg. Women's' Army Corps Captain Kathleen Nash Durant had hidden part of the loot at her sister's home in Hudson, Wisconsin and her husband, Colonel Jack Durant, had hidden hundreds of diamonds and other gems in a locker at the Illinois Central railway station in Chicago. Frank Launder's I See A Dark Stranger - starring Deborah Kerr and Trevor Howard - premiered. Colin Prockter born in London.
Brian Douglas Fielder born in London.
The post-war reopening of the BBC Television Service. The first words were 'Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh?' Twenty minutes later, Mickey's Gala Premiere which had been the last programme transmitted seven years earlier at the start of World War II, was rebroadcast. The Dark Lady Of The Sonnets and The Silence of The Sea broadcast. Michael Vivian Fyfe Pennington born in Cambridge.
The first episode of The Squadronnaires broadcast. A televised victory parade was held in London to celebrate the end of World War II. The - probable - broadcasting début of John Arlott, commentating on the Indian tourists visit to Glamorgan for The Light Programme's Saturday Sport. Thirteen months after V-E Day, the UK celebrated its victory in World War II with an event that featured 'all the pomp and circumstance it had given up during the war' and that was witnessed by 'nearly one fourth of [Britain's] people' Tens of thousands of uniformed marchers represented the Allied nations in a nine-mile-long procession, while the Royal Air Force flew overhead.
The first episode of For The Children broadcast.
The first episodes of Late Joys - featuring the TV début of Hattie Jacques - and Transatlantic Quiz broadcast. John Baxter's Here Comes The Sun - starring Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen and Elsa Tee - premiered.
JB Priestley's Dangerous Corner broadcast.
The first TV appearance by the war correspondent Wynford Vaughan Thomas on an episode of Picture Page.
George W Houghton's They Flew Through Sand broadcast. John Logie Baird died in Bexhill aged fifty seven.

The first episode of Edmundo Ros & His Rumba Rhythm broadcast. Neville John Holder born in Walsall. Roy Trevor Holder born in Birmingham.
Carol Ann Hirsch born in Bethnal Green. Simon Williams born in Windsor.
The first episode of Transatlantic Quiz - presented by Lionel Hale and Alistair Cooke - broadcast. Jordan achieved independence when the Treaty of London officially came into effect. Mobile Telephone Service, the first car phone service in the United States, was introduced by AT&T in St Louis. With the aid of a radio tower that transmitted on one hundred and twenty kHz and could handle only one call at a time, customers could place and receive phone calls in their automobiles. Geoffrey Faithfull's I'll Turn To You - starring Terry Randall, Don Stannard, Harry Welchman and Ann Codrington - premiered.
A rematch between world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis and Billy Conn attracted forty five thousand to Yankee Stadium and the fight was broadcast on the NBC television network. Louis knocked Conn out in the eighth round.
The first episode of Way Out West - featuring Big Bill Campbell & His Rocky Mountain Rhythm - broadcast. Albert Speer took the stand at the Nuremberg war crimes trial. He would be the only Third Reich defendant to take any personal responsibility for his actions and, as a consequence, escaped the noose despite having far more blood on his hands than many of his co-defendants. Anna & The King Of Siam - starring Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison - premiered.
Christopher Fry's A Phoenix Too Frequent broadcast. Albert Speer, who had been the German Minister of Armaments and War Production, testified before the War Crimes Tribunal that the Nazis had been 'a year or two away from splitting the atom' before the end of the war. Speer said that Germany's development of a nuclear bomb had been delayed because many of its atomic scientists had fled to the United States.
The first post-war test cricket series between England and India began at Lord's. Joe Harstaff scored two hundred and five for England whilst debutant Alec Bedser took eleven wickets in the match as England won by ten wickets. Jack Ikin and Fred Smailes also played their first tests.
Jim Swanton and Brian Johnston's presentation of Two Hundred Years Of Cricket broadcast.
James Birdie's It Depends What You Mean broadcast. John Tudor born in Ilkeston.
Taking the Chinese Civil War into a new phase, President Chiang Kai-shek launched a nationwide military campaign against the Communist forces of Mao Zedong, with Chiang's Nationalist Army moving into central China to take back rural areas which were under Communist control. Clive Francis born in Eastbourne.
Adrian Arlington's Willow, The King broadcast on The Home Service. Annette Whiteley born in Romford.
In Palestine, the British Army oversaw Operation Agatha, the arrest of two thousand seven hundred suspected Jewish terrorists in retaliation of the destruction of eleven bridges two weeks earlier, detaining them at a prison camp at Latrun.

The opening episode of the first TV adaptation of The Brains Trust broadcast.
Aimee Stuart's Jeannie - starring Barbara Mullen - broadcast. Orson Welles's The Stranger - starring Edward G Robinson, Michael Curtiz's Night & Day - starring Cary Grant and Alexis Smith and George King and Leontine Sagan's Gaiety George - starring Richard Greene, Ann Todd, Peter Graves and Hazel Court - premiered.
Victor Saville's The Green Years and Frank Lauder's I See A Dark Stranger - starring Deborah Kerr and Trevor Howard - premiered.
At the Piscine Molitor in Paris, model Micheline Bernardini became the first woman to wear a two-piece swimsuit created by designer Louis Réard. In an homage to the site of an atomic bomb test earlier in the week, Reard named the garment the bikini. As inflation in Hungary spiralled out of control, the national bank in Budapest put into circulation an unprecedented note of currency, a bill for one hundred quintillion pengős. Gwyneth Powell born in Manchester.
George Walker Bush born in New Haven, Connecticut. Sylvester Enzio Stallone born in New York. A Stolen Life - starring Bette Davis and Glenn Ford - premiered.
Ronald Millar's Frieda broadcast.
Marcel Varnel and Ben Henry's George In Civvy Street - starring George Formby, Ronald Shiner, Rosalyn Boulter and Ian Fleming - premiered.
John Graham Mitchell born in Ealing. Natasha Pyne born in Crawley.
Otto Preminger's Centennial Summer - starring Jeanne Crain - premiered. Suellyn Lyon born in Davenport, Iowa.
Edgar Wallace's The Ringer broadcast.
The evening's Shove Ha'Penny coverage featured 'a match between R Brewster and 'Burly' Pilchet of The Bricklayer's Arms and J Harris and Joe Goss of The King and Queen.'
The Common Sense Book Of Baby & Child Care, by paediatrician Benjamin Spock, was published and would become an immediate bestseller. Susan Lawley born in Sedgley.
A loan of 3.75 billion dollars to the United Kingdom, at 1.62 percent interest, was approved by the United States Senate. Within six months of convertibility of sterling requirements coming into force British gold and dollar reserves were exhausted. With bankruptcy staring it in the face, the Attlee government made plans for a severe austerity programme at home and a strategic retrenchment abroad. Linda Maria Ronstadt born in Tuscon. Jacques Touneur's Canyon Passage - starring Dana Andrews, Susan Hayward and Brian Donlevy - premiered.
Maurice Valency's The Thracian Horses broadcast. Alan Armstrong born in Annfield Plain, County Durham.
Dicken Ashworth born in Todmorden, Yorkshire.
The Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbour Attack was released. The ten member committee had voted eight-two to approve the finding that 'The committee has found no evidence to support the charges, made before and during the hearings, that the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, or the Secretary of Navy tricked, provoked, incited, cajoled, or coerced Japan into attacking this Nation in order that a declaration of war might be more easily obtained from the Congress' and assigned blame to the highest-ranking officer in Hawaii at the time, Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short. Senators Homer Ferguson and Owen Brewster dissented, saying that President Roosevelt and his military advisors 'were just as responsible for the nation's worst military disaster.'
Edward Percy's The Shop At Sly Corner - featuring the TV debut of Deryck Guyler - broadcast. For the first time, the rationing of bread was put into effect by the Ministry of Food.
Maurie Elvey's Beware Of Pity - starring Lilli Palmer, Albert Lieven, Cedric Hardwicke and Gladys Cooper - premiered.
The second test at Old Trafford was drawn Wally Hammond scored sixty nine in England's first innings and Dennis Compton seventy one in the second. For India, Lala Amarnath took eight wickets and Vijay Merchant scored seventy eight. Alec Bedsar bowled England to the brink of victory with seven for fifty two but a last wicket partnership between Ranga Sohoni and Dattaram Hindlekar saved the game for the tourists. Dick Pollard made his test debut.
The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers - starring Barbara Stanwyck - premiered.
In the first underwater test of the atomic bomb the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga was sunk near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The Baker Test blast vaporised the two hundred-foot-long weapons ship USS LSM-60, located directly above the bomb and immediately sank the USS Arkansas.. In all, three submarines and seven ships were destroyed in the test.
Meeting in Bombay, the Executive Council of the Muslim League voted unanimously to reject the Cabinet Mission plan.
Diane Keen born in London. Harold French's Quiet Weekend - starring Derek Farr, Frank Cellier, Marjorie Fielding, George Thorpe and Barbara White - premiered.
Petula Clark's TV début in an episode of Cartoon Cabaret.
David Ian Calder born in Portsmouth.
The children's puppet Muffin The Mule (with Annette Mills) debuted on For The Children. They proved so popular they were given his own series later in the year.
Neil Armstrong of Wapakoneta, Ohio earned his student pilot's certificate on his sixteenth birthday.
Martin Luther King, Jr, a seventeen-year-old junior at Morehouse College, began a lifelong crusade against racial prejudice, with the publication of a letter in the Atlanta Constitution, in response to an editorial. A pair of unmanned B-17 bombers landed in California after having been flown a distance of two thousand one hundred and seventy four miles from Hawaii, piloted entirely by radio control, as the US Army carried out Operation Remote. Press releases declared that the experiment proved that 'guided missiles of the air forces can be launched by radio control and successfully hit a target more than two thousand miles distant.' The Playboy Of The Western World broadcast.
On the opening day of the first Scottish Football League season since 1939, Third Larnack's three-nil defeat against Aberdeen at Hampden Park saw the first class debut of Bobby Mitchell, the first of five hundred and thirty three games for Larnack, Newcastle United, Berwick Rangers and Scotland in a career that lasted until 1963.
HG Wells died, aged seventy nine, in London.
Anthony Robinson born in Homerton. Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious - starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains and Brian Desmond Hurst's Theirs Is The Glory premiered. The Truman Doctrine was announced by President Truman, who told Turkey's President İsmet İnönü that the United States would provide its assistance to help Turkey resist Soviet demands for control of the Dardanelles straits.

John Arlott's The Literature Of Cricket broadcast on The Light Programme. Direct Action Day, which was intended as a peaceful protest in favour of creating a separate Muslim nation of Pakistan, rather than having a Hindu-majority government in an independent India, turned into rioting that killed more than ten thousand people in and around Calcutta.
Sergeant Lawrence Lambert of the US Army Air Forces became the first person to test an ejection seat. Shane Briant born in London.
Jenny Runacre born in Cape Town, South Africa.
WP Lipscomb's The Man With The Cloak Full Of Holes broadcast - featuring the TV acting début of Arnold Ridley. The rain-affected third test at The Oval was drawn. Only one hour's play was possible on the first day and there was no play after lunch on the final day. Vijay Merchant scored one hundred and twenty eight for India. Godfrey Evans and Peter Smith made their test debuts.
Keith John Moon born in Wembley. Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep - starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall - premiered.
Norma Jean Baker agreed to a suggestion by Ben Lyon, talent manager at Twentieth Century Fox signing a contract for the first time with her new stage name. Philippine Communist leader Juan Feleo disappeared and was presumed killed, triggering the eight year insurgency called the Hukbalahap or Huk Rebellion.
Alison Steadman born in Liverpool.
JB Priestley's The Rose & Crown broadcast. Peter David Craze born in Redruth.
Robert Siodmak's The Killers - starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner - premiered. Richard Heffer born in Cambridge.
The first Football League season since 1939 commenced with huge attendances across the country. The largest crowd of the day was sixty one thousand at Stamford Bridge where Chelsea beat Bolton Wanderers four-three. There were also wins for Brentford (two-nil at Everton), Blackpool (three-one at Huddersfield), Manchester United (two-one over Grimsby), Preston North End (three-two against Leeds United), Sunderland (three-two over Derby County) and Wolves (six-one against Arsenal at Molineux). Portsmouth's three-one victory over Blackburn Rovers saw the debut of Jimmy Dickinson, the first of eight hundred and forty five games for The Pompey in a career that lasted until 1965. In the process he broke Jack Weddle's appearance record for the club, established in 1938. Dickinson's total of seven hundred and sixty four league appearances for Pompey was a record for the most appearances by a player for one club until it was beaten by Swindon's John Trollope 1980. In the Second Division, Bury beat Fulham seven-two, Manchester City won three-nil at Leicester City, Newcastle United won four-one at Millwall (Roy Bentley scored twice with further goals from Jackie Milburn and Albert Stubbins) and Luton Town achieved the same score against Sheffield Wednesday. Birmingham City's two-one victory at Tottenham Hotspur saw the league debut of Gil Merrick - the first of five hundred and fifty one games for The Blues in a career that lasted until 1959 (although he had already appeared in over one hundred non-first class wartime fixtures). In the process he broke Frank Womack's appearance record for the club, established in 1928. Because wartime fixtures were discounted towards official statistics, numerous players across all four divisions were making their 'official' debuts on this day. Leciester's defeat at Manchester city, for example, saw the debut of Don Revie, the rfirst of five hundred and one appearance for Leicester, Hull City, Manchester City, Sunderland and Leeds United in a career that lasted until 1962. As well as lots of goals and many debuts, the aggregate Football League attendance was a massive nine hundred and fifty thousand for the forty three matches across the four leagues - the game between Newport County and Southampton was postponed due to flooding. In the Third Division (South) only two clubs reported attendances of under ten thousand. Notts County, fielding Canadian centre-forward Fred Whittaker, drew over twenty five thousand for their win against Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic at Meadow Lane. Norwich City - who won two-one at home to Cardiff City - was another Third Division fixture to top twenty thousand. Queens Park Rangers had fifteen thousand for their victory over Watford. Elsewhere, Aldershot beat Bristol City four-three and Northampton Town defeated Swindon Town four-one. The Third Division (North) saw wins for Bradford City (three-one against Accrington Stanley), Darlington (who beat Southport four-two), Gateshead (two-one over Crewe Alexandra), Rotherham (four-one at Tranmere Rovers) and Wrexham (who defeated New Brighton four-one). Hartlepools United and Barrow drew one-all at The Victoria Ground and York City and Chester shared eight goals at Bootham Crescent.
Barry Alan Crompton Gibb born in Douglas, Isle Of Man.

An interim government for the Dominion of India was inaugurated to make the transition from British colonial rule to independence. Earl Archibald Wavell, the Viceroy of India, presided on behalf of the United Kingdom and administered the oath of office to Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice President, and to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Doctor Rajendra Prasad, Asaf Ali, Sarat Chandra Bose and Syed Ali Zaheer. Other members of the Executive Council included Liaquat Ali Khan, Finance Minister, who would become the first Prime Minister of Pakistan. William Everett Preston born in Houston. Alfred Travers' Meet The Navy - starring Lionel Murton, Margaret Hurst and Robert John Pratt - premiered.
President Truman approved Operation Paperclip, ostensibly a campaign to bring numerous German scientists to the US and to prevent them from being failoling into the hands of the Soviet Union. Many of the scientists had been former Nazis and assisted in experimentation on human subjects with radiation, oxygen deprivation and flash blindness.
Farrokh Bulsara born in Stone Town, Zanzibar.
Yorkshire's draw with Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge meant they were cricket county champions for the twenty second time. Middlesex finished runners-up with Lancashire in third place. The leading first class run-scorers for the season were Middlesex's Denis Compton, Lancashire's Cyril Washbrook, Surrey's Laurie Fishlock, Northamptonshire's Dennis Brookes and Middlesex's Jack Robertson. The season's leading bowlers included Warwickshire's Eric Hollies, Gloucestershire's Tom Goddard, Yorkshire's Ellis Robinson, Gloucestershire's Sam Cook, Yorkshire's Arthur Booth and Glamorgan's Johnnie Clay. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, in its review of the 1946 season, remarked that 'the weather in 1946 might have been dreadful, but it didn't stop the crowds flocking to games.'
Arthur Big Boy Crudup recorded 'That's All Right (Mama)' for RCA Victor.
Royal Air Force Captain Teddy Donaldson set a new speed record, flying a Gloster Meteor at 615.78 miles per hour in level flight at eleven hundred feet. It was another remarkably high-scoring day in the football league. Liverpool beat Chelsea seven-four at Anfield, Middlesbrough defeated Stoke City five-four, Everton lost four-one at Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End won three-two at Grimsby Town in the First Division. Forty eight goal were scored in eleven top-flight matches. Liverpool's game featured the league debut of Bob Paisley (although he had signed for the club in 1939 and featured, regularly, in wartime fixtures), the first of two hundred and fifty three games for The Reds in a playing career that lasted until 1953, followed by a further thirty years as coach, assistant manager and manager. Elsewhere, Nottingham Forest beat Newport County six-one in the Second Division, Doncaster Rovers won five-two at New Brighton in the Third Division (North) and Reading beat Southend United seven-two in the Third Division (South). Ipswich Town beat local rivals Norwich City five-nil and Swindon Town put seven past Aldershot without reply.
AP Herbert's Two Gentlemen Of Soho broadcast.
Thorold Dickinson's Men Of Two Worlds - starring Phyllis Calvert, Eric Portman and Robert Adams - premiered.
Donald George Powell born in Bilston.
Julie Covington born in London.
Captain Amon Göth, Nazi SS officer who had carried out the mass executions of more than thirteen thousand Jews in Kraków and Tarnów and the Szebnia concentration camp, was hanged, along with Doctor Leon Gross, a Jew who had collaborated with him at the Plaszow concentration camp. Liverpool paid a club record twelve thousand five hundred pounds to sign centre froward Albert Stubbins from Newcastle United.
Ten days after the United States launched Paperclip, the Soviet Union issued a decree launching Operation Osoaviakhim, to transfer what German rocket production potential they had obtained, post-war, to the USSR.
Hank Williams began his celebrated career as a country musician, signing a contract with Fred Rose in Nashville. Football league highlights included Preston North End's five-one victory against Charlton Athletic, Sheffield Wednesday winning five-three at Leicester City in the Second Division and early pace-setters Swindon Town's four-one defeat of Brighton & Hove Albion in the Third Divison (South). Manchester United (who beat Middlesbrough at Old Trafford) were the leaders of the First Divsion.
Emlyn Williams's The Corn Is Green - featuring Richard Burton's TV début - broadcast.
Have A Go! - presented by Wilfred Pickles - first broadcast on The Light Programme. At his factory in Maranello, Italian auto manufacturer Enzo Ferrari produced his first V12 engine, the component that would set the Ferrari as a leader in the production of sports cars. Michael John Elphick born in Chichester.
Nicholas Anthony Phillip Clay born in Streatham.
In a speech at Zürich, Winston Churchill proposed what would eventually become the European Community. The first Cannes Film Festival was held. Walter F White, Executive Director of the NAACP and five other civil rights activists met at the White House with President Truman to ask for the help of the US government in ending violence against African-Americans.
Barnsley (five-two winners at West Bromwich Albion) topped the Second Division, three points ahead of Manchester City (who beat Bradford Park Avenue seven-two).
The first episode of Mixed Bill broadcast.
Bishan Singh Bedi born in Amritsar.
John Sturges's Shadowed - starring Anita Louise - premiered.
Defending world middleweight boxing champion Tony Zale retained his title against heavily fancied challenger Rocky Graziano, in a bout at Yankee Stadium. Test pilot Geoffrey de Havilland was killed when his DH-108 jet, the Swallow, broke apart as he reached Mach 0.875 as he was attempting supersonic flight. Robin Courteney Nedwell born in Birmingham. Harry Watt's The Overlanders - starring Chips Rafferty, John Nugent Hayward, Daphne Campbell, John Fernside, Peter Pagan, Helen Grieve and Jean Blue - premiered.
Dwight Eisenhower said at a press conference in Frankfurt that nuclear weapons should be made illegal, stating 'I believe the outlawing of the atom bomb is the outlawing of wars. I think the time has come when humanity is intelligent enough to do away with war.' A record fifty seven thousand crowd attended the first official Home International championship game since 1939 as England defeated Northern Ireland seven-two at Windsor Park. Raich Carter and Tommy Lawton were the only players with previous international experience in England's team with Frank Swift of Manchester City, Arsenal's Laurie Scott, Middlesbrough's George Harwick, Billy Wright of Wolves, Stoke City's Neil Franklin, Manchester United's Harry Cockburn, Tom Finney of Preston North End, Wilf Mannion of Middlesbrough and Bobby Langton of Blackburn Rovers all making their international debuts (Finney was a late replacement for Stanley Matthews who withdrew due to injury). Mannion scored a memorable hat-trick (the first England debutant to do so since George mills in 1937) with Carter, Finney, Lawton and Langton also on target. Linfield's Norman Lockhart scored both of Ireland's goals. This was England's first game under the stewardship of Wing Commander Walter Winterbottom, the former Manchester United centre-half. In the First Division, there were five-two wins for both Aston Villa (against Brentford) and Manchester United (over Arsenal). Blackpool's two-one win at Derby County took them to the top of the table. Newport County added to their reputation as the Second Division's leakiest defence, losing seven-two at home to West Bromwich Albion. Third Division (South)'s Clapton Orient changed their name to Leyton Orient and their ground name from Osborne Road to Brisbane Road. But, it didn't do them much good as they lost, one-nil, at home to Crystal Palace. Fiona Lewis born in Westcliff-On Sea. Helen Kate Shapiro born in Bethnall Green. Peter Joseph Egan born in Hampstead.
Sister Kenny - starring Rosalind Russell - premiered. Patricia Ann Hodge born in Cleethorpes.
Wesley Ruggles' London Town - starring Sid Field, Petula Clark, Greta Gynt, Kay Kendall, Sonnie Hale and Tessie O'Shea and Herbert Wilcox's Piccadilly Incident - starring Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Frances Mercer and Coral Browne - premiered. England beat Éire in their first meeting in a friendly international at Dalymount Park, Dublin. Tom Finney scored the winner ten minutes from time. Bill Gorman, Johnny Carey and Bud Aherne had all played against England for the all Ireland side in the Home International championship two days previously. The fifty-thousand-word judgments on the twenty two accused Nazi leaders were read at the Nuremberg court. The individual verdicts were read out on the following day and twelve were sentenced to death. Because they were a bunch of rotten Nazi stinkers. One (Martin Bormnan) was not present and had been tried in absentia as the Allies were unaware of his death, whilst Hermann Göring took his own life a few hours before his date with the rope.
The Nuremberg war crimes trial ended with the passing of sentences on eighteen of the twenty one accused. Three - Franz von Papen, Hjalmar Schacht and Hans Fritzsche - were acquitted, the others were convicted of crimes against humanity, receiving sentences ranging from ten years to death by hanging. Mensa, the high IQ society, was founded in Oxford by Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware. England beat Éire one-nil in a friendly international in Dublin thanks to a Tom Finney goal. Manchester United's Johnny Carey captained the Irish side having also played against England for Northern Ireland three days earlier.
William Freshman and Giacomo Gentilomo'a Teheran - starring Derek Farr, Marta Labarr, Manning Whiley and Pamela Stirling - premiered.
The Nag Hammadi library was saved for posterity, as the Coptic Museum in Cairo accepted the ancient scrolls into its permanent collection. Twelve complete manuscripts and eight pages of a thirteenth had been buried in a sealed jar in the Fourth century AD and not unearthed again until December 1945.
Newcastle United equalled Stockport County's record of the highest Football League victory, beating hapless Newport County thirteen-nil at St James Park in the Second Division. Recent signing Len Shackelton scored six (some sources record one of these as an own goal by County defender Ken Wookey), Charlie Wayman four, Jackie Milburn two and Roy Bentley one. Bootm-side Newport had now conceeded thirty six goals in just seven matches. In the First Division there were big wins for Liverpol (six-one at Grimsby Town), Leeds United (five-nil against Huddersfield Town) and Portsmouth (four-one over Sunderland).
Anthony William Greig born in Queenstown, South Africa.
The first episodes of Woman's Hour and Dick Barton - Special Agent (with Noel Johnson in the title role) broadcast on The Light Programme.
One of the most spectacular meteor showers visible from Earth was seen after the planet passed through the debris left by Comet Giacobini-Zinner. Robin Stewart born in Calcutta.
A V-2 rocket launched by the United States from the White Sands Missile Range reached an altitude of one hundred miles and sent back unprecedented information about the Sun, providing the first photograph of the solar ultraviolet spectrum. The Jolson Story - starring Larry Parks as Al Jolson - premiered. Walter Charles Dance born in Redditch.
The highest football league gate of the season, just over six eight thousand, crammed into Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea get a five-two hiding off Stoke City. Blackpool remained at the top of the table despite losing at Preston. In the second teir, Newport suffered another heavy defeat, losing four-two at home to Swansea Town.
Catherine Ann Manning born in Guildford.
Two hours before his scheduled execution by hanging, Hermann Göring committed suicide in his cell in Nuremberg by poisoning himself.
Ten Nazi war criminals were hanged in a gymnasium on the premises of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. The psychopath and sexual sadist Neville Heath also got the rope at Pentonville Prison for the murder of two women. A few moments prior to his execution, as was the custom, Heath was offered a glass of whisky by the governor. Heath reportedly replied: 'While you're about it, sir, you might make that a double.' Stuart Heisler's Blue Skies - starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire and Paul L Stein's The Laughing Lady - starring Anne Ziegler, Webster Booth and Francis L Sullivan - premiered. Tariq Yunus born in Karachi.
Vicki Alexandra Hodge born in London.
Robert Siodmak's The Dark Mirror - starring Olivia De Havilland - premiered.
The first episode of Quiz With Hale and Murray - Escapologist broadcast. Aamteur Soccer featured the first live coverage of a post-war football match - the Athenian League time between Amateur Cup holders Barnet and Wealdstone. barnet won three-two.
The first episode of Muffin The Mule broadcast as part of the For The Children strand. Maxwell Anderson's The Masque Of Kings broadcast. Little Iodine - starring Jo Ann Marlowe - premiered.
The first episode of Stars In Your Eyes broadcast. Edgar Neville's El Crimen De La Calle De Bordadores - starring Mary Delgado - premiered.
Telecrime, the crime drama series from the 1930s, returned for the final run, retitled Telecrimes. The Soviet Army carried out the simultaneous round-up of all persons in Soviet occupied Germany who were deemed essential to the Soviet missile program, then shipped them and their families by train to the USSR. Rocket scientists at Mittelwerk had been attending a late night party held in their honour by General Gaidukov.
Kurt Daluege, the SS Officer who had ordered the June 1942, massacre of all residents of the village of Lidice, was hanged at the Pankrác Prison in Czechoslovakia.
The first photograph ever taken of the Earth from space was made after a V-2 rocket was fitted with a movie camera then fired from New Mexico to an altitude of sixty five miles. The camera was destroyed after returning to Earth, but the film survived.
With the war crimes trials of top Nazi leaders having completed, indictments were handed down against twenty physicians, two administrators and an attorney for war crimes including euthanasia murder, human experimentation and medical torture. The so-called 'Doctors' Trial', conducted at Nuremberg, would begin in December. Edgar G Ulmer's The Strange Woman - starring Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders and Louis Hayward - premiered.
Philip Sayer born in Swansea. The largest football league attendance of the day came in the Second Divison at St James' Park where Newcastle United beat Manchester City three-two with a charlie Wayman hat-trick.
The first episode of Variety On View - presented by Jack Warner - broadcast.
Brancis Searle's A Girl In A Million - starring Hugh Williams, Joan Greenwood, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne and Yvonne Owen - premiered.
Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov surprised the UN General Assembly by calling for universal disarmament and the banning of all nuclear weapons, while hinting that the United States' monopoly on the atomic bomb might have ended. Jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt arrived in the United States for the first time at the expense of Duke Ellington. Peter Allen Greenbaum born in Bethnal Green.
Anthony Green born in Glasgow. The UK, the United States, the Netherlands and France signed an agreement establishing the Caribbean Commission.
Stephen Rea born in Belfast. Norman Lovett born in Windsor.
The first episode of Little Show - presented by Jon Pertwee - broadcast. The first Royal Command Film Performance at a public cinema, the Empire Leicester Square, was the premiere of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's masterpiece A Matter Of Life & Death - starring David Niven, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey, Kim Hunter and Marius Goring. At Kraków, Archbishop Adam Sapieha ordained twenty six-year-old Karol Wojtyla as a Roman Catholic priest.
Michael Gough's TV début in Androcles & The Lion.
John Harlow's Appointment With Crime - starring William Hartnell, Raymond Lovell, Robert Beatty and Joyce Howard - premiered.

In the midterm Congressional elections, the Republican Party captured control of both houses from the Democrats. Freshmen Congressmen included Republican Richard Nixon of California's twelfth district and Democrat John Kennedy of the Massachusetts eleventh. Ingram Cecil Connor III born in Winter Haven, Florida.
Sally Margaret Field born in Pasadena.
Gilbert Thomas's The Murder Rap broadcast. Peter Ustinov's School For Secrets - starring Ralph Richardson, Raymond Huntley and John Laurie - premiered.
Roy Wood born in Birmingham.
Margaret Cook was murdered outside the Blue Lagoon nightclub in Carnaby Street. In 2015 a ninety one year old man living in Canada confessed to the shooting which, if true, would make this the longest gap between a crime and a confession in British criminal history. William Nigh's Beauty & The Bandit - starring Gilbert Roland and Ramsey Ames - premiered.
Alexander Douglas and Donald Sutherland's Second Chance broadcast.
Disney's Song Of The South, the first to combine live action with animation and most popular movie of 1946, premiered at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Emma Oxnard was found dead in her bed in Newcastle upon Tyne by her sister. She had been beaten and strangled, almost three weeks earlier. In the meantime, her husband, Albert, had been sending letters and postcards to her sister from Blackpool, explaining that they had saved their marriage and would be coming home soon. In reality, after his wife had refused to have sex with him throughout their sixteen-year marriage, he had married another woman in Poulton-le-Fylde, who was pregnant with his child. Two months after the body was discovered, he was found very guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but he was given a reprieve by the Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, a few days before he was due to be hanged. Oxnard served nine years in prison and was reunited with his second wife and son upon his release.
Meteorologist Vincent Schaefer, a researcher for the General Electric company, made the first successful test of cloud seeding as a means of weather control. England beat Wales three-nil at Maine Road in the Home International championship. Wilf Mannion scored twice with Tommy Lawton adding the third.
Bernard Merivale's The Unguarded Hour broadcast.
The Oldest Woman In The World by Oby O'Byrne broadcast in The Light Programme's Saturday Playhouse strand.
Jan De Hartog's Death Of A Rat broadcast.
Andrea Allan born in Glasgow.
David Jones's In Parenthesis broadcast on The Third Programme.
A minor incident in French Indochina set in motion a chain of events that would lead to nearly thirty years of war in Vietnam. A French patrol boat seized a Chinese junk as it sailed into the harbour of Haiphong, smuggling a cargo of gasoline. The Viet Minh guerrilla army captured the French boat and its crew and the French Army responded with an ultimatum that expired two days later with deadly consequences.
William Wyler's The Best Years Of Our Lives - starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo and Harold Russell - premiered.
The first episode of Kaleidoscope broadcast, featuring an early TV appearance by Leslie Welch, The Memory Man. Otto Thierack, Reich Minister of Justice from 1942 to 1945, hanged himself before he could be brought before a military court in the Nuremberg Judges' Trial.
As the French battlecruiser Suffren sat in Haiphong harbour, Colonel Pierre-Louis Debès delivered an ultimatum, telling the Viet Minh that it had two hours to withdraw its armies from the port and from the French and Chinese sections of the city, or face bombardment. When they refused to comply, Debès, who had been directed by General Jean Etienne Valluy to give the enemy 'une dure leçon' ('a hard lesson') for the events earlier in the week, ordered an attack. Don Seigel's The Verdict - starring Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre - premiered. Diana Marilyn Quick born in London.
Michael Feast born in Brighton. Bernard Knowles' The Magic Bow - starring Stewart Granger, Phyllis Calvert, Jean Kent and Dennis Price - premiered.
Brian Hibbard born in Ebbw Vale.
Fidel Castro, a twenty two-year-old law student at the University of Havana, made his first major speech, denouncing Cuban President Ramón Grau at the Colon Cemetery. England defeated the Netherlands eight-two in a friendly at Huddersfield. Tommy Lawton scored four and Raich Carter two with Tom Finney and Wilf Mannion also on target. Blackpool's Harry Johnston made his international debut. Appalling weather restricted the Leeds Road attendance to thirty two thousand. The thorny issue of how the port of Trieste was to be governed moved a huge step closer to resolution at a meeting in New York between the foreign ministers of France, the Soviet Union, the United States and the UK (Ernest Bevin). Before the war, it had been part of Italy, but it was then occupied by the Nazis, before being taken over by Yugoslavia towards the end of the war. The meeting agreed on the withdrawal of troops so that the Free Territory of Trieste could be created under United Nations control. In 1954, the port was returned to Italy, but other parts of the surrounding territory became part of Yugoslavia.
The first episode of Pinwright's Progress, British television's first sitcom, broadcast.
Patrick Macnee's TV début in Morning Departure. Margaret Baker born in Plymouth.
Gerald Savory's George & Margaret broadcast. The International Whaling Commission was created.Giovanni Maria Versace born in Reggio Calabria. Stanley Haynes' Carnival - starring Sally Gray, Michael Wilding, Stanley Holloway, Bernard Miles, Jean Kent, Catherine Lacey and Hazel Court and Marcel Varnel's This Man Is Mine - starring Tom Walls, Glynis Johns and Jeanne De Casalis - premiered.
John Ford's My Darling Clementine - starring Henry Fonda and Victor Mature - premiered.
Australia won the first Ashes test at Brisbane by an innings and three hundred and thirty two runs. The hosts scored a massive six hundred and forty five (Don Bradman one hundred and eighty seven, Lindsay Hassett one hundred and twenty eight, Colin McCool, ninety five). England were then dismissed cheaply twice after a thunderstorm had made the wicket unplayable, Keith Miller taking seven wickets in the first innings and Ernie Toshack six in the second. No England batsman made more than thirty two. The goodwill between the sides was dealt a blow when Bradman - then on twenty eight - appeared to have been caught in the slips but refused to walk and was given not out by the umpire, George Borwick. For the rest of the tour England's captain, Wally Hammond, would only speak to Bradman at the toss for each test.
Josep Maria Carreras i Coll born in Barcelona.
The final attempt at resolving the question of the independence of India as a single nation, failed. A four-day conference had been held at Downing Street with Jawaharlal Nehru of the Congress Party, Muslim League president Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Sikh leader Sardar Baldev Singh being hosted by Prime Minister Attlee.
The United Nations emblem was approved by the General Assembly's Resolution. Rosalind Ayres born in Birmingham. Sidney Gilliat's Green For Danger - starring Alastair Sim, Leo Genn, Sally Gray, Rosamund John and Trevor Howard - premiered.
The Nuremberg Doctors' Trial opened with twenty three defendants, sixteen of whom would be convicted.
Emerson Wojciechowska Fittipaldi born in São Paulo. Socialist and anti-colonialist Léon Blum took office as the new Prime Minister of France. Barrie Thomas Rutter born in Hull.
Employees at the Gigant cinema in the Soviet city of Omsk discovered the corpses of thirteen young boys. Police found the bodies of an additional seven children at a factory on the outskirts of town and determined that the murders had been carried out by a gang of juvenile delinquents, whose motive was to steal shoes and jackets.
Jane Mallory Birkin born in London. Anna Marie Duke born in New York.
The Third String Quartet of Dmitri Shostakovich was first performed, in Moscow. The piece proved to be controversial and was withdrawn from public performance as part of Andrei Zhdanov's campaign against artistic works deemed to be anti-Soviet, with questions even about whether the musical notes had a subversive message. Göran Bror Andersson born in Stockholm. Christopher Michael Ellison born in London. David Lean's adaptation of Great Expectations - starring John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Bernard Miles, Francis L Sullivan, Anthony Wager and Jean Simmons - premiered.
A new American altitude record was set as a captured V-2 rocket, number seventeen, was launched to an altitude of one hundred and sixteen miles.
John Berry's Cross My Heart - starring Betty Hutton and Sonny Tufts and Clarence Brown's The Yearling - starring Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman - premiered. Steven Allan Spielberg born in Cincinnati. Bantu Stephen Biko born in King William's Town, South Africa.

The second Ashes test at Sydney ended in another innings victory for Australia. Bill Edrich was England's top scorer in both innings (seventy nine and one hundred and nineteen). Australia's six hundred and fifty nine for eight declared contained double centuries for Bradman and Sid Barnes. The Battle of Hanoi began. Victor M Gover's The Curse Of The Wraydons - starring Tod Slaughter, Bruce Seton, Henry Caine and Pearl Cameron - premiered.
Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life - starring Jimmy Stewart returning to film after completing his World War II service - premiered in New York. Despite its Christmas setting, it was not released nationally until 7 January and was a not a hit on its theatrical release. A failure to renew the copyright in 1974 led to the film being run frequently on television thereafter, turning it into one of the most popular Christmas films ever. A team of American cryptanalysts, led by Meredith Gardner, decoded a secret cable that had been sent in 1944 to Moscow, and found it contained a list of scientists working on The Manhattan Project, the first of many disclosures that there had been a Soviet espionage operating along atomic bomb researchers at Los Alamos. Clement Attlee announced to the House of Commons that the UK was prepared to offer Burma its independence. Opposition leader Churchill denounced the move as hastening 'the process of the decline and fall of the British Empire.' Sugar Ray Robinson won the first of six boxing titles, becoming the world welterweight champion with a decision over Tommy Bell. Uri Geller born in Tel Aviv. Lesley Judd born in London. John Speshock Jr born in New York.
Clemence Dane's dramatisation of Alice - with Vivian Pickles in the title role - broadcast. Carl Dean Wilson born in Hawthorne, California.
An adaptation of Shaw's Arms & The Man broadcast. A summit of American organised crime bosses was held at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, owned by Meyer Lansky. The occasion was the return of Lucky Luciano from Italy, where he had been deported in February. Luciano accepted expensive tributes from the visitors, brokered a truce between Albert Anastasia and Vito Genovese, discussed establishing a new route for the trafficking of heroin and planned the fate of rival boss Bugsy Siegel.
The first TV adaptation of Just William broadcast. Alfred Santell's That Brennan Girl - starring James Dunn, Mona Freeman, William Marshall and June Duprez, John Argyle's Send For Paul Temple - starring Anthony Hulme, Joy Shelton and Tamara Desni and Montgomery Tully's Spring Song - starring Peter Graves and Carol Rayepremiered.
Christmas Eve Variety broadcast.
Christmas Argosy broadcast on The Light Programme. Philip Bate's fantasy Christmas Night - featuring Hubert Foss - broadcast. The Soviet Union first achieved a self-sustaining and controlled nuclear chain reaction, at the F-1 uranium-graphite nuclear reactor at Moscow. The team was guided by physicist Igor Kurchatov. Humoresque - starring Joan Crawford and John Garfield - premiered. Stuart Conan Wilson born in Guildford.
An adaptation of Noel Coward's Hay Fever featuring the TV debut of Nicholas Parsons broadcast. David Lean's adaptation of Great Expectations - starring John Mills - released. The Razor's Edge - starring Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney and Anne Baxter - premiered. The Pink Flamingo Hotel and Casino opened on the Las Vegas Strip, the first of a new type of gambling resort that would transform the city. Mobster Bugsy Siegel, who went millions of dollars over budget on money borrowed from other criminals in building the Flamingo. Ernie Adamson, lead counsel for the House Un-American Activities Committee, released a report that he had made to the committee, charging that seventeen of the labour unions of the Congress of Industrial Organisations were dominated by Russian agents and that plans were being made for Communist revolution in the United States. Adamson alleged that the Library of Congress was 'a haven for aliens and foreign-minded Americans.' The HUAC had not yet read, let alone approved the report and fired Adamson.
Janet Vera Bull born in London.
From China, General George Marshall notified President Truman that his mission to negotiate a ceasefire between the Nationalist and Communist factions had failed. Edgar Holland Winter born in Beaumont, Texas.
An adaptation of Toad of Toad Hall broadcast. The first episode of Down Your Way broadcast on The Light Programme. Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull born in Hampstead.
The day after a British prison in Palestine gave eighteen lashes to punish seventeen-year-old bank robbery suspect Benjamin Kimchin of the Zionist group Irgun, the group retaliated by kidnapping Army Major Paddy Brett and three non-commissioned officers from the Metropole Hotel at Nathanya. The three non-coms were each whipped eighteen times and Major Brett twenty, before being released. The perpetrators were soon captured and punished, but the British forces never used corporal punishment against the Irgun again. Patricia Lee Smith born in Chicago. Hans-Hubert Vogts born in Büttgen.
President Truman delivered Presidential Proclamation 2714, which officially ended American hostilities in World War II. King Vidor's Duel In The Sun - starring Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten and Gregory Peck - premiered in Los Angeles.