Top News Stories from 1946

World Events

World Statistics

Population: 4.378 billion
population by decade
Nobel Peace Prize: Emily G. Balch and John R. Mott (US)
More World Statistics...

U.S. Events

U.S. Statistics

President: Harry S Truman
Vice President: none
Population: 141,388,566
Life expectancy: 66.7 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 6.4
More U.S. Statistics...

Economics

US GDP (1998 dollars): $222.6 billion
Federal spending: $55.23 billion
Federal debt $271.0 billion
Consumer Price Index: $19.5
Unemployment: 3.9%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.03

Sports

World Series
St. Louis Cardinals d. Boston Red Sox (4-3)
Stanley Cup
Montreal d. Boston
Wimbledon
Women: Pauline Betz d. L. Brough (6-2 6-4)
Men: Yvon Petra d. G. Brown (6-2 6-4 7-9 5-7 6-4)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Assault
NCAA Basketball Championship
Oklahoma A&M d. North Carolina
NCAA Football Champions
Notre Dame (8-0-1)
World Cup
Not Held

Entertainment

Entertainment Awards

Pulitzer Prizes
Music: The Canticle of the Sun, Leo Sowerby
Drama: State of the Union, Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay
Oscars awarded in 1946
Academy Award, Best Picture: The Lost Weekend (Paramount)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Hermann Hesse (Switzerland)
Miss America: Marilyn Buferd (CA)
More Entertainment Awards...

Events

  • The Cannes Film Festival debuts in France.
  • The Best Years of Our Lives debuts, and is immediately recognized as a classic post-War film that accurately—and poignantly—portrays the readjustment families face when loved ones return from battle. The film won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor.
  • Faraway Hill, what many television historians consider to be the first network soap opera, debuts on the DuMont network.
  • George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein establish the New York City Ballet. It makes its home at Lincoln Center in 1964.
  • Roberto Rossellini's Neorealist ode to the Italian Resistance, Rome, Open City, presents an alternative to Hollywood with its use of street cinematography, lyrically capturing the despair and confusion of post-World War II Europe.

Movies

  • It's a Wonderful Life, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Razor's Edge

Music

Books

Science

Nobel Prizes in Science

Chemistry: James B. Sumner (US), for crystallizing enzymes; John H. Northrop and Wendell M. Stanley (both US), for preparing enzymes and virus proteins in pure form
Physics: Percy Williams Bridgman (US), for studies and inventions in high-pressure physics
Physiology or Medicine: Herman J. Muller (US), for hereditary effects of X-rays on genes
More Nobel Prizes in 1998...
  • US Atomic Energy Commission is formed (Aug. 1). Background: nuclear energy
  • Vincent du Vigneaud (US) synthesizes penicillin.
  • The US Army makes radar contact with the moon for the first time. Background: Astronomy

Death

or enter a year: