By Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
On November 1, 1946, 1,279 illegal Jewish immigrants are transported by the British from Haifa, in Mandatory Palestine, to internment camps in Cyprus. In what the National Basketball Association calls the first game in its history, the New York Knicks defeat the Toronto Huskies in Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens, 68-66. The very first basket of the game is made by the Knickerbockers’ Ossie Schectman. The Knicks’ Leo “Ace” Gottlieb is the game’s high scorer with 14 points.
A magnitude 7.5 earthquake hits the Jalal-Abad region of Kyrgyzstan in central Asia on November 2. Surprisingly, despite the size of the quake, no deaths are reported, although some damage is done. (The Jalal-Abad quake released about one-third the energy of the 7.8-magnitude San Francisco earthquake of 1906 that killed 3,000 people and destroyed over 28,000 buildings. Of course, San Francisco had a much larger population and many, many more buildings.)
In Japan, Emperor Hirohito, who has been allowed to retain the Chrysanthemum Throne in return for dropping all claims of being divine, on November 3 proclaims a new constitution that becomes effective on May 3, 1947. The document renounces war.
On November 4, the British Parliament hears a report that from July through October, over 5,000 people have been killed and 13,000 injured in sectarian violence in India. The constitution for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) comes into effect; Julian Huxley, a biologist, is its first secretary-general. The foreign ministers of the “Big Four” (the U.S., the U.K., the U.S.S.R. and France) meet in a New York hotel to begin writing peace treaties with Germany’s European allies based on decisions made at the Paris Peace Conference.
Thousands of Jews are released from the Latrun detention camp in Palestine by the British on November 5. They had been rounded up and incarcerated as a response to recent violence. Congressional mid-term elections in the United States see large gains for the opposition Republican Party. They gain 13 seats in the Senate and 55 in the House of Representatives, taking control of both houses. Among incoming freshman Congressmen: John F. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Richard M. Nixon, a California Republican.
Mohandas Gandhi arrives in Noakhali, Bengal, India, on a pilgrimage of peace on November 6 and views the results of the massacres of Hindus by Muslims that occurred there in October. The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Albania.
On November 7, a major reform of Japan’s writing system — to simplify it — is ordered by that nation’s Ministry of Education at the urging of Allied occupation authorities.
The government of Japan, on November 8, 1946, expels from office almost 163,000 people — at all levels, from local to national positions — who held posts during the war. The names were provided by the Allied occupation authorities.
Some 246 people are reported killed in anti-Muslim violence on November 9 at a Hindu fair outside of Garhmukteshwar, Uttar Pradesh, British India. U.S. President Harry Truman ends the nationwide wage and price freeze except for rent, sugar and rice.
Hindu-Muslim rioting breaks out again in Bihar state in eastern British India on November 10. An estimated 20,000 Muslims flee the region. In the first national election held in the Fourth French Republic, Communists make significant gains at the expense of Socialists. They are now the largest party in the National Assembly. The Popular Republican Movement is a close second. Municipal elections in major Italian cities give victories to Communists and Socialists. Only in Palermo, Sicily, is the voting won by rightists. In the Soviet Union, a scientific team begins assembling the nation’s first nuclear reactor.
Margaret Truman, the president’s 22-year-old daughter, an aspiring coloratura soprano, sings a few notes while attending the opening of the 62nd season of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on November 11. She makes her professional singing debut in May of 1947.
The U.S. Army on November 12 stages a test between its fastest adding machine and an abacus. The abacus wins four out of five times. Walt Disney’s motion picture Song of the South premieres at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the first movie to combine live action with animation. One of the film’s tunes — “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” — wins the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Meteorologist Vincent Schaefer, a researcher with General Electric Co., conducts the first successful cloud-seeding test to control the weather, on November 13. Schaefer makes snow fall over Pittsfield, Massachusetts, by seeding clouds with dry-ice pellets at an altitude of 14,000 feet.
In New Delhi, India, representatives of the U.S. and Indian governments on November 14 sign an air-transport services agreement that clears the way for U.S. airlines to fly around the world. (The deal permits the flying of routes through the country’s airspace and the servicing and necessary changes of aircraft in India for onward continuation of flights.)
