What in the world happened during June 1946?
As David Einstein was leading the fledgling COFCO during June 1946, the world was a tumultuous place. Still reeling from the effects of World War II, nations were doing their best to reorganize themselves and move forward.
Here are a few of the interesting happenings from that month in 1946:
Penicillin first went on sale to the general public in the UK a full 14 months after it had become available in pharmacies in the US
The United States Army recovered a treasure trove of jewelry and manuscripts that had been stolen by a group of American officers from the Friedrichshof Castle in Kronberg, Germany. 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 W. Durant, had hidden hundreds of diamonds and other gems in a locker at the Illinois Central railway station in Chicago
An agreement to withdraw all Allied occupation forces from Italy, over a 90-day period, was approved in Paris by the representatives of the “Big Four” powers (France, the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom). The Soviets also agreed to withdraw their troops from Bulgaria.
At the Nuremberg trials, 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 World War II. 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 to escape Adolf Hitler’s regime.
The Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the rule making and judicial functions of all United States government agencies, was signed into law. The law has been described as “the most important statute affecting the administration of justice in the federal field since the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789.”
The World Bank (officially the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) began operations, with Eugene Meyer, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, as the IBRD’s first President
After nearly five years of price and wage controls by the United States Office of Price Administration, the OPA’s emergency wartime powers ended at midnight. Two days earlier, the U.S. Senate declined to extend the OPA’s authority,[62] and a final appeal to the American public by President Truman failed.[63] Expiring at midnight also were the mandates of the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC), which had acted against discrimination by race,[64] and the War Relocation Authority, which carried out racial discrimination, most notably in the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, was abolished.
The BBC Television network went back on the air for the first time since it had abruptly halted broadcasting, in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon, at noon on September 1, 1939, when World War II had begun. The first program shown when broadcasting resumed was the very same cartoon that had been halted almost seven years earlier
The first recorded birth, in Japan, of a baby born of a Japanese mother and one of the American soldiers occupying Japan, was announced on Japanese radio. The birth, the first of tens of thousands that would follow, came a little more than nine months after the first American occupation forces had arrived on the Honshu island.
The Blue Angels, the aerial demonstration team for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps, made its very first performance, with four pilots under the leadership of Lt. Commander Butch Voris flying at an airshow at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida.
The Basketball Association of America was formed in New York City. The forerunner of the NBA, the BAA awarded 13 big-city franchises, of which three — the Boston Celtics, the New York Knicks and the Golden State Warriors (in 1946, the Philadelphia Warriors) — still exist. Other teams were in Chicago (Stags), Detroit (Falcons), Pittsburgh (Ironmen), Providence (Steamrollers), St. Louis (Bombers), Toronto (Huskies) and Washington (Capitols), while franchises in Buffalo and Indianapolis failed to play.
Mobile Telephone Service (MTS), the first “car phone” service in the United States, was introduced by AT&T in St. Louis, Missouri, working in conjunction with Southwestern Bell. With the aid of a radio tower that transmitted on 120 kHz and coul handle only one call at a time, customers could place and receive phone calls in their automobiles. The service was then instituted in other American cities. To call someone on an MTS phone, a person would first call an AT&T operator, who would then send a signal to the designated MTS telephone number. Calls from an auto were also operator assisted
Births and Deaths:
Donald Trump, American real estate magnate and billionaire, and host of television program The Apprentice, was born in New York City
John Logie Baird, 57, Scottish inventor of television technology died
Sally Priesand, first woman rabbi in the United States, in Cleveland was born
Antoinette Perry, 58, American actress for whom the Tony Awards are named died
