March 5: In Missouri, Churchill speaks on the "Iron Curtain"
January 6 – A revised revival of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat opens on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre.
January 17 – U.S. Senator Dennis Chávez (D-NM) calls for a vote on a Fair Employment Practice Committee bill which calls for an end to discrimination in the workplace. A filibuster prevents it from passing.
January 25 – The United Mine Workers rejoins the American Federation of Labor.
January 29 – The Central Intelligence Group is established (the CIA in 1947).
February 12 – Isaac Woodard, an African American army veteran, is beaten and blinded by police chief Lynwood Shull in Batesburg, South Carolina, an event which is brought to national attention on Orson Welles's radio show.[1]
February 14 – ENIAC (for "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer"), the first general-purpose electronic computer, is unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania.
February 18 – President Truman signs the Rescission Act of 1946 annulling benefits payable to Filipino troops who fought for the U.S. during World War II.
February 28 – In Philadelphia, General Electric strikers and police clash.
March 5 – In his speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill talks about the Iron Curtain.
March 6 – Vietnam War: Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.
March 7 – The 18th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by James Stewart and Bob Hope, is held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, the first ceremony after World War II. Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend wins the most awards with four, including Best Motion Picture and Best Director for Wilder. Leo McCarey's The Bells of St. Mary's receives the most nominations with eight.
March 21 – The Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League, newly relocated from Cleveland, sign Kenny Washington, making him the first African American player in the league since 1933.
March 24 – BBC Home Service radio in the United Kingdom broadcasts Alistair Cooke's first American Letter. As Letter from America, this programme will continue until a few weeks before Cooke's death in 2004.
April–June[]
April 1 – The 8.6 MwAleutian Islands earthquake affects Alaska with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (Strong), causing a destructive basin wide tsunami, leaving 165–173 dead.
April 18 – The United States recognizes Josip Broz Tito's government in Yugoslavia.
April 20 – Walt Disney's eighth feature film, Make Mine Music, is released. It is Disney's third of six package films to be released through the 1940s.
April 22 – Girouard v. United States, a citizenship case decided in the Supreme Court, overturns the decision in United States v. Schwimmer (1929).
April 23
The Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League (later the Continental Basketball Association (CBA)) is founded.
Howard Hughes's Western movie The Outlaw (1943), starring Jane Russell, goes on general release.
May 2 – Six inmates unsuccessfully try to escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay; a riot occurs, the "Battle of Alcatraz".
May 10 – The first V-2 rocket to be successfully launched in the U.S. is fired from White Sands Missile Range.
May 21 – Manhattan Project physicist Dr. Louis Slotin accidentally triggers a fission reaction at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and, although saving his coworkers, gives himself a lethal dose of hard radiation, making him the second victim of a criticality accident in history (the incident is initially treated as classified information).
May 23 – Dwarf Grill, predecessor of Chick-fil-A, a fast foodchicken restaurant, is founded in Georgia.[2]
June 6 – The Basketball Association of America is formed in New York City, later renamed the National Basketball Association.
June 17
The 1946 Windsor-Tecumseh, Ontario tornado on the Detroit River kills 17.
Laurence Olivier's Henry V opens in the United States nearly 2 years after its release in England. It is the first Shakespeare film in color, and critics hail it as the finest film of a Shakespeare play ever made.
July–September[]
July 7: Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
July 4 – The Philippines is granted independence by the United States.
July 7 – Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini becomes the first American to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.
July 14 – Benjamin Spock's influential The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care is published.
July 25
Nuclear testing: In the first underwater test of the atomic bomb, the surplus USS Saratoga is sunk near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, when the United States detonates the Baker device during Operation Crossroads.
At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team.
1946 Georgia lynching: In the last mass lynching in the United States, a mob of white men shoot and kill two African-American couples near Moore's Ford Bridge in Georgia.
August 1 – President Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which establishes the United States Atomic Energy Commission.
September 15 – DuMont Television Network begins broadcasting regularly.
September 22 – Yogi Berra makes his Major League Baseball debut, entering a game for the New York Yankees against the Philadelphia A's and hitting a home run in his first time at bat.
September 24 – White House counsel Clark Clifford presents President Truman with a top secret report authored by George Elsey on American Relations with the Soviet Union which forms the basis of the U.S. policy of containment.
October–December[]
October 15 – The St. Louis Cardinals defeat the Boston Red Sox, 4 games to 3, to win their 6th World Series Title in baseball.
October 16 – The United Nations' first meeting in Long Island is held.
November 1 – The New York Knicks play against the Toronto Huskies at the Maple Leaf Gardens, in the first Basketball Association of America game. The Knicks win 68–66.
November 6 – Senate and House elections in the United States both give majorities to the Republicans.
November 12 – In Chicago, a branch of the Exchange National Bank (later part of the LaSalle Bank) opens the first 10 drive-up teller windows.
November 27 – Cold War: Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appeals to the United States and the Soviet Union to end nuclear testing and to start nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster."
December 2 – The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is signed in Washington, D.C. to "provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry" through establishment of the International Whaling Commission.
December 5 – President Truman establishes the President's Committee on Civil Rights to investigate the status of civil rights in the United States and propose measures to strengthen and protect the civil rights of American citizens.
December 7 – A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia kills 119.
December 14
Proposed United States purchase of Greenland from Denmark: An offer is made through diplomatic channels.
December 20 – Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, featuring James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Travers, and Thomas Mitchell, is released in New York.
December 22 – The Havana Conference begins between U.S. organized crime bosses in Havana, Cuba.
December 26 – The Flamingo Hotel opens on the Las Vegas Strip.
Undated[]
Airport Homes race riots in Chicago.
The 20 mm M61 VulcanGatling gun contract is released.
The All-America Football Conference team San Francisco 49ers is formed.
Births[]
January[]
Diane Keaton
Dolly Parton
January 1 – Shelby Steele, American journalist, author, and director
January 3 – Cissy King, American dancer, singer
January 5 – Diane Keaton, American actress, film director (Annie Hall)
January 7
Michele Elliott, author, psychologist and founder of child protection charity Kidscape[4]
Michael Roizen, American anesthesiologist and author