1947

Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s

1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 - 1947 - 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952

Events

• January 3 - Proceedings of the United States Congress are televised for the first time.
• February 3 - Percival Prattis becomes the first African American news correspondent allowed in the United States House and Senate press gallery.
• February 10 - Paris peace treaties signed between the World War II Allies and Italy, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria: Italy cedes most of Istria to Yugoslavia
• February 17 - Propaganda: The Voice of America begins to transmit radio broadcasts into the Soviet Union.
• February 21 - In New York City Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
• March 1 - The International Monetary Fund begins to operate.
• March 6 - The Newport News, the first air-conditioned naval ship, is launched from Newport News, Virginia.
• March 12 - The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.
• March 25 - A coalmine explosion in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.
• April 9 - The Glazier-Higgins-Woodward Tornadoes kill 181 and injure 970 in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
• April 15 - Jackie Robinson, an African-American, takes the field at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers major-league baseball team, breaking that sport's color line.
• April 16 - The Texas City Disaster occurs when a French ship loaded with ammonium nitrate blows up in the harbor of Texas City, Texas. Approximately 600 were killed or missing due to the blast, with 2,000 injured.
• April 27 - Babe Ruth Day is celebrated at Yankee Stadium
• May 22 - Cold War: In an effort to fight the spread of Communism, President Harry S. Truman signs an act implementing the Truman Doctrine. The act granted $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece.
• June 5 - Secretary of State Gen George Marshall outlines the Marshall Plan for U.S. aid to Europe.
• July 18 - President Harry S. Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act into law which places the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the United States Vice President.
• July 26 - Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.
• July 29 - After being shut off on November 9, 1946 for a refurbishment, ENIAC, one of the world's first digital computers, is turned on after a memory upgrade. It will remain in continuous operation until October 2, 1955.
• August 7 - Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101 day 4,300 mile journey across the Pacific Ocean proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.
• August 14 - Pakistan gains indepdence from the British Empire. While the transition is officially at midnight on this day, Pakistan celebrates it's indepdence on August 14 compared to India on the 15th.
• August 15 - Following decades of nonviolent resistance, India gains independence from the British Empire. Pakistan splits from India.
• October 14 - American test pilot, Captain Chuck Yeager flies a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, the first man to do so in level flight.
• November 2 - In California, Designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden flight of the Spruce Goose; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built (flight lasted only eight minutes).
• November 20- Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth marries the Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London.
• November 24 - Red Scare: After refusing to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee concerning allegations of Communist influence in the movie industry, the United States House of Representatives votes 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt of Congress against the so-called Hollywood 10 (they were blacklisted by Hollywood film studios the next day).
• November 25 - New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.
• November 29 - The United Nations General Assembly votes to partition Palestine between Arabs and Jews.
• December 3 - Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway.
• December 30 - King Michael of Romania abdicates
• Prussia is legally abolished by the Allied Control Council following World War II and the establishment of the Oder-Neisse line as Germany's eastern border.

• The House Un-American Activities Committee begin their investigations of communism in Hollywood.
• Cambridge University begins to admits women as full students.
• Mikhail Kalashnikov designs the AK-47 assault rifle.
• Walter Morrison invents the Frisbee.
• Raytheon produces first commercial microwave oven.

Year in topic

• 1947 in film
  • Gentleman's Agreement
  • Miracle on 34th Street
• 1947 in literature
• 1947 in music
• 1947 in sports
• 1947 in television
• January 22 - The first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, begins operation in Hollywood, California.
  • January 30 - The FCC rejects CBS' color television system.
  • May 7 - Kraft Television Theater premieres on NBC, the first regularly scheduled drama series on a network.
  • September 30 - The opening game of the World Series is the first World Series game to be telecast. The 1947 World Series brought in an estimated 3.9 million people, becoming television's first mass audience.
  • October 5 - The first presidential address is telecast from the White House. President Truman speaks about the world food crisis.
  • November 6 - Meet the Press first appears as a local program in Washington.
  • November 20 - Meet the Press first network telecast.
  • December 27 - Puppet Television Theater (later called Howdy Doody), a children's television program, makes its debut (NBC).
  • The first Hollywood film production for TV, The Public Prosecutor.
  • There are 14,000 television sets in use in the United States.

Births

• January 8 - David Bowie - Pop star
• January 8 - Samuel Schmid, member of the Swiss Federal Council
• January 11 - Bryan Robson, football player
• January 16 - Dr. Laura Schlessinger, physiologist, radio talk show host
• January 18 - Takeshi Kitano - Director and actor
• January 24 - Warren Zevon, musician (d. 2003)
• January 30 - Steve Marriott, musician ("The Small Faces") (d. 1991)
• January 31 - Nolan Ryan, Baseball Hall of Famer
• February 1 - Jessica Savitch, journalist (d. 1983)
• February 2 - Farrah Fawcett, actress
• February 2 - Melanie, singer
• February 3 - Paul Auster, novelist
• February 4 - Dan Quayle, Vice President of the United States
• February 5 - Darrell Waltrip, automobile racer, broadcaster
• February 10 - Louise Arbour, jurist
• February 13 - Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University basketball coach, Basketball Hall of Famer
• February 18 - Princess Christina of the Netherlands
• February 18 - Dennis DeYoung, musician ("Styx")
• February 20 - Peter Osgood, English football player
• February 20 - Peter Strauss, actor
• February 24 - Edward James Olmos, actor
• March 6 - Rob Reiner, actor, comedian, movie producer
• March 6 - Dick Fosbury, athlete
• March 6 - Kiki Dee, singer
• March 7 - Walter Röhrl, car racer
• March 8 - Carole Bayer Sager, composer
• March 10 - Kim Campbell, first female Prime Minister of Canada (1993)
• March 12 - Kalervo Palsa, Finland artist
• March 14 - Billy Crystal, actor, comedian
• March 15 - Ry Cooder, guitarist
• March 19 - Glenn Close, actress
• March 24 - Louise Lanctôt, FLQ terrorist and writer
• March 25 - Elton John - Pop star
• April 2 - Camille Paglia, feminist writer
• April 2 - Emmylou Harris, singer
• April 12 - David Letterman - US entertainer
• April 12 - Tom Clancy, author
• April 16 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Basketball Hall of Famer
• April 18 - Kathy Acker, author
• April 26 - Donna DeVarona, Olympic gold medalist in swimming, sports journalist, sports activist
• May 6 - Martha Nussbaum, philosopher
• May 13 - Stephen R. Donaldson, American fantasy novelist
• June 4 - Viktor Klima, former Austrian Chancellor
• June 19 - Salman Rushdie, author
• June 20- Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Gloucester
• June 22 - Pete Maravich, Basketball Hall of Famer (d. 1988)
• July 2 - Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld
• July 20 - Carlos Santana, rock star
• July 30 - Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor, former bodybuilder, 38th Governor of California
• September 3 - Kjell Magne Bondevik, Prime Minister of Norway
• September 17 - Tessa Jowell, British politician
• September 30 - Marc Bolan, musician ("T Rex") (d. 1977)
• October 19 - Giorgio Cavazzano, comics artist and illustrator
• October 26 - Trevor Joyce, Irish poet
• November 14 - P. J. O'Rourke, journalist and satirist
• November 19 - Bob Boone, baseball player and manager
• December 9 - U.S. Senator Tom Daschle
• December 27 - Steven Spielberg, American film director

Deaths

• Tristan Bernard - French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer
• Aleister Crowley - British occultist
• January 25 - Al Capone, gangster
• March 11 - Victor Lustig, great con artist
• March 18 - William Durant, automobile pioneer, founder of General Motors
• March 30 - Arthur Machen, author
• April 1 - King George II of Greece
• April 7 - Henry Ford, automobile manufacturer and industrialist
• May 17 - George William Forbes, Prime Minister of New Zealand
• November 25 - Léon-Paul Fargue, poet
• December 17 - J. N. Bronsted, physical chemist.

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Sir Edward Victor Appleton
• Chemistry - Sir Robert Robinson
• Medicine - Carl Ferdinand Cori, Gerty Theresa, née Radnitz Cori, Bernardo Alberto Houssay
• Literature - André Paul Guillaume Gide
• Peace - The Friends Service Council (UK) and The American Friends Service Committee (USA), on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers.

Referenced By