<< May 1946 >>
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May 25, 1946: Truman comes within three minutes of ordering U.S. Army to seize America's railroads
May 11, 1946: The first "CARE Package" is delivered
May 3, 1946: Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal opens
May 16, 1946: The original "tape" recorder, the hi-fidelity Magnetophon, is first demonstrated

The following events occurred in May 1946:

May 1, 1946 (Wednesday)

May 2, 1946 (Thursday)

  • Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc., completed an engineering study on the feasibility of designing a human-carrying satellite. The study showed that if a vehicle could be accelerated to a speed of 27,360 kilometres per hour (17,000 mph) and aimed properly it would revolve on a circular orbit above the Earth's atmosphere as a new satellite. Such a vehicle would make a complete circuit of the Earth approximately every hour and a half. However, it would not pass over the same ground stations on successive circuits because the Earth would make about a one-sixteenth turn for each circuit of the satellite. Two fuels were considered in the study: hydrogen-oxygen and alcohol-oxygen. The liquid alcohol-hydrogen had been used to propel the German V-2 rockets. The use of either fuel to orbit an artificial satellite, the study showed, would require the use of a multistage vehicle. The study also indicated that maximum acceleration and temperatures could be kept within limits safe for humans. The vehicle envisioned would be used in obtaining scientific information on cosmic rays, gravitation, geophysics, terrestrial magnetism, astronomy, and meteorology.[2]
  • Six inmates unsuccessfully tried to escape from Alcatraz Prison, leading to a riot later recalled as the so-called "Battle of Alcatraz".[3][4][5]
  • The drama film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice starring Lana Turner and John Garfield was released.

May 3, 1946 (Friday)

May 4, 1946 (Saturday)

May 5, 1946 (Sunday)

May 6, 1946 (Monday)

  • American Zuni and Navajo veterans of World War II were denied in their attempts to register to vote in the 1946 general elections in New Mexico. The county clerk of McKinley County rejected their applications, citing a provision in the state constitution that denied the right of suffrage to "Indians not taxed", referring to Native Americans who lived on federal reservations.[16] The applicants challenged the provision, and on August 3, 1948, a federal court ruled that the New Mexico constitutional provision violated the United States Constitution. The 1948 general election marked the first time that residents of New Mexico's Indian reservations were allowed to vote.[17]
  • LIFE Magazine published "Bedlam 1946: Most U.S. Mental Hospitals are a Shame and a Disgrace" in its May 6, 1946, issue. Albert Q. Maisel's exposé of the atrocities at two mental institutions, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which he described as "concentration camps masquerading as hospitals",[18] spurred reforms in psychiatric care.[19]
  • Curly Howard, the bald member of The Three Stooges, suffered a stroke on the final day of filming of Half-Wits Holiday and retired at age 42.

May 7, 1946 (Tuesday)

  • Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo or Totsuko) was founded by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, who started with only 20 employees and built the company into one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers. In 1955, the company renamed itself Sony.[20]
  • Born: Thelma Houston, American pop singer ("Don't Leave Me This Way"), in Leland, Mississippi

May 8, 1946 (Wednesday)

May 9, 1946 (Thursday)

King Victor Emmanuel III

May 10, 1946 (Friday)

  • Two naval airplanes collided during a training mission at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, killing 28 U.S. Navy airmen. The two PB-4Y planes were practicing evasive maneuvers with an F6F Hellcat fighter and crashed into a wooded area eight miles north of the town of Munson in Santa Rosa County, Florida.[25]
  • An American-launched V-2 rocket reached a record high altitude, soaring 75 miles (121 km) above the White Sands, New Mexico, proving grounds. Prior to the flight, a man from Dorchester, Massachusetts, had volunteered to ride inside the nose cone of the reassembled German missile, and the U.S. 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 3,500 mile an hour top speed," noted a report, "but added there was no known means of escaping alive before the rocket crashed to earth."[26]
  • Born:

May 11, 1946 (Saturday)

  • Sixty-one SS members, who had carried out exterminations at the Mauthausen concentration camp at Dachau, were convicted of murdering 70,000 people, mostly Jewish.[27] Forty-nine of them were executed, and the other 12 released from prison by 1951.[28]
  • The first 20,000 "CARE Packages", each with almost 20 pounds (9.1 kg) of food, were delivered to people in need, as a ship unloaded the materials at the French port of Le Havre. Under the charity program, an individual could pay for a CARE Package to be delivered elsewhere in the world. The phrase "care package" would become a generic term for sending necessary items to someone in need. CARE originally stood for "Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe", and later for "Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere".[29]
  • Born: Robert Jarvik, American physicist and artificial heart inventor, in Midland, Michigan

May 12, 1946 (Sunday)

May 13, 1946 (Monday)

  • The Soviet ballistic missile program was formally created by a top secret decree (No. 1017-419ss) signed by Joseph Stalin, and Minister of Armaments Dmitriy Ustinov was made overseer of the project.[31]
  • The Federal Airport Act was signed into law by U.S. President Harry S Truman, providing for 500 million dollars in federal grants for civilian airport projects across the United States over a seven-year period.[32]
  • With U.S. coal supplies dwindling, striking American coal miners returned to work for two weeks on the orders of United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis, who said that the walkout would start anew if negotiations on a new labor contract failed.[33]

May 14, 1946 (Tuesday)

  • Nueces County, Texas, including Corpus Christi, was quarantined to prevent the spread of a "polio-like disease" that had broken out in Corpus Christi and San Antonio. In addition to the closing of all schools, churches, theaters, and parks, the roads leading into and out of Nueces County were blocked by 300 members of the Texas National Guard, and nobody under 21 was allowed in. Buses and trains were "sprayed with DDT", with the pesticide being used as a disinfectant.[34]

May 15, 1946 (Wednesday)

  • The USCG Eagle, later known as "America's Tall Ship", was commissioned as a training vessel for the United States Coast Guard. The only active American sail-powered vessel had been built in 1936 for the German Navy as the Horst Wessel, and was captured in World War II.[35]

May 16, 1946 (Thursday)

May 17, 1946 (Friday)

May 18, 1946 (Saturday)

May 19, 1946 (Sunday)

Tarkington

May 20, 1946 (Monday)

May 21, 1946 (Tuesday)

Louis Slotin
  • Dr. Louis Slotin, a physicist at the Los Alamos research center, 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. At 3:20 pm, the screwdriver slipped and the two 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.[48][49]

May 22, 1946 (Wednesday)

Krug
Frank

May 23, 1946 (Thursday)

  • At 4 p.m., thousands of railroad workers in the Eastern Time Zone of the United States walked off of their jobs. Hour by hour, as 4 o'clock arrived in the rest of the nation, laborers walked off of their jobs. By 7 pm EST, the 227,000 miles of American railroads were tied up.[52] In addition to the halt of freight shipments, millions of travelers were stranded in what was described as "the most crippling work stoppage the nation ever suffered",[53]
  • The first issue of the weekly news magazine World Report, created by publisher David Lawrence as a complement to his weekly newspaper United States News, was published. Beginning on January 16, 1948, the two publications would be combined into one weekly magazine, U.S. News & World Report.[54]
  • Chick-fil-A, a U.S. chain of restaurants known originally for their chicken fillet sandwiches, was founded by S. Truett Cathy with the opening of his Dwarf Grill 24-hour diner in Hapeville, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. [55] Mr. Cathy would expand his chicken restaurant chain by opening the first restaurant with the name "Chick-fil-A" on November 24, 1967, in Atlanta’s Greenbriar Mall and the chain remained limited to indoor shopping malls until inaugurating a stand-alone location in 1986. [55]

May 24, 1946 (Friday)

  • At 9 pm Eastern Time, U.S. President Harry S. Truman made a nationwide radio address regarding the railway strike, and delivered an ultimatum: "If sufficient workers to operate the trains have not returned, by 4 p.m. tomorrow, as head of our government, I have no alternative but to operate the trains by using every means within my power ... I shall ask our armed forces to furnish protection to every man who heeds the call of his country in this hour of need." Having set a deadline of 19 hours for action, Truman closed by saying that he would address a joint session of Congress the next day at 4.[56]
  • Thailand was invaded at dawn by 800 soldiers of the French Army, who crossed the Mekong River from Laos, at that time part of French Indo-China. The troops from France were supported by planes and artillery, and clashed with local forces while pursuing Communist rebels.[57]
  • An unidentified U.S. Congressman on the House Appropriations Committee told a reporter of a biological weapon that "can wipe out all form of life in a large city", describing a "germ proposition" that would be sprayed from airplanes to deliver "quick and certain death".[58]

May 25, 1946 (Saturday)

Flag of the Kingdom of Transjordan
  • In a 14-minute ceremony at Amman, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (referred to as the Kingdom of Transjordan until 1949) won its full independence from the United Kingdom. Before a crowd of 300,000 witnesses, the Emir Abdullah became the nation's King.[59]
  • With only three minutes left before the United States Army would seize control of the nation's railroads, the leaders of both striking railway workers' unions signed a settlement at the White House. With soldiers in place and a deadline of 4 pm EST, a verbal agreement was reached at 3:50 and the written pact was signed at 3:57.[60] Earlier in the day, the U.S. House of Representatives had approved President Truman's request for emergency legislation that would have allowed striking workers to be drafted into the U.S. armed forces.[61]
  • "The Gypsy" by The Ink Spots topped the Billboard Honor Roll of Hits.
  • Died:
    • Patty Smith Hill, 78, pioneering American educator known for co-authoring (with her sister Mildred J. Hill) the melody and lyrics for "Happy Birthday to You", originally as "Good Morning to All"; she was also the first director of the Institute of Child Welfare Research at Columbia University. [62]
    • Marcel Petiot, 49, French serial killer, was executed by guillotine

May 26, 1946 (Sunday)

Gottwald
  • In the first democratic elections since World War II in Czechoslovakia, the Communist Party, led by Klement Gottwald captured 114 of the 300 seats in Parliament. Gottwald became prime minister of a coalition government. In 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia would become the sole legal party.[63]
  • Vincent Pellicio, a 21-year-old prisoner in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, escaped from a road crew and would remain free for more than 40 years. At the time of his arrest on August 4, 1987, Pellicio was an electrician in Newhall, California. Returned to Virginia, Pellicio was pardoned later that month by Virginia Governor Gerald Baliles, "in view of his law-abiding behavior and commendable adjustment since his escape".[64]

May 27, 1946 (Monday)

  • 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. A short-lived, autonomous Pays Montagnard du Sud followed in 1950.[65]

May 28, 1946 (Tuesday)

  • The United States made a loan package to France for a record 1.37 billion dollars.[66]
  • In the first nighttime baseball game ever played at Yankee Stadium, a crowd of 49,917 watched the New York Yankees lose to the Washington Senators, 2–1.[67]
  • Born: Koyamparambath Satchidanandan, Indian Malayalam language poet, in Kerala
  • Died: Carter Glass, 89, United States Senator (D-Virginia) since 1920 and oldest member of the U.S. Senate. Senator Glass had not appeared in Congress in almost four years after a stroke, but had been re-elected later in 1942. Even after he became incapacitated, his seat was never declared vacant.

May 29, 1946 (Wednesday)

  • The Minsk Tractor Works was founded in the Soviet Union at the capital of the Byelorussian SSR (now Belarus). The state-supported company became the world's largest manufacturer of farm tractors.[68]
John L. Lewis

May 30, 1946 (Thursday)

May 31, 1946 (Friday)

References

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  2. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Brooks, Courtney G.; Ertel, Ivan D.; Newkirk, Roland W. "PART I: Early Space Station Activities -1923 to December 1962.". SKYLAB: A CHRONOLOGY. NASA Special Publication-4011. NASA. pp. 4–5. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  3. "Convict Revolt Grips Alcatraz". Salt Lake Tribune. May 3, 1946. p. 1.
  4. "Alcatraz Officers Regain Control". Salt Lake Tribune. May 5, 1946. p. 1.
  5. "The Battle of Alcatraz". AlcatrazHistory.com.
  6. "The Tokyo War Crimes Trials (1946–1948)". The American Experience.
  7. "I punti di vista della Yugoslavia e dell'Italia esposti da Kardelj e da De Gasperi ai Quattro" [The points of view of Yugoslavia and Italy presented by Kardelj and De Gasperi to the Four.]. La Stampa (in Italian). 4 May 1946.
  8. "Convict Lives On As 'Chair' Fails". Salt Lake Tribune. May 4, 1946. p. 1.
  9. King, Gilbert (July 19, 2006). "The Two Executions of Willie Francis". The Washington Post. p. A19.
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  14. Braun, Herbert (2003). The Assassination of Gaitan: Public Life And Urban Violence In Colombia. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 226.
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  16. "Indians Seek Vote Right", Salt Lake Tribune, May 7, 1946, p1
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  20. "Sony Corporate History", SonyEurope.com
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  22. 1 2 Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Grimwood, James M. "Part 1 (A) Major Events Leading to Project Mercury March 1944 through December 1957". Project Mercury - A Chronology. NASA Special Publication-4001. NASA. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
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  25. "28 Navy Airmen Die As Planes Collide". Salt Lake Tribune. May 11, 1946. p. 1.
  26. "Rocket Pierces Skies 75 Miles". The Spokesman-Review. Spokane, Washington. May 11, 1946. p. 1 via Google News.
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  28. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  29. CARE.org
  30. Newfoundland Herald website Archived 2008-10-03 at the Wayback Machine
  31. RussianSpaceWeb.com
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  34. "Guardsmen Patrol Texas City As Polio-Like Disease Spreads", Miami Daily News, May 14, 1946, p1
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  36. "Annie Oakley on Stage and Screen", The American Experience, pbs.org
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  38. "27 Die as Airliner Dives Into Virginia Pine Woods", Salt Lake Tribune, May 17, 1946, p1
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  46. Office of Public Sector Information, United Kingdom
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  50. "Truman Seizes Coal Pits; Orders Wage Parley", Salt Lake Tribune, May 22, 1946, p1
  51. Institute history
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  58. "New U.S. Secret Weapon Is Germ Spray That Can Wipe Out Cities" El Paso Herald-Post, May 24, 1946, p1
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  62. "Dr. Patty Hill Funeral Set For Today", Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal, May 27, 1946, p5
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  66. "France Given U.S. Loan of $1,370 Million", Salt Lake Tribune, May 29, 1946, p1
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  68. Minsk Tourist Bureau
  69. "Coal Dispute Ends; Strike Draft Dies – Lewis Orders Men Back, Gains 18.5 c Wage Hike". Salt Lake Tribune. May 30, 1946. p. 1.
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  71. "L.A. Dark Horse Wins Auto Race", Salt Lake Tribune, May 31, 1946, p1
  72. "90 Killed and 60 Injured as Chinese Train Derails", Milwaukee Journal, June 3, 1946, p1
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  74. "Turkish 'Quake Toll Set at 255". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. June 3, 1946. p. 1.
  75. Thomas, David St John (2006). Journey Through Britain: Landscape, People and Books. Frances Lincoln Ltd. p. 503.
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