Penicillin first went on sale to the general public in the United Kingdom. The antibiotic had been made available at pharmacies in the United States beginning March 15, 1945.[1]
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University's "Marching 100" was founded by the late William P. Foster
By a 61–20 vote, the U.S. Senate granted President Truman emergency powers to end strikes. The bill had passed the House the previous week.[2]
Ion Antonescu, prime minister and "Conducator" (Leader) of
Romania during World War II was executed after being found guilty of betraying the Romanian people to German occupiers.
By a vote of 12,718,641 to 10,718,502 in the
Italian institutional referendum, the
monarchy in Italy was abolished, ending the brief reign of
King Umberto II, who would go into exile.[5] The simultaneous
general election, the first since the end of World War II and the Fascist Party dictatorship of
Benito Mussolini, and also the first in which women were allowed to vote, determined representation for the
Constituent Assembly. The
Christian Democracy party, led by Prime Minister
Alcide De Gasperi, won 207 out of 556 seats and formed a coalition government with the Socialists (115) and Communist (104) parties.[6] The Christian Democracy party would lead the Italian government continuously until 1981.
By a 6–1 vote, the United States Supreme Court ruled in
Morgan v. Virginia that a Virginia law, requiring
segregation of white and African-American bus passengers, was illegal for interstate travel. The suit had been brought by Irene Morgan, who had refused to sit in the negro section of a bus traveling from
Gloucester County, Virginia, to
Baltimore, Maryland.[8]
Ch'en Kung-po, 54, founding member of Chinese Communist Party and collaborator, was executed
June 4, 1946 (Tuesday)
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.[9]
The
National School Lunch Act was signed into law by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, permanently establishing federal financial support for free or low-cost meals for schoolchildren.[10]
The largest
solar prominence observed up to that time occurred. The prominence, extending 865,000 miles (1,392,000 km) above the surface of the Sun, was seen from the observatory at Climax, Colorado, by astronomer
Walter Orr Roberts. The prominence had been measured at only 300,000 miles (480,000 km) an hour earlier. At its height, the prominence was nearly as long as the Sun's diameter; in a few more hours, it disappeared completely."[11]
June 5, 1946 (Wednesday)
A fire at the
La Salle Hotel in
Chicago killed 57 people. When the blaze broke out at 12:20 am, there were 1,059 guests and 108 employees in the 20-story building. Firefighters were not called until 15 minutes after the flames were spotted, and by 12:35, the blaze had spread from the hotel's Silver Grill Cocktail Lounge throughout the lower floors. Most of the dead were guests on 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th floors of the twenty-story building. At least ten people jumped to their deaths.[12]
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.[13]
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.[17]
After setting a Friday evening deadline for walking out on strike two days earlier, the
Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team voted to go ahead with their scheduled game against the New York Giants. On June 5, the players voted unanimously to walk off the job unless they were allowed to join the
American Baseball Guild, a labor union. An unidentified player reported that the vote had been 20 to 17 against a walkout. The team went on to beat the Giants 10–5.[18]
June 8, 1946 (Saturday)
Thirteen months after
V-E Day, the
United Kingdom celebrated its victory in World War II with a program that featured "all the pomp and circumstance it had given up during the war" and that was witnessed by "nearly one fourth of England's people" [19] Tens of thousands of uniformed marchers represented the Allied nations in a nine-mile-long procession, while the
Royal Air Force flew overhead.
Ananda Mahidol, the 20-year-old
King of Thailand, was found in his bedroom dead, from a single gunshot to his forehead, and with his Colt .45 pistol next to him. He was succeeded by his teenaged brother,
Bhumibol Adulyadej, who became King Rama IX[20] and ruled until his death in October 2016. Although the death was initially ruled an accidental shooting, and speculated by author
Rayne Kruger in The Devil's Discus (Cassell, 1964) to have been a suicide, royal secretary Chaleo Pathumros and two others were executed in 1955 after being convicted of King Ananda's murder.[21]
A fire at the Canfield Hotel in
Dubuque, Iowa, killed 16 people.[22]
June 10, 1946 (Monday)
Jack Johnson, the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1908 to 1915, and the first African-American to win that title, was killed in an automobile accident. In 1910, Johnson had defended his title in what was called then "The Fight of the Century", matching him against "The Great White Hope", former champion
Jim Jeffries. Johnson had been driving from Texas to New York when his car crashed into a light pole near
Franklinton, North Carolina.[23]
June 11, 1946 (Tuesday)
The
Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the rulemaking and judicial functions of all United States government agencies, was signed into law.[24] 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".[25]
June 12, 1946 (Wednesday)
After the
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry had unanimously recommended that up to 100,000 European Jews be allowed to immigrate to
Palestine, British Foreign Secretary
Ernest Bevin declared that the United Kingdom would reject the plan.[26] Speaking at the annual conference of Britain's Labour Party, Bevin commented that the motive for American support for a Jewish state was "because they did not want too many of them in New York." Following the rejection of the proposal, Zionist leaders began a campaign of violence against the British government in the future state of Israel.[27]
After a reign of 31 days, King
Umberto II of Italy elected not to further contest the results of the June 2 referendum that abolished the monarchy, and flew into exile. Earlier in the day, Parliament had granted Prime Minister
Alcide De Gasperi power to serve as the acting
head of state until the election results could be certified.[28]
As the United States representative to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, financier
Bernard Baruch spoke at the UNAEC's temporary headquarters at New York's
Hunter College, and presented the
Baruch Plan, the American proposal for United Nations' control of all nuclear weapons. At the time, the United States was the only nation to have produced an atomic bomb. Baruch opened his remarks by saying, "We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead.".[29] Under the plan, the U.N.'s member nations would have agreed to not develop nuclear weapons and to allow inspections by the UNAEC to verify compliance, with punishments for violation of the agreement. No member of the U.N. Security Council would have been allowed to veto a resolution for enforcement. In return, the UNAEC would have assisted member nations in developing nuclear energy for peaceful uses. A week later, the
Soviet Union made a counterproposal that would have delayed discussion of enforcement procedures until after weapons were destroyed.[30] No agreement was ever reached, and the world's nations developed their own nuclear arsenals.[31] One historian later offered the opinion that "the Baruch Plan was the nearest approach to a world government proposal ever offered by the United States",[32]
A
total lunar eclipse, completely visible over
South America, Europe,
Africa, Asia, Australia, was seen rising over South America, Europe and Africa and setting over Asia and Australia took place.[33]
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.[37]
In golf's
U.S. Open,
Byron Nelson,
Lloyd Mangrum and
Vic Ghezzi finished 72 holes of golf in a three-way tie, each having 283, at the tournament in Cleveland. Nelson would have won outright, but his caddy had accidentally brushed his foot against the ball when Nelson's fans crowded the area, costing a penalty stroke.[38] The next day, the three men tied again at 72 in an 18-hole playoff. In the second playoff, played during a violent thunderstorm, Mangrum — who had been wounded twice during the
Battle of the Bulge finished at 72, a stroke ahead of Nelson and Ghezzi.[39]
The "
Night of the Bridges" took place as agents of the
Palmach, a strike force of the Zionist group
Haganah, destroyed eleven highway and railway bridges on the night of June 16–17.[40] Author
Joseph Heller commented later "Ten bridges connecting Palestine with the neighboring states were destroyed with no casualties. British occupying forces rounded many of the Haganah members in
Operation Agatha days later.[41]
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 could 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.[42]
In
Goa, at that time part of the colony of
Portuguese India, Dr.
Ram Manohar Lohia began the passive resistance movement against the Portuguese administration to become part of an independent India. The resistance continued for 15 years until Goa and other Portuguese colonies were invaded by the Indian army and annexed. Goa became India's 25th state in 1987.[44]
Bruiser Brody (ring name for as Frank Goodish), American professional wrestler; in
Detroit (d. 1988)
June 19, 1946 (Wednesday)
Georges Bidault was elected as the Provisional
President of France by the National Assembly, with 389 votes out of the 586 possible. Communist legislators refused to participate in the vote.[45]
A rematch between world heavyweight boxing champion
Joe Louis and challenger
Billy Conn attracted 45,266 fight fans to
Yankee Stadium, while another 140,000 viewed the fight on the NBC television network (including broadcasts in theaters). After a lackluster fight, Louis knocked Conn out in the eighth round.;[46]
Andrei Gromyko, the
Soviet Union's representative to the
United Nations submitted a response to the
Baruch Plan proposed by the United States six days earlier, with a disarmament plan of his own. The Soviet proposal was that the world's nations ratify a treaty pledging not to build nuclear weapons, and that within 90 days after ratification, the United States would destroy its atomic weapons arsenal.[47]
Sixty-three Germans and twenty Ukrainian refugees were killed in the explosion of ammunition that had been stored by the Nazi German regime in a salt mine at Hänigsen, near
Celle.[48]
June 20, 1946 (Thursday)
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.[49]
Died:Wanrong, 39, the last Empress Consort of China following her marriage to Emperor
Puyi
June 21, 1946 (Friday)
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.[51]
A cloud of
ammonia killed seven people and injured 41 at the Baker Hotel in
Dallas. Most of the victims were hotel employees who were overcome when an air conditioning unit, in the hotel's basement, exploded.[52]
June 22, 1946 (Saturday)
U.S. Senator
Theodore G. Bilbo of
Mississippi, running for re-election in the Democratic primary, said in a radio broadcast that he was calling on every "red-blooded Anglo-Saxon man in Mississippi to resort to any means to keep hundreds of Negroes from the polls in the July 2 primary", then added "And if you don't know what the means, you are just not up on your persuasive measures.".[53] Bilbo won re-election in the primary and general election, but as a result of his call for violence against African-American voters, the United States Senate refused to let him be sworn in for a new term.[54]
The first delivery of the United States mail by jet plane was made by two P-80 Shooting Star planes. The inaugural flight left
Schenectady, New York at 12:18 and arrived in Washington, D.C. at 1:07 pm, with an air mail letter delivered to President Truman.[55]
Born:Kay Redfield Jamison, American psychiatrist and bipolar disorder specialist
June 23, 1946 (Sunday)
The
Monnet Plan, France's proposal to dismantle 200 factories in the
French Zone of Occupation in southeast Germany to offset France's war losses of 4,869,000,000,000
francs (40 billion dollars) was presented. Over the next three years, the machinery from 22 factories in the occupation zone would be moved to France, and another 88 factories would be destroyed.[56]
Died: William S. Hart, 81, American film actor and star of Westerns during silent era
June 24, 1946 (Monday)
Seven players on the
Spokane Indians minor league baseball team, and their manager, were killed when their bus veered through a guard rail on the
Snoqualmie Pass Highway and plunged down a 500-foot embankment and into a ravine.[57] The Indians, in fifth place in the
Western International League (now the
Northwest League) had been on their way to
Bremerton, Washington, for a seven-game series against the Bluejackets.[58]
Ten middle school students were killed and twenty wounded at
Xuzhou (Hsuchow), in China's
Jiangsu province, after Nationalist Army officer Feng Yu-xiang Fang Jingxing ordered them to be fired on by machine guns. The massacre followed an angry confrontation between the students and the officer.[60]
June 26, 1946 (Wednesday)
Taking the
Chinese Civil War into a new phase, President
Chiang Kai-shek launched a nationwide military campaign against the Communist Chinese forces of
Mao Zedong, with Chiang's Nationalist Army moving into central China to take back rural areas that were under Communist control. The Nationalists had superior weapons and more troops, and Chiang received American aid for a strategy that he hoped would defeat Mao's forces within six months. Within nine months, it was clear that the campaign was failing, and by the end of 1949, China's mainland was under control of the Communist forces.[61]
On the day the campaign started, Nationalist Chinese pilot Liu Shanben defected to the Communists and delivered a B-24 Liberator bomber to the opposition, starting a wave of similar acts. Within three years, 54 pilots and 20 airplanes joined the Communist side.[62]
William Heirens, a 17-year-old student at the University of Chicago, was arrested for burglary, and soon charged with three murders tied to "The Lipstick Killer", including the
January 7 murder of 6-year old Suzanne Degnan.[63]
The
Canadian Citizenship Act was approved by Canada's House of Commons, separating Canadian citizenship from British nationality, effective January 1, 1947; Canada was the first
Commonwealth country to create its own citizenship laws.[65][66]
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.[67]
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,[70] and a final appeal to the American public by President Truman failed.[71] Expiring at midnight also were the mandates of the
Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC), which had acted against discrimination by race,[72] 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.[73]
In a national referendum, voters in Poland were presented with a yes-or-no choice on three issues: abolishing the Senate; supporting nationalization of industries and land, and conforming the border with the Soviet Union to reflect the loss of lands east of the
Odra and Nysa rivers. Official results showed two-thirds approval of all three measures, placed Poland under Communist rule for the next 43 years, by the
Polish Workers' Party.[74]
^"Monarchy Voted Out; Italian King Leaving", Milwaukee Journal, June 5, 1946, p1
^Guillermo A. O'Donnell, et al.,Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Southern Europe (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press 1986) p63
^"Communists Suffer Sharp Setback in French Election", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 3, 1946, p1; Herman Finer, Governments of Greater European Powers (Methuen, 1956) p322
^"Cannot Segregate Negroes in Buses", Milwaukee Journal, June 3, 1946, p1
^"New Cage Loop Formed With 13 Cities Enrolled", Milwaukee Journal, June 7, 1946, p38;
Basketball-Reference.com
^Interest Equalization Tax Act", transcript of hearings before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, June 29 to July 2, 1964 (U.S. Senate, 1964) p. 132
^Spencer E. Ante, Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital (Harvard Business Review Press, 2008) p. 79
^"Vinson to Be Chief Justice", Chicago Tribune, June 7, 1946, p1
^Albert Abramson, Zworykin, Pioneer of Television (University of Illinois Press, 1995) p193
^Milwaukee Journal: "Baseball's First Union Strike Set for Friday", June 6, 1946, p40; "Pittsburgh Players Insist They Will Go on Strike Tonight", June 7, 1946, p1; "Pirates' 'No Strike' Decision Real Blow to Baseball Guild", Milwaukee Journal, June 8, 1946, p6
^"Indians Take Salem Series; Leave Today for Bremerton", Spokane Daily Chronicle, June 24, 1946, p13
^Robert W. Oliver, George Woods and the World Bank (Lynne Rienner 1995) p39
^Neil L. O'Brien, An American editor in early revolutionary China: John William Powell and the China Weekly/Monthly Review (Routledge, 2003) p33
^Xiaobing Li, A History of the Modern Chinese Army (University Press of Kentucky, 2007) p73
^Xiaoming Zhang, Red Wings Over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea (Texas A&M University Press, 2004) p24
^"Young Student Held In Degnan Kidnap Murder", St. Petersburg Times, June 28, 1946, p1; "Chicago Boy Admits Three Lurid Killings", St. Petersburg Times, July 28, 1946, p1 Robert D. Keppel and William J. Birnes, Signature Killers (Simon and Schuster, 1997) p41
^David Miller, Submarine Disasters (Globe Pequot, 2006) p62; "46 Men Perish When Sub Sinks", The (Ottawa) Evening Citizen
^onathan V. Plaut, The Jews of Windsor, 1790-1990: a historical chronicle (Dundurn Press, 2007) p130
^Paul R. Spickard, Mixed Blood: Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in 20th-century America(University of Wisconsin Press, 1991) p125
^"2,000 Arrested In Holy Land", Palm Beach Post, July 1, 1946, p1
^Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger, Jewish terrorism in Israel (Columbia University Press, 2009) pp23-24
^*"Efforts to Save OPA Blocked", Milwaukee Journal, June 29, 1946
^"PRICE CONTROL ENDS TONIGHT, TRUMAN SAYS FIGHT NOT OVER", St. Petersburg Times, June 30, 1946, p1
^Kari A. Frederickson, The Dixiecrat revolt and the end of the Solid South, 1932 - 1968 (University of North Carolina Press, 2001) p34
^Jeffrey D. Schultz, Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics: African Americans and Asian Americans (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000) p268
^"Polish Voters Favor One-House Parliament", St. Petersburg (FL) Times, July 5, 1946; Jaff Schatz, The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists of Poland (University of California Press 1991) p205