1947

Events from the year **1947 in the United States**.

* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-TX) (until January 3), Joseph William Martin Jr. (R-MA) (starting January 3)
* Senate Majority Leader: Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) (until January 3), Wallace H. White Jr. (R-ME) (starting January 3)
* Congress: 79th (until January 3), 80th (starting January 3)

Governors
* Governor of Alabama: Chauncey Sparks (Democratic) (until January 20), Jim Folsom (Democratic) (starting January 20)
* Governor of Arizona: Sidney Preston Osborn (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: Benjamin Travis Laney (Democratic)
* Governor of California: Earl Warren (Republican)
* Governor of Colorado: John Charles Vivian (Republican) (until January 14), William Lee Knous (Democratic) (starting January 14)
* Governor of Connecticut: Charles Wilbert Snow (Democratic) (until January 8), James L. McConaughy (Republican) (starting January 8)
* Governor of Delaware: Walter W. Bacon (Republican)
* Governor of Florida: Millard F. Caldwell (Democratic)
* Governor of Georgia:
	+ until January 14: Ellis Arnall (Democratic)
	+ January 14-March 18: Herman Talmadge (Democratic)
	+ starting March 18: Melvin E. Thompson (Democratic)
* Governor of Idaho: Arnold Williams (Democratic) (until January 6), C. A. Robins (Republican) (starting January 6)
* Governor of Illinois: Dwight H. Green (Republican)
* Governor of Indiana: Ralph F. Gates (Republican)
* Governor of Iowa: Robert D. Blue (Republican)
* Governor of Kansas: Andrew F. Schoeppel (Republican) (until January 13), Frank Carlson (Republican) (starting January 13)
* Governor of Kentucky: Simeon S. Willis (Republican) (until December 9), Earle C. Clements (Democratic) (starting December 9)
* Governor of Louisiana: Jimmie H. Davis (Democratic)
* Governor of Maine: Horace A. Hildreth (Republican)
* Governor of Maryland: Herbert R. O'Conor (Democratic) (until January 3), William Preston Lane Jr. (Democratic) (starting January 3)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Maurice J. Tobin (Democratic) (until January 2), Robert F. Bradford (Republican) (starting January 2)
* Governor of Michigan: Harry Kelly (Republican) (until January 1), Kim Sigler (Republican) (starting January 1)
* Governor of Minnesota: Edward John Thye (Republican) (until January 8), Luther W. Youngdahl (Republican) (starting January 8)
* Governor of Mississippi: Fielding L. Wright (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: Phil M. Donnelly (Democratic)
* Governor of Montana: Sam C. Ford (Republican)
* Governor of Nebraska: Dwight Griswold (Republican) (until January 9), Val Peterson (Republican) (starting January 9)
* Governor of Nevada: Vail M. Pittman (Democratic)
* Governor of New Hampshire: Charles M. Dale (Republican)
* Governor of New Jersey: Walter Evans Edge (Republican) (until January 21), Alfred E. Driscoll (Republican) (starting January 21)
* Governor of New Mexico: John J. Dempsey (Democratic) (until January 1), Thomas J. Mabry (Democratic) (starting January 1)
* Governor of New York: Thomas E. Dewey (Republican)
* Governor of North Carolina: R. Gregg Cherry (Democratic)
* Governor of North Dakota: Fred G. Aandahl (Republican)
* Governor of Ohio: Frank J. Lausche (Democratic) (until January 13), Thomas J. Herbert (Republican) (starting January 13)
* Governor of Oklahoma: Robert S. Kerr (Democratic) (until January 13), Roy J. Turner (Democratic) (starting January 13)
* Governor of Oregon: Earl Snell (Republican) (until October 30), John H. Hall (Republican) (starting October 30)
* Governor of Pennsylvania:
	+ until January 2: Edward Martin (Republican)
	+ January 2-January 21: John C. Bell Jr. (Republican)
	+ starting January 21: James H. Duff (Republican)
* Governor of Rhode Island: John Orlando Pastore (Democratic)
* Governor of South Carolina: Ransome Judson Williams (Democratic) (until January 21), Strom Thurmond (Democratic) (starting January 21)
* Governor of South Dakota: Merrill Q. Sharpe (Republican) (until January 7), George T. Mickelson (Republican) (starting January 7)
* Governor of Tennessee: Jim Nance McCord (Democratic)
* Governor of Texas: Coke R. Stevenson (Democratic) (until January 21), Beauford H. Jester (Democratic) (starting January 21)
* Governor of Utah: Herbert B. Maw (Democratic)
* Governor of Vermont: Mortimer R. Proctor (Republican) (until January 9), Ernest W. Gibson Jr. (Republican) (starting January 9)
* Governor of Virginia: William M. Tuck (Democratic)
* Governor of Washington: Monrad C. Wallgren (Democratic)
* Governor of West Virginia: Clarence W. Meadows (Democratic)
* Governor of Wisconsin: Walter S. Goodland (Republican) (until March 12), Oscar Rennebohm (Republican) (starting March 12)
* Governor of Wyoming: Lester C. Hunt (Democratic)

Lieutenant Governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Leven H. Ellis (Democratic) (until January 20), James C. Inzer (Democratic) (starting January 20)
* Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas: James Lavesque Shaver (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Nathan Green Gordon (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of California: Frederick F. Houser (Republican) (until January 7), Goodwin Knight (Republican) (starting January 7)
* Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: William Eugene Higby (Republican) (until January 14), Homer L. Pearson (Republican) (starting January 14)
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: vacant (until January 8), James C. Shannon (Republican) (starting January 8)
* Lieutenant Governor of Delaware: Elbert N. Carvel (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Georgia: Melvin E. Thompson (Democratic) (starting January 14 and until March 18), vacant (starting March 18)
* Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: A. R. McCabe (Democratic) (until January 6), Donald S. Whitehead (Democratic) (starting January 6)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Hugh W. Cross (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Richard T. James (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Kenneth A. Evans (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Jess C. Denious Sr. (Republican) (until January 13), Frank L. Hagaman (Republican) (starting January 13)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Kenneth H. Tuggle (Republican) (until December 9), Lawrence Wetherby (Democratic) (starting December 9)
* Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: J. Emile Verret (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: vacant (starting January 2), Arthur W. Coolidge (Republican) (starting January 2)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Vernon J. Brown (Republican) (until January 1), Eugene C. Keyes (Republican) (starting January 1)
* Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: C. Elmer Anderson (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: vacant
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Walter Naylor Davis (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Montana: Ernest T. Eaton (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: Roy W. Johnson (Republican) (until January 9), Robert B. Crosby (Republican) (starting January 9)
* Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: vacant (until January), Clifford A. Jones (Democratic) (starting January)
* Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico: James B. Jones (Democratic) (until January 1), Joseph Montoya (Democratic) (starting January 1)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Joseph R. Hanley (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Lynton Y. Ballentine (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: Clarence P. Dahl (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: George D. Nye (Democratic) (until January 13), Paul M. Herbert (Republican) (starting January 13)
* Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma: James E. Berry (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: John C. Bell Jr. (Republican) (until January 21), Daniel B. Strickler (Republican) (starting January 21)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: vacant (until month and day unknown), John S. McKiernan (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: vacant (until January 21), George Bell Timmerman Jr. (Democratic) (starting January 21)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: Sioux K. Grigsby (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: Larry Morgan (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), George Oliver Benton (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Texas: John Lee Smith (Democratic) (until January 21), Allan Shivers (Democratic) (starting January 21)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Lee E. Emerson (Republican)
* Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Lewis Preston Collins II (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Washington: Victor A. Meyers (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Oscar Rennebohm (Republican)

## Events

### January - March

* January 15 – Elizabeth Short, an aspiring actress nicknamed the "Black Dahlia", is found brutally murdered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The case is never solved.
* February 3 – Percival Prattis becomes the first African-American news correspondent allowed in the United States House of Representatives and Senate press galleries.
* February 17 – Cold War: Voice of America begins to transmit radio broadcasts into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
* February 20
	+ An explosion at the O'Connor Electro-Plating Company in Los Angeles, California, leaves 17 dead, 100 buildings damaged, and a 22-foot-deep (6.7 m) crater in the ground.
	+ Ordnance Corps Hermes project V-2 rocket *Blossom I* launched into space carrying plant material and fruitflies, the first animals to enter space.
* February 21 – In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", his Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
* February 28 – The United States grants France a military base in Casablanca.
* March 6 – USS *Newport News*, the first completely air-conditioned warship, is launched in Newport News, Virginia.
* March 13 – The 19th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Jack Benny, is held at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. William Wyler's *The Best Years of Our Lives* receives the most nominations with eight and wins the most awards with seven, including Best Motion Picture and Wyler's second Best Director award.
* March 25 – A coal mine explosion in Centralia, Illinois, kills 111 miners.

### April - June

* April 1 – Jackie Robinson signs with the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first African American Major League Baseball player since the 1880s.
* April 6 – The 1st Tony Awards, recognizing achievement in American theater, are awarded at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
* April 9
	+ Multiple tornadoes strike Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas killing 181 and injuring 970.
	+ The Journey of Reconciliation begins, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality.
* April 15 – Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to play Major League Baseball since the 1880s.
* April 16
	+ Texas City Disaster: The ammonium nitrate cargo of French-registered Liberty ship SS *Grandcamp* explodes in Texas City, Texas, killing at least 581, including all but one member of the city fire department, injuring at least 5,000 and destroying 20 city blocks. Of the dead, remains of 113 are never found and 63 are unidentifiable.
	+ American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch describes the post–World War II tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States as a "Cold War".
* April 26 – Academy award-winning *Tom and Jerry* cartoon, *The Cat Concerto*, is released to theatres.
* May 6 – The Wisconsin earthquake affected Alaska with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (*Strong*), causing a destructive basin wide tsunami, leaving 165–173 dead.
* May 22
	+ Cold War: In an effort to fight the spread of Communism, President Harry S. Truman signs an Act of Congress that implements the Truman Doctrine. This Act grants $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece.
	+ David Lean's film *Great Expectations*, based on the novel by Charles Dickens, opens in the U.S. Critics call it the finest film ever made from a Charles Dickens novel.
* June 1 – Langer's Deli opens in Los Angeles.
* June 5 – Secretary of State George Marshall outlines the Marshall Plan for American reconstruction and relief aid to Europe.
* June 21 – Seaman Harold Dahl claims to have seen six UFOs near Maury Island in Puget Sound, Washington. On the next morning, Dahl reports the first modern so-called "Men in Black" encounter.
* June 23 – The United States Senate follows the House of Representatives in overriding President Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.
* June 24 – Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington.

### July - September

* July 7 – A supposedly downed extraterrestrial spacecraft is reportedly found in the Roswell UFO incident, near Roswell, New Mexico, which has been written about by Stanton T. Friedman and many others.
* July 18 – President Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act into law, which places the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate next in the line of succession after the Vice President.
* July 26 – Cold War: President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into law, creating the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.
* August 1 – Fernwood Park race riot in Chicago.
* August 29 – U.S. announces the discovery of plutonium fission, suitable for nuclear power generation.
* September 17
	+ The 1947 Fort Lauderdale Hurricane in southeastern Florida, and also in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, causes widespread damage and kills 51 people.
	+ Office of Indian Affairs renamed Bureau of Indian Affairs.
* September 18 – Most provisions of the National Security Act go into effect, reorganizing the military to form the National Military Establishment (later the Department of Defense) with subordinate Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; creating the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council; and establishing the Secretary of Defense.
* September 26 – U.S. Air Force is made a separate branch of the military.
* September 27 – Walt Disney Productions' ninth feature film, *Fun and Fancy Free*, is released. It is Disney's fourth of six package films to be released through the 1940s and notably features Walt Disney's final voice role as Mickey Mouse.

### October - December

* October 1 – The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigations into communism in Hollywood.
* October 6
	+ World Series games are broadcast on television for the first time.
	+ The New York Yankees defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4 games to 3, to win their 11th World Series Title.
* October 7 – Great Fires of 1947: Forest fires in Maine consume more than 200,000 acres of wooded land statewide, including over 17,000 acres on Mount Desert Island alone. 16 persons are killed and more than 1,000 homes destroyed in the blazes, with total property damage exceeding $23 million.
* October 14 – The United States Air Force test pilot Captain Chuck Yeager flies a Bell X-1 rocket plane faster than the speed of sound, the first time that this has been accomplished in level flight, or climbing.
* October 20 – Pakistan establishes diplomatic relations with the United States.
* November 1 – U.S. Caribbean Command designated.
* November 2 – In California, designer Howard Hughes pilots the maiden flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat known as "Spruce Goose", the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built; the flight lasts only eight minutes and the craft is never flown again.
* November 6 – The program *Meet the Press* makes its television debut on the NBC-TV network in the United States.
* November 24 – Red Scare: The U.S. House of Representatives votes 346–17 to approve citations of Contempt of Congress against the so-called Hollywood 10, after the ten men refuse to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee concerning allegations of communist influences in the movie business. (The ten men are blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios on the following day).
* December 3 – The Tennessee Williams play *A Streetcar Named Desire* opens in a Broadway theater.
* December 6 – Arturo Toscanini conducts a concert performance of the first half of Giuseppe Verdi's opera *Otello*, which was based on William Shakespeare's play *Othello*, for a broadcast on NBC Radio. The second half of the opera is broadcast a week later.
* December 22 – The first practical electronic transistor is demonstrated by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain working under William Shockley at AT&T's Bell Labs.

## Memoriam

### January to June

* January 3 – Gus Wickie, singer and voice actor (aged 61; Belleville, NJ, USA)
* January 10 – Arthur E. Andersen, accountant (aged 61; Winnetka, IL, USA)
* January 14 – Bill Hewitt, football player (Chicago Bears) and member of Pro Football Hall of Fame (aged 37; Sellersville, PA, USA)
* January 16
	+ Sonny Berman, jazz trumpeter, of suspected drug overdose (aged 21; New York City, NY, USA)
	+ Fate Marable, jazz pianist and bandleader, of pneumonia (aged 57; St. Louis, MO, USA)
* January 20
	+ Andrew Volstead, politician (aged 86; Granite Falls, MN, USA)
	+ Josh Gibson, African-American baseball player and member of MLB Hall of Fame (aged 35; Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
* January 25 – Al Capone, gangster (aged 48; Miami Beach, FL, USA)
* January 26 – Grace Moore, operatic soprano, in plane crash (aged 48; Copenhagen, Denmark)
* February 12
	+ Kurt Lewin, German-American psychologist (aged 56; Newtonville, MA, USA)
	+ Sidney Toler, actor (aged 72; Beverly Hills, CA, USA)
* February 22 – Willie Franklin Pruitt, poet and activist (aged 82; San Antonio, TX, USA)
* March 8 – Victor Potel, character actor and comedian (aged 57; Hollywood, CA, USA)
* March 9 – Carrie Chapman Catt, women's suffrage leader (aged 88; New Rochelle, NY, USA)
* March 12 – Winston Churchill, novelist (aged 75; Winter Park, FL, USA)
* March 18 – William C. Durant, automobile pioneer (aged 85; New York City, NY, USA)
* March 21 – Homer Lusk Collyer, one of the reclusive Collyer brothers (aged 65; Manhattan, NY, USA)
* March 28 – Johnny Evers, baseball player (Chicago Cubs) and member of MLB Hall of Fame (aged 65; Albany, NY, USA)
* April 7 – Henry Ford, automobile manufacturer (aged 83; Dearborn, MI, USA)
* April 8 – Langley Collyer, one of the reclusive Collyer brothers (aged 61; Manhattan, NY, USA)
* April 10 – John Ince, actor (aged 68; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* April 14 – Herbert Spencer Jennings, zoologist (aged 79; Santa Monica, CA, USA)
* April 24 – Willa Cather, novelist (aged 73; New York City, NY, USA)
* April 29 – Irving Fisher, economist (aged 80; New York City, NY, USA)
* May 3 – Harry Holman, character actor (aged 85; Hollywood, CA, USA)
* May 6 – Louise Homer, operatic contralto (aged 76; Winter Park, FL, USA)
* May 8 – Harry Gordon Selfridge, department store magnate (aged 89; London, England, UK)
* May 14 – John R. Sinnock, 8th Chief Engraver of the United States Mint (aged 58; Staten Island, NY, USA)
* May 18 – Lucile Gleason, actress (aged 59; Brentwood, CA, USA)
* May 30 – Baron Georg von Trapp, Austrian naval officer, patriarch of the Von Trapp Family Singers (aged 67; Stowe, VT, USA)
* May 31 – Adrienne Ames, actress (aged 39; New York City, NY, USA)
* June 9 – J. Warren Kerrigan, actor (aged 67; Balboa Beach, CA, USA)
* June 11
	+ Richard Hönigswald, Hungarian-born philosopher (aged 71; New Haven, CT, USA)
	+ David I. Walsh, 46th Governor of Massachusetts (aged 74; Boston, MA, USA)
* June 17 – Maxwell Perkins, literary editor (aged 62; Stamford, CT, USA)
* June 20 – Bugsy Siegel, gangster (aged 41; Beverly Hills, NY, USA)
* June 22 – Jim Tully, vagabond, pugilist and writer (aged 61; Hollywood, CA, USA)
* June 24 – Emil Seidel, German-American politician (aged 82; Milwaukee, WI, USA)

### July to December

* July 12 – Jimmie Lunceford, African-American jazz saxophonist and bandleader, of cardiac arrest (aged 45; Seaside, OR, USA)
* July 15
	+ Walter Donaldson, songwriter (aged 54; Santa Monica, CA, USA)
	+ Brandon Hurst, stage and screen actor (aged 80; Hollywood, CA, USA)
* July 19 – Robert Latham Owen, U.S. Senator from Oklahoma from 1907 to 1925 (aged 91; Washington, DC, USA)
* August 3 – Vic Willis, baseball player (Boston Braves) and member of MLB Hall of Fame (aged 71; Elkton, MD, USA)
* August 20 – James Harbord, senior officer of the U.S. Army (aged 81; Rye, NY, USA)
* August 21 – Theodore G. Bilbo, politician (aged 69; New Orleans, LA, USA)
* September 1 – Frederick Russell Burnham, father of the international Scouting movement (aged 86; Santa Barbara, CA, USA)
* September 18 – Bert Kalmar, lyricist ((aged 63; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* September 20
	+ Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York (aged 64; New York City, NY, USA)
	+ Edward McCartan, sculptor (aged 68; New Rochelle, NY, USA)
* September 21 – Harry Carey, film actor (aged 69; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* October 1
	+ Olive Borden, actress (aged 41; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
	+ James Gamble Rogers, architect (aged 80; New York City, NY, USA)
* October 3 – Ernest L. Riebau, politician (aged 52; Milwaukee, WI, USA)
* October 17 – John Halliday, actor (aged 67; Honolulu, HI Territory, USA)
* October 29 – Frances Cleveland, First Lady, wife of President Grover Cleveland (aged 83; Baltimore, MD, USA)
* November 3
	+ Nelson McDowell, actor (aged 77; Hollywood, CA, USA)
	+ John Gilbert Winant, politician and diplomat, suicide (aged 58; Concord, NH, USA)
* November 4 – Mabel Van Buren, actress (aged 69; Hollywood, CA, USA)
* November 20 – Walter J. Mathews, California architect (aged 97; Oakland, CA, USA)
* November 28 – W. E. Lawrence, silent film actor (aged 51; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* December 7 – Nicholas Murray Butler, polymath, president of Columbia University and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (aged 85; New York City, NY, USA)