Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

January 1: Nigeria gains autonomy.

Events of 1947

January

• January 1
  • British mines are nationalized.
  • Nigeria gains limited autonomy.
  • The Canadian Citizenship Act goes into effect.
• January 3 - Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.
• January 10 - The United Nations takes control of the free city of Trieste.
• January 15 - Elizabeth Short (the "Black Dahlia") is found murdered.
• January 16 - Vincent Auriol is inaugurated as president of France.
• January 19 - 392 drown in a shipwreck near Athens, Greece.
• January 24 - Dimitrios Maximos founds monarchist government in Athens.
• January 25 - Philippine plane crashes in Hong Kong with $5 million worth of gold and money.
• January 30 - February 8 - A heavy blizzard in Canada buries towns from Winnipeg to Calgary.
• January 31 - Communists take power in Poland.

February

• February 3
  • In Snag, Yukon Territory, -63 degrees Celsius, lowest recorded temperature in North America.
  • Percival Prattis becomes the first black news correspondent allowed in the United States House of Representatives and Senate press gallery.
• February 5 - Boleslaw Bierut becomes president of Poland.
• February 8 - A dance hall fire in Berlin kills over 80.
• February 10 - Paris peace treaties are signed between the World War II Allies and Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Finland: Italy cedes most of Istria to Yugoslavia.
• February 12 - A meteor creates a crater in Sikhote-Alin, Soviet Union.
• February 17 - Cold War: The Voice of America begins to transmit radio broadcasts into the Soviet Union.
• February 20 - An explosion at the O\'Connor Electro-Plating Co in Los Angeles, California leaves 17 dead, 100 buildings damaged, and a 22-foot crater.
• February 21 - In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
• February 23 - International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is founded.
• February 25
  • State of Prussia ceases to exist.
  • Worst-ever train crash in Japan kills 184.
• February 28
  • USA gives France a military base in Casablanca.
  • In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with large loss of civilian lives.

March

• March 1
  • The International Monetary Fund begins to operate.
  • Wernher von Braun marries his first cousin, 18-year-old Maria von Quirstorp.
• March 6 - USS Newport News, the first air-conditioned naval ship, is launched from Newport News, Virginia.
• March 12 - The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.
• March 14 - The River Thames bursts its banks.
• March 15 - Hindus and Muslims clash in Punjab.
• March 21 - Homer Collyer of the Collyer brothers is found dead in their house in Harlem, New York City. His brother is found April 8.
• March 25 - A coal mine explosion in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.
• March 28 - A WW2 Japanese booby trap explodes in Corregidor, killing 28.
• March 29 - Rebellion against French rule erupts in Madagascar.
• March 31 - The leaders of the People\'s Republic of Mahabad, the second Kurdish state in the history of Iran, are hanged at the Chuwarchira Square in Mahabad after the country is conquered by Iranian forces.

April

• April 1
  • Jackie Robinson, the first African American baseball professional, signs a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
  • King George II of Greece is succeeded by his brother King Paul I.
• April 9 - A multiple outbreak of tornadoes occur from Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas killing 181 and injuring 970. Not known how many touched down.
• April 15 - Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to play Major League Baseball.
• April 16 - The Texas City Disaster: An Ammonium nitrate cargo of SS Grandcamp explodes in Texas City, Texas - 552 dead, 3,000 injured, 200 lost, 20 city blocks destroyed.
• April 18 - The British Royal Navy detonates 6,800 tonnes of explosives in a concerted attempt to destroy the small island of Heligoland, Germany, creating the biggest non-nuclear explosion in history.

May

• May 1 - The Salvatore Giuliano Gang opens fire on a labor parade near Portella Della Ginestra, Sicily, killing 11 and wounding 30.
• May 3 - The new post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
• May 12 - The Cartoon Rabbit Transit Directed by Friz Freleng where Bugs goes to jail is made.
• May 22
  • Cold War: In an effort to fight the spread of Communism, President Harry S. Truman signs an act implementing the Truman Doctrine. The 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 United States. Critics call it the finest film ever made from a Dickens novel.

June

• June 5 - Secretary of State George Marshall outlines the Marshall Plan for U.S. aid to Europe.
• June 7 - The ASA (currently Steaua) sport club is founded in Bucharest, Romania.
• June 10 - Saab produces its first automobile.
• June 15 - Portuguese government orders 11 military officers and 19 university professors accused of revolutionary activity to resign.
• June 18 - Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara hanged in Guam for war crimes related to the Battle of Wake Island on October 7, 1943.
• June 20 - Bugsy Siegel is found shot in the Beverly Hills mansion of Virginia Hill.
• June 21
  • Seaman Harold Dahl claims to have seen six UFOs near Maury Island. The next morning Dahl reports the first modern Men in Black encounter.
  • The Canadian Parliament votes unaminiously to pass several laws regarding displaced foreign refugees.
• June 23 - The United States Senate follows the United States House of Representatives in overriding U.S. President Harry S. Truman\'s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.
• June 24 - Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington.

July

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), created July 1947

• July 1 - The Australian real estate franchise L. J. Hooker lists on the Australian Stock Exchange.
• July 2 - A downed UFO is allegedly found in the Roswell UFO incident, written about by Stanton T. Friedman.
• July 10 - Princess Elizabeth announces her engagement to Philip Mountbatten.
• July 11 - Exodus (ship) departs France to Palestine with 4,500 Jewish Holocaust survivor refugees.
• July 18 - Following wide media and UNSCOP coverage, Exodus (ship) is captured by British troops and refused entry to Palestine in the port of Haifa.
• July 18 - President Harry S. Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act into law which places the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the United States Vice President.
• July 19 - Burmese nationalist Aung San is murdered.
• July 26 - Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act into law, creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.
• July 29 - After being shut off on November 9, 1946 for a refurbishment, ENIAC, one of the world\'s first digital computers, is turned on after a memory upgrade. It will remain in continuous operation until October 2, 1955.

August

Flag of the newly independent Pakistan

Flag of the newly independent India

• August 4 - UK Betty Moore from Horsham, Sussex, sails in her first Cowes Week. 59 years later she is awarded the Skandia Cowes Week Ladies Day Trophy after campaigning her Solent Sunbeam, WHY, in all 60 consecutive regattas.
• August 5 - The Netherlands stops political actions in Indonesia.
• August 7
  • Thor Heyerdahl\'s balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101 day, 4,300 mile journey across the Pacific Ocean proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.
  • The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST).
• August 14 - After 90 years of British colonial rule, Pakistan gains independence from the British Empire. While the transition is officially at midnight on this day, Pakistan celebrates its independence on August 14 compared to India on the 15th. Muhammad Ali Jinnah became the first Governor General of Pakistan.
• August 15
  • After a long struggle India gained independence from British rule. Pakistan splits from India. Rajendra Prasad is the first President of India. Jawaharlal Nehru takes office as the first Prime Minister of India.
  • The Khan of Baluchistan declares independence (accedes to Pakistan in 1948).
• August 16 - In Greece, General Markos Vafiadis takes over.
• August 23 - Prime Minister of Greece Dimitrios Maximos resigns.
• August 24 - The first Edinburgh International Festival begins, with a post-war mission to \'provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit’.
• August 27 - When the French government lowers the bread ration to 200 grams, it causes riots in Verdun and Le Mans.
• August 30 - Fire at a movie theater in Rueil, a suburb of Paris, France kills 87.
• August 31 - Communists take power in Hungary.

September

• September 4-September 21 - A hurricane in southeast Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama leaves 51 dead.
• September 13 - Indian Prime Minister Nehru suggests the transfer of 4 million Hindus and Muslims between India and Pakistan.
• September 18
  • The United States Army Air Forces, along with some components of the United States Navy\'s air arm, becomes the United States Air Force.
  • The National Security Act creates the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA.

October

• October 13 - American cyclist and St. Ignatius High School gratuate, Edward Patrick Dignan, was born in Chicago, IL.
• October 14 - American test pilot Captain Chuck Yeager flies a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, the first man to do so in level flight.
• October 20 - The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 begins.
• October 30 - The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is founded.

November

• November 2
  • In California, designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden flight of the Spruce Goose; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built (flight lasted only eight minutes).
  • Earthquake in Chilean Andes kills 233.
• November 6 - Meet the Press makes its television debut on the NBC television network.
• November 10 - The arrest of four steel workers in Marseille begins a communist riot that spreads to Paris.
• November 16
  • In Brussels, 15,000 demonstrate against the relatively short sentences of Nazis.
  • The British begin to withdraw their troops from Palestine.

The Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh on their wedding day

• November 20
  • The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King George VI marries the Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London.
  • Paul Ramadier resigns as Prime Minister of France - he is succeeded by Robert Schuman. Schuman calls 80,000 reservists to quell the rioting miners.
• November 21 - The United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment begins in Havana, Cuba. The conference ends in 1948, when members finish the Havana Charter.
• November 24 - Red Scare: The United States House of Representatives votes 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt of U.S. Congress against the so-called Hollywood 10 after the 10 had refused to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee concerning allegations of Communist influence in the movie industry, (the 10 were blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios the next day).
• November 25 - New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.
• November 27 - In Paris, police occupy the editorial offices of communist newspapers.
• November 29 - The United Nations General Assembly votes to partition Palestine between Arabs and Jews, resulting in the creation of the State of Israel.

December

• December 3
  • French communist strikers derail the Paris-Tourcoing Express train because of false rumors that it was transporting soldiers - 21 dead.
  • Tennessee Williams\' play A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway.
• December 4 - French interior minister Jules Moch secures emergency measures against riots after six days of violent arguments in the national assembly.
• December 6 - The legendary Arturo Toscanini conducts a concert performance of the first half of Giuseppe Verdi\'s Otello, based on Shakespeare\'s Othello, on NBC radio. The second half will be broadcast a week later. Starring are Ramon Vinay, Giuseppe Valdengo, and Herva Nelli. The complete performance (both parts) will eventually be released on LP and CD. Many believe this is one of the very finest opera performances led by Toscanini. It is for some the definitive Otello.
• December 9 - French labour unions call off the general strike and begin negotiations with the French government.
• December 12 - The Iranian Royal Army takes back power in Azerbaijan province.
• December 22
  • The Italian Constituent Assembly votes to accept the new constitution.
  • The first practical transistor is demonstrated.
• December 30 - King Michael of Romania abdicates.

Undated

• The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigations into communism in Hollywood.
• Cambridge University begins to admit women as full students.
• Mikhail Kalashnikov designs the AK-47 assault rifle.
• Raytheon produces first commercial microwave oven.
• Women\'s suffrage is granted in Argentina.
• In a cave in and around the Wadi Qumran (near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea), several tall pottery jars containing leather scrolls are discovered, which later became known as the Dead Sea scrolls."Year by Year 1947" -- History Channel International
• By discovery of Promethium in products of nuclear fission, last gap of periodic table was closed.

Ongoing

• Marshall Plan

Births

January-February

• January 2
  • Ai, American poet
  • Jack Hanna, American zoologist
• January 3 - Patricia Anthony, American author
• January 6 - Sandy Denny, British singer (d. 1978)
• January 7 - Shobha De, Indian writer
• January 8
  • David Bowie, English musician
  • Jenny Boyd, British model
  • Samuel Schmid, Swiss Federal Councilor
• January 9 - Ronnie Landfield, American artist
• January 10 - Ronald Harris, American
• January 11
  • Tom Netherton, American singer
  • Mart Smeets, Dutch sports journalist
• January 14 - Bill Werbeniuk, Canadian snooker player (d. 2003)
• January 16 - Laura Schlessinger, American psychologist and radio talk show host
• January 18 - Takeshi Kitano, Japanese film director and actor
• January 23 - Thomas R. Carper, U.S. Senator from D

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• January 24 - Warren Zevon, American musician (d. 2003)
  • Masashi Ozaki, Japanese golfer
• January 26 - Richard Portnow, American actor
• January 29 - Linda B. Buck, American biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• January 30
  • Les Barker, English poet
  • Steve Marriott, British musician (The Small Faces) and (Humble Pie) (d. 1991)
• January 31 - Nolan Ryan, baseball player
• February 1 - Jessica Savitch, American journalist (d. 1983)
• February 2 - Farrah Fawcett, American actress
• February 3
  • Melanie, American singer
  • Paul Auster, American novelist
• February 4 - Dan Quayle, Vice President of the United States
• February 5 - Darrell Waltrip, American race car driver and broadcaster
• February 10
  • Louise Arbour, Canadian jurist
  • Nicholas Owen, English newsreader (ITN)
• February 12 - Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Most well known sikh leaders of the 20th century (d. 1984)
• February 13 - Mike Krzyzewski, American basketball coach
• February 15 - John Coolidge Adams, American composer
• February 18
  • Princess Christina of the Netherlands
  • Dennis DeYoung, American musician (Styx)
• February 20
  • Peter Osgood, English footballer (d. 2006)
  • Peter Strauss, American actor
• February 21 - Victor Sokolov, Russian dissident journalist and priest (d. 2006)
• February 24 - Edward James Olmos, American actor
• February 25 - Doug Yule, American singer and musician (The Velvet Underground)
• February 26 - Sandie Shaw, British singer
• February 27 - Gidon Kremer, Latvian violinist

March-April

• March 4
  • David Franzoni, American screenwriter
  • Jan Garbarek, Norwegian musician
  • Gunnar Hansen, Icelandic actor
  • Gwen Welles, American actress (d. 1993)
• March 6
  • Kiki Dee, English singer
  • Dick Fosbury, American athlete
  • Teru Miyamoto, Japanese author
• March 7
  • Matthew Fisher, British singer, songwriter, and producer
  • Walter Röhrl, German race car driver
  • Richard Lawson, American actor
• March 8 - Carole Bayer Sager, American composer
• March 10
  • Kim Campbell, Prime Minister of Canada
  • Tom Scholz, American musician, songwriter, and inventor
• March 12
  • Kalervo Palsa, Finnish artist
  • Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
• March 13 - Beat Richner, Swiss pediatrician and cellist
• March 14 - Pam Ayres, British poet
• March 15 - Ry Cooder, American guitarist.
• March 16 - Ramzan Paskayev, Chechen accordionist
• March 17 - Yury Chernavsky, Russian-born composer and producer
• March 19 - Glenn Close, American actress
• March 20 - John Boswell, American historian (d. 1994)
• March 24 - Louise Lanctôt, Canadian terrorist and writer
• March 25 - Elton John, English singer, pianist, and songwriter
• March 27 - Walt Mo