March 1947

[March 1], 1947 (Saturday)

• Irgun operatives blew up a British officers' club in Jerusalem, killing 16. Three more British soldiers were killed that night in subsequent violence throughout the Holy Land.
• Chiang Kai-shek accepted the resignation of T. V. Soong as Premier of China and assumed the office himself.
• International Monetary Fund becomes operational.
• "Managua, Nicaragua" by Freddy Martin and His Orchestra hit #1 on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores record chart.
• Born: Alan Thicke, actor and television host, in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada

  [March 2], 1947 (Sunday)

• The British Army imposed martial law on a wide area of Palestine and made 60 arrests in connection with the previous day's violence.
• Born: Yuri Bogatyryov, actor, in Riga, Latvian SSR, Soviet Union
• Died: Frans Johan Louwrens Ghijsels, 64, Dutch architect and urban planner

  [March 3], 1947 (Monday)

• One minute after midnight, electric power was restored for all British industrial plants still idle since the three-week shutdown began.
• Joseph Stalin relinquished the post of Minister of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union and appointed Nikolai Bulganin to the position.
• Born: Jennifer Warnes, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer, in Seattle, Washington; Tommy Blom, singer, songwriter in Gothenburg, Sweden ; Óscar Washington Tabárez, former Uruguayan football player and manager, include a coach of Uruguay National Football Team, in Montevideo

  [March 4], 1947 (Tuesday)

• France and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Dunkirk, a pact of alliance and mutual assistance.
• 517 leftists were arrested by the Greek government and immediately deported to the islands.
• Villarbasse massacre: The last execution for common crimes in Italy took place in Turin when three Sicilians were shot by firing squad for clubbing ten people to death while committing a robbery.
• Born: Jan Garbarek, saxophonist, in Mysen, Norway; Gunnar Hansen, actor and author, in Reykjavík, Iceland

  [March 5], 1947 (Wednesday)

• The Judges' Trial began in Nuremberg. 15 German jurists and lawyers stood accused of Nazi war crimes. A sixteenth defendant, Carl Westphal, was indicted but had committed suicide before the trial began.
• Born: Kent Tekulve, baseball player, in Cincinnati, Ohio
• Died: Alfredo Casella, 63, Italian composer, pianist and conductor

  [March 6], 1947 (Thursday)

• By a vote of 337 to 185, the British Parliament defeated a Conservative motion demanding rejection of the June 1948 deadline for withdrawal from India.
• Born: Kiki Dee, singer, in Little Horton, West Riding of Yorkshire, England; Dick Fosbury, Olympic gold medalist high jumper, in Portland, Oregon ; Teru Miyamoto, author, in Kobe, Japan; Rob Reiner, actor, filmmaker and activist, in the Bronx, New York

  [March 7], 1947 (Friday)

• Fugitive French politician Raphaël Alibert was sentenced in absentia to death for collaborating with the enemy during the war.
• Timeline of first images of Earth from space: First panorama of Earth from outer space.
• Born: Walter Röhrl, race car driver, in Regensburg, Germany; Jane Relf, singer, in Richmond, Surrey, England

  [March 8], 1947 (Saturday)

• The Austrian Interior Ministry announced that a large underground Nazi movement had been broken up with 57 arrests made.
• The American college basketball tradition of the cutting down of the nets by the national championship team began when NC State coach Everett Scott decided he wanted a souvenir after his team won the Southern Conference men's basketball tournament. The players lifted Case on their shoulders and he cut the net down.
• Born: Michael S. Hart, author and inventor of the e-book, in Tacoma, Washington

  [March 9], 1947 (Sunday)

• Died: Carrie Chapman Catt, 88, American women's suffrage leader

  [March 10], 1947 (Monday)

• Philippine President Manuel Roxas survived an assassination attempt when a barber from Manila tried to kill him with a hand grenade. Although he failed, a bystander was killed.
• A Big Four Conference began in Moscow with the foreign ministers of the UK, United States, France and the USSR to decide on terms for treaties with Germany and Austria.
• Japanese general Hisao Tani was sentenced to death for his role in facilitating the Nanking Massacre.
• 1947 Thames flood: Warmer temperatures in Britain caused a quick thaw resulting in widespread flooding.
• Enrique Hertzog became 49th President of Bolivia.
• Born: Kim Campbell, 19th Prime Minister of Canada, in Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada; Tom Scholz, rock musician and founder of the band Boston, in Ottawa Hills, Ohio
• Died: Harukichi Hyakutake, 58, Japanese general

  [March 11], 1947 (Tuesday)

• During a hearing before the House Labor Committee, US Secretary of Labor Lewis B. Schwellenbach suggested that the Communist Party be outlawed in the United States, explaining that he could see no reason why they should be allowed to run for office when their purpose "is to destroy this Government."
• The Council of States in the US zone of Germany approved a restitution law that would return identifiable property to all racial, religious and political victims of Nazi Germany.
• BBC Television resumed broadcasting after a one-month shutdown due to the energy crisis, although it was initially restricted to evening hours only and would not resume full service until April 18.
• Born: Geoff Hunt, squash player, in Melbourne, Australia
• Died: Victor Lustig, 57, Austrian-born con artist

  [March 12], 1947 (Wednesday)

• US President Harry S. Truman announced the Truman Doctrine, telling Congress that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."
• The Jewish refugee ship Shabtai Luzinsky ran the British blockade of the Palestine coast and beached north of Gaza undetected. Hundreds of local residents came down to the beach to mingle with the refugees, and were arrested by mistake while many of the 823 passengers were able to evade arrest.
• Born: Kalervo Palsa, artist, in Kittilä, Finland ; Mitt Romney, businessman, politician and 2012 Republican Party nominee for President of the United States, in Detroit, Michigan
• Died: Walter Samuel Goodland, 84, American politician and 31st Governor of Wisconsin; Taixu, 56 or 57, Chinese Buddhist modernist, activist and thinker

  [March 13], 1947 (Thursday)

• Turkish Prime Minister Recep Peker hailed President Truman's landmark speech as inspired by a "point of view both fully realistic and fully humanitarian."
• The British government announced a ban on midweek sports in an effort to boost worker productivity.
• The 19th Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The Best Years of Our Lives won seven Oscars, including Best Picture.
• The stage musical Brigadoon by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.
• Born: Beat Richner, paediatrician and cellist, in Switzerland

  [March 14], 1947 (Friday)

• The United States and the Philippines signed a treaty in Manila guaranteeing US military bases in the islands for 99 years.
• An Air France Douglas DC-3 en route from Lyon to Nice crashed into a mountain 25 miles south of Grenoble, France in bad weather. All 23 aboard were killed.
• Born: Pam Ayres, poet, comedian and presenter of radio and television programmes, in Stanford in the Vale, Berkshire, England

  [March 15], 1947 (Saturday)

• Sweden reimposed rationing of coffee, tea and cocoa.
• Air Algérie was founded.
• "Heartaches" by Ted Weems and His Orchestra topped the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores record chart.
• Born: Ry Cooder, guitarist, film score composer and record producer, in Los Angeles, California

  [March 16], 1947 (Sunday)

• During the wettest March in 300 years, dykes in East Anglia were breached in a gale, resulting in widespread flooding.
• The Paris newspaper strike ended after a month when the striking printers agreed to return to work on the same terms as before the strike.
• Margaret Truman, daughter of the president, made her radio debut as a singer with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. An estimated 13 million people tuned in to the broadcast.
• Born: Baek Yoon-sik, actor, in Seoul, South Korea; Ramzan Paskayev, accordionist and folk musician, in Taraz, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union

  [March 17], 1947 (Monday)

• At the Moscow Conference, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov demanded that Germany be made to pay $10 billion in war reparations over a 20-year period. The United States and Britain opposed the idea.
• The US Supreme Court upheld the right of the Civil Service Commission to fire communists and communist sympathizers from the government.
• Born: Yury Chernavsky, record producer, composer and songwriter, in Tambov, USSR

  [March 18], 1947 (Tuesday)

• TASS published the text of a secret agreement made at the Yalta Conference in 1945 on the matter of German reparations, in order to back up Molotov's demand for them. The question then turned to whether the Yalta text was supplemented or superseded by the Potsdam Agreement.
• Italy and Yugoslavia restored diplomatic relations.
• Ireland passed the Customs-Free Airport Act, making Shannon Airport the first duty free port in the world, starting April 21.
• US patent #2417786 was granted to Hurley Smith for the pocket protector.
• Born: Tamara Griesser Pečar, historian, in Ljubljana, SFR Yugoslavia
• Died: William C. Durant, 85, American automotive pioneer; Willem Pijper, 52, Dutch composer and music critic