November 1946

November 1, 1946 (Friday)

• In what the National Basketball Association credits as its first game, the New York Knicks defeated the Toronto Huskies 68–66. The only game scheduled for the opener of what was then called the Basketball Association of America took place in Canada. Ossie Schectman of the Knicks scored the first points in the first game. The night before, the first exhibition game of the season for the National Basketball League saw the pro debut of George Mikan, who scored 19 points for the Chicago Gears in a 55-50 loss to the Rochester Royals.
• At Kraków, Archbishop Adam Sapieha personally ordained 26-year-old Karol Wojtyla as a Roman Catholic priest. Father Wojtyla's career would see him rise through the hierarchy of the Church, becoming Pope John Paul II in 1978.
• In what has been described as "the beginning of modern accelerator technology", a beam of alpha particles was accelerated at the synchrotron in Berkeley, California, to generate an unprecedented 350 MeV of energy.

  November 2, 1946 (Saturday)

• The derailment of a train killed 28 people in the Soviet occupation zone in Germany near Leipzig, between Altenburg and Zeitz.
• "Rumors Are Flying" by Frankie Carle hit #1 on the Billboard Honor Roll of Hits.
• Born:
• *Giuseppe Sinopoli, Italian conductor and composer; in Venice
• *Steve Bender, German Eurodisco musician for the group Dschinghis Khan, in Munich, U.S. occupation zone of Germany
• Died: Thomas L. Bailey, 58, Governor of Mississippi, died at the executive mansion in Jackson

  November 3, 1946 (Sunday)

• The new Constitution of Japan, which included that nation's renunciation of war, was promulgated by proclamation of the Emperor Hirohito, who had been allowed to keep the Chrysanthemum Throne in return for dropping all claims of divinity. The instrument took effect, by its terms, on May 3, 1947.

  November 4, 1946 (Monday)

• The November 16, 1945, charter establishing UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, took effect after Greece became the 20th nation to ratify it.
• Gabriel González Videla was inaugurated as the 25th President of Chile.
• Born:
• *Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States from 2001-2009; as Laura Lane Welch in Midland, Texas
• *Robert Mapplethorpe, controversial American photographer; in New York City

  November 5, 1946 (Tuesday)

• In the 1946 U.S. midterm Congressional elections, the Republican Party captured control of both houses from the Democrats. In the Senate, a 56-39 advantage for the Democrats gave way to a 51-45 Republican majority, while in the House of Representatives, the Democrats' 242-191 lead was reversed, with the Republicans up 246 to 188. Freshmen Congressmen included Republican Richard M. Nixon of California's 12th district, and Democrat John F. Kennedy of the Massachusetts 11th.
• The Boston Celtics very first home game was preceded by the first smashing of a glass backboard. Boston's Chuck Connors, who would also play major league baseball and become a TV star in The Rifleman, accidentally tore down a poorly fitted rim.
• Born:
• *Gram Parsons, American country singer; in Winter Haven, Florida
• *Herman Brood, Dutch rock musician and painter; in Zwolle

  November 6, 1946 (Wednesday)

• The day after the Republican takeover of both houses of Congress, U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas proposed that his fellow Democrat, President Harry S. Truman, should resign to make way for a Republican. Fulbright's proposal, endorsed by the Atlanta Constitution and the Chicago Sun, was that Arthur H. Vandenberg, U.S. Senator from Michigan, be made U.S. Secretary of State, after which Truman would step down in favor of President Vandenberg. Truman did not dignify Fulbright's suggestion with a response, but the White House let it be known that the idea would be ignored.
• Born: Sally Field, American TV and film actress; in Pasadena, California

  November 7, 1946 (Thursday)

• A major reform of the Japanese writing system was ordered by that nation's Ministry of Education, which eliminated 70% of the kanji symbols that could be used in legal documents, newspapers and magazines. Effective November 16, a list of 1,850 kanji was made from 6,000 traditional ones, with plans to reduce the number further to 881. Words formerly rendered in kanji were replaced with the hiragana syllabic system.
• Birzhan and Sara, composed by Mukan Tulebaev with a libretto by Khazhim Djumaliev, the first Kazakh language opera, was performed for the first time, making its debut on October Revolution Day at the opera house of Alma-Ata in the Soviet Union's Kazakh SSR.
• Born: Milton Lee Olive, African-American Medal of Honor recipient; in Chicago

  November 8, 1946 (Friday)

• Viola Desmond, a Black Canadian businesswoman and operator of a beauty college, challenged racial segregation in the town of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia and began the racial civil rights movement in Canada. Rather than sitting in the balcony section set aside for minorities, Mrs. Desmond sat in the whites-only section of the Roseland Theatre and then refused to leave. She was arrested, spent the night in jail and was charged with tax evasion for paying a two-cent sales tax on a 20 cent ticket rather than the three-cent tax on a 40 cent ticket. Starting on November 19, 2018, Mrs. Desmond's image replaced that of Sir John A. Macdonald on the Canadian ten-dollar note.
• The government of Japan expelled from office 162,915 persons who had held posts during World War II, ranging from village employees to prefecture chiefs. The names were supplied by Brigadier General Courtney Whitney of the American occupational government.

  November 9, 1946 (Saturday)

• Dubbed the "Game of the Century", the first ever between college football's two highest ranked teams, took place before a crowd of 74,000 at New York's Yankee Stadium, with #1 Army facing #2 Notre Dame. The game ended in a 0-0 tie, but brought Army's 25 game winning streak to a halt.
• The Lockheed R6V Constitution, at 92 tons the largest airplane up to that time, made its first flight.

  November 10, 1946 (Sunday)

• In voting for France's National Assembly, the French Communist Party received a plurality in taking 182 of the 627 seats.
• At least 1,400 people were killed in an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 in the Ancash Region of Peru. Hardest hit was the village of Quiches in the Sihuas Province, and the city of Moyobamba.
• A team led by Igor Kurchatov began work on assembling the Soviet Union's first nuclear reactor.
• The very first Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust wetland reserve, created by Sir Peter Scott, opened at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire.
• Born: Alaina Reed Hall; American TV actress, as Bernice Reed in Springfield, Ohio
• Died: Nguyen Van Thinh, President of Cochin-China, hanged himself at his apartment in Saigon after being unable to meet with French Indochina Commissioner Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu.

  November 11, 1946 (Monday)

• Margaret Truman, the 22-year-old daughter of the President of the United States, made her operatic debut, singing at the opening of the 62nd season of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
• Born: Corrine Brown, African-American Congresswoman from 1993 to 2017; in Jacksonville, Florida
• Died: Nikolai Burdenko, 70, Soviet pioneer in neurosurgery

  November 12, 1946 (Tuesday)

• The Disney film Song of the South, first to combine live action with animation and most popular movie of 1946, premiered at the Fox Theater in Atlanta.
• In Chicago, a branch of the Exchange National Bank opened "Autobank", a set of ten drive-up teller windows.
• Died: Madan Mohan Malaviya, 84, Indian patriot

  November 13, 1946 (Wednesday)

• Meteorologist Vincent Schaefer, a researcher for the General Electric company, made the first successful test of cloud seeding as a means of weather control. Taking off in an airplane from Schenectady, New York, Schaefer dropped six pounds of dry ice pellets into the clouds at 14,000 feet over Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Within two minutes, snow flakes began falling. The snow didn't reach the town below, evaporating at about 11,000 feet, but Schaefer, who had earlier discovered a laboratory process for artificially making snow, demonstrated that the process could be duplicated on a large scale.
• Born: Wanda Coleman, African American author; in Los Angeles

  November 14, 1946 (Thursday)

• American embassy chargé d'affaires George R. Merrell, for the United States, and Jawaharlal Nehru of the interim government of India, signed the Air Transport Services Pact in New Delhi, clearing the way for U.S. airlines to fly around the world.
• Died: Manuel de Falla, 69, Spanish composer

  November 15, 1946 (Friday)

• At 3:00 pm, at the residence of Indonesian Vice-President Sutan Sjahrir, the Linggajati Agreement was initialed at Malang, by Sjahrir with former Netherlands Prime Minister Willem Schermerhorn. Mediated by Lord Killearn of the United Kingdom, the agreement provided for a ceasefire, and control of Java, Sumatra and the Kalimantan portion of Borneo by the Republic of Indonesia, while the colonial administration of the Dutch East Indies would continue on Sulawesi, the Lesser Sunda Islands, West New Guinea, and the Maluku Islands.;
• The National Assembly of the Republic of China convened at Nanjing with hopes that a new constitution could be created that would be agreeable to both the Nationalist and Communist parties. The Communists and the China Democratic League boycotted the meeting, which drafted a constitution for the Republic of China that would eventually be limited to the island of Taiwan.