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1948:
January 5 - Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl).
June 24 - Cold War: The Berlin Blockade begins.
June 26 - the Berlin Airlift begins, with USAF, Royal Air Force, and British civil transport aircraft carrying supplies into West Berlin
1947 (Since the movie came out this year...) January 15 - Elizabeth Short (the "Black Dahlia") is found murdered
March 21 - Homer Collyer of the Collyer brothers is found dead in their house in Harlem, New York City. His brother is found April 8 (Interesting because the brothers lived like rats in a trash filled house but were actually fairly wealthy)
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
November 20- The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King George VI marries the Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London
1946
ENIAC, the first non-classified all-electronic computer, becomes operational.
http://imrl.usu.edu/OSLO/images/eniac-01.gif
1945-- February 23 - World War II: Following the American victory at the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima taken by Joe Rosenthal will later win a Pulitzer Prize.
April 28 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are executed by Italian partisans as they attempt to flee the country. Their bodies are then hung by their heels in the public square of Milan.
April 30 - Adolf Hitler and his wife of one day, Eva Braun, commit suicide as Red Army approaches Führerbunker in Berlin. Karl Dönitz succeeds Hitler as President of Germany. Joseph Goebbels succeeds Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.
May 8 - World War II: V-E Day (Victory in Europe, as Nazi Germany surrenders) commemorates the end of World War II in Europe.
July 28 - An Army Air Forces B-25 bomber accidentally crashes into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people
August 6 - World War II: the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The United States detonates an atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan at 8:16 AM (local time)
August 9 - World War II: The United States detonates an atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" over the city of Nagasaki, Japan at 11:02 AM (local time).
August 15 - World War II: Emperor Hirohito announces Japan's surrender on the radio. The United States called this day V-J Day (Victory in Japan). This ends the period of Japanese expansionism and begins the period of Occupied Japan.
So much sorrow in one year... remember always that freedom is never free...
1944
June 6 - D-Day
Allied forces land on the beaches of Normandy
1943-- February 3 - World War II: The death of the Four Chaplains when their ship was struck by a torpedo. (Four very brave men, of various faiths stood together and united in prayer and song as the ship went under.)
March 13 - Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków (Hell comes to earth...)
May 24 - Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes Chief Medical Officer in Auschwitz (And with it, the Devil...)
April 22 - Albert Hofmann writes his first report about the hallucinogenic properties of LSD, which he first synthesized in 1938. (Meanwhile, people try other means of seeing visions of bad things!)
September 8 - World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies and the USAAF bombed the German General Headquarter for the Mediterranean zone Frascati bombing raid September 8, 1943.
1942
February 9 - Daylight saving time goes into effect in the U. S.
1941 May 27 - World War II: German battleship Bismarck is sunk in North Atlantic killing 2,300.
July 31 - Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."
(Plans for hell take shape.)
December 7, December 8 (in Japan standard time) - Japanese Navy launches a surprise attack consisting of two full regiments on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor, thus drawing the United States into World War II. (Roosevelt 's "Day of Imfamy")
December 8 - World War II: The United States officially declares war on Japan.
December 8 - World War II: China officially declares war on Japan
December 8 - World War II: The Netherlands declares war on Japan
December 8 - World War II: Japan launches an invasion of Malaya.
December 11 - World War II: Germany declares war on the United States
1940 - August
Soviet Union annexes Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
1939 - End of the Spanish Civil War. The Luftwaffe is primed for disillusionment in the Battle of Britain the next year.
1938
November 1 - Horse Racing
Seabiscuit defeats War Admiral
1937:
July 7 - The Second Sino-Japanese War begins, and keeps going until 1945!
December 21 - Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature-length animated cartoon, opens and becomes a smash hit.
1936 - August 1
The Summer Olympics begin in Berlin, Germany
1935.
January 11-12 – Amelia Earhart makes the first solo flight across the Pacific from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California.
March 22 - Germany begin regular television service in Berlin using an 180 line electronic television system. It is seen only in public viewing rooms seating 30 people each.
March 28 - Robert Goddard launches the world's first successful liquid-fuelled rocket.
April 26 - France begins broadcasting regular transmissions from the top of the Eiffel Tower
September 11 - Final transmission of John Logie Baird’s 30-line television system by the BBC. The BBC begins preparations for a regular high definition broadcasting service from Alexandra Palace.
1934 - December 9
British actress Judi Dench is born