1947

align="center" colspan=2 | Years:
1944 1945 1946 - 1947 - 1948 1949 1950

align="center" colspan=2 | Decades:
1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s

align="center" | Centuries:
19th century - 20th century - 21st century

1947 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January

January 1 - British mines nationalized
January 1 - Nigeria gains limited autonomy
January 1 - The Canadian Citizenship Act went into effect
January 3 - Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time
January 10 - United Nations takes control of the free city of Trieste
January 15 - Elizabeth Short is found dead
January 24 - Demetrios Maximos founds monarchist government in Athens
January 25 - Philippinean plane crashes in Hong Kong with $5 million worth of gold and money
January 29 - -26 degrees Celsius in Britain
January 30 - February 8 - heavy blizzard in Canada buries towns from Winnipeg to Calgary

February

February 3 - In Snag, Yukon, -63 degrees Celsius
February 3 - Percival Prattis becomes the first African American news correspondent allowed in the United States House of Representatives and Senate press gallery.
February 5 - Boleslaw Bierut becomes president of Poland
February 10 - Paris peace treaties signed between the World War II Allies and Italy, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria: Italy cedes most of Istria to Yugoslavia
February 12 - A meteor creates a crater in Sikhote-Alin, Soviet Union
February 17 - Propaganda: The Voice of America begins to transmit radio broadcasts into the Soviet Union.
February 20 - State of Prussia ceases to exist
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 28 - USA gives France a military base in Casablanca

March

March 1 - The International Monetary Fund begins to operate.
March 1 - Wernher von Braun marries his first cousin, 18-year-old Maria von Quirstorp.
March 1 - Japanese city Tsushima, Aichi is founded
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 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 coalmine explosion in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.
March 29 - Rebellion against French rule erupts in Madagascar

April

April 9 - The Glazier-Higgins-Woodward Tornadoes kill 181 and injure 970 in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
April 15 - Jackie Robinson, an African-American, takes the field at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers major-league baseball team, breaking that sport's color line.
April 16 - The Texas City Disaster occurs when a French ship loaded with ammonium nitrate blows up in the harbor of Texas City, Texas. Approximately 600 were killed or missing due to the blast, with 2,000 injured.
April 27 - Babe Ruth Day is celebrated at Yankee Stadium

May

May 1 - Gang of Salvatore Giuliano opens fire on a labor parade near Portella Della Ginestra, Sicily; Eleven killed, thirty wounded
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 granted $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece.

June

June 5 - Secretary of State Gen George Marshall outlines the Marshall Plan for U.S. aid to Europe.
June 10 - Saab produces its first automobile.
June 15 - Portuguese government orders 11 military officers and 19 university professors to resign accused of revolutionary activity
June 20 - Bugsy Siegel found shot in his Beverly Hills home
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.

July

July 1 - The Australian real estate franchise L. J. Hooker lists on the Australian Stock Exchange
July 7 - Downed UFO believed to be found in the Roswell UFO incident
July 10 - Princess Elizabeth announces engagement to Philip Mountbatten
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 - Murder of Burmese nationalist Aung San
July 24 - 100 year anniversary of Brigham Young leading 148 Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City.
July 26 - Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act into United States 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.
July 30 - Thor Heyerdahl sails with Kon-Tiki

August

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.
August 9 - Beginning the 6 Scout World Jamboree - see Jamboree Scout 1947 (in French)
August 14 - Pakistan gains independence from the British Empire under the leadership of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. 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 - Following decades of nonviolent resistance and periodic civil unrest from 1919, India gains independence from the British Empire. Pakistan splits from India. Jawaharlal Nehru takes office as first Prime Minister of India.
August 16 - In Greece, General Markos Vafiadis takes over
August 23 - Prime Minister of Greece Dimitrios Maximos resigns.

September

September 4-September 21 - Hurricane in southeast Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama - 51 killed
September 9 - "First actual case of (a computer) bug being found" - a moth lodged in a relay of a Mark II computer at Harvard.
September 13 - Nehru suggests transfer of 4 million Hindus and Muslims between India and Pakistan.

October

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

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).
November 16 - 15.000 demonstrate in Brussels against the relatively short sentences of Nazis
November 20- Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth marries the Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London.
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 29 - The United Nations General Assembly votes to partition Palestine between Arabs and Jews.
November 2 - Earthquake in Chilean Andes - 233 dead
November 16 - British begin to withdraw their troops from Palestine
November 27 - In Paris, police occupy editorial offices of communist newspapers

December

December 3 - Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway.
December 30 - King Michael of Romania abdicates

Unknown date

Prussia is legally abolished by the Allied Control Council following World War II and the establishment of the Oder-Neisse line as Germany's eastern border.
The House Un-American Activities Committee begin their investigations of communism in Hollywood.
Cambridge University begins to admits women as full students.
Mikhail Kalashnikov designs the AK-47 assault rifle.
Walter Morrison invents the Frisbee.
Raytheon produces first commercial microwave oven.

Year in topic

1947 in aviation
1947 in film

1947 in literature
1947 in music
1947 in rail transport

June 6 - The Pere Marquette Railroad is merged into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.

1947 in sports
1947 in television
January 22 - The first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, begins operation in Hollywood, California.

January 30 - The FCC rejects CBS' color television system.
May 7 - Kraft Television Theater premieres on NBC, the first regularly scheduled drama series on a network.
September 30 - The opening game of the World Series is the first World Series game to be telecast. The 1947 World Series brought in an estimated 3.9 million people, becoming television's first mass audience.
October 5 - The first presidential address is telecast from the White House. President Truman speaks about the world food crisis.
November 6 - Meet the Press first appears as a local program in Washington.
November 20 - Meet the Press first network telecast.
December 27 - Puppet Television Theater (later called Howdy Doody), a children's television program, makes its debut (NBC).
The first Hollywood film production for TV, The Public Prosecutor.
There are 14,000 television sets in use in the United States.