Year retrospective · 1940s

1947

1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1947th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 947th year of the 2nd millennium, the 47th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year of the 1940s decade.

Recorded events

10

top entries

Notable births

30

Notable deaths

30

Decade

1940s

Timeline

Defining events of 1947

  1. 1947 The only mutiny in the history of the Royal New Zealand Navy begins.

    Series of mutinies in the New Zealand navy

    During April 1947, the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) experienced a series of non-violent mutinies amongst the enlisted sailors of four ships and two shore bases. Over 20 per cent of the RNZN's enlisted personnel were punished or discharged for their involvement. The main cause was the poor rates of pay compared to the rest of the New Zealand Defence Force and equivalent civilian wages, exacerbated by the release of a long overdue government review which failed to address the issue.

  2. 1947 Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball's color line.

    American baseball player (1919–1972)

    Jack Roosevelt Robinson was an American professional baseball player who was the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. The Dodgers signing Robinson heralded the end of racial segregation in professional baseball, which had relegated black players to the Negro leagues since the 1880s.

  3. 1947 An explosion on board a freighter in port causes Texas City in the state of Texas, United States, to catch fire, killing almost 600 people.

    1947 explosions in Texas City, Texas

    The Texas City disaster was an industrial accident that occurred on April 16, 1947, in the port of Texas City, Texas, United States, located in Galveston Bay. S. history and one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions.

  4. 1947 Bernard Baruch first applies the term "Cold War" to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

    American businessman (1870–1965)

    Bernard Mannes Baruch was an American financier and statesman.

  5. 1947 The Operation Big Bang, the largest non-nuclear man-made explosion to that time, destroys bunkers and military installations on the North Sea island of Heligoland, Germany.

    1947 destruction of bunkers on Heligoland

    Operation Big Bang or British Bang was the explosive destruction of bunkers and other military installations on the island of Heligoland. m. on 18 April 1947 by the Royal Navy.

  6. 1947 Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to demonstrate that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.

    Norwegian anthropologist and adventurer (1914–2002)

    Thor Heyerdahl KStJ was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in biology with specialization in zoology, botany and geography.

  7. 1947 In Nevada, Boulder Dam is renamed Hoover Dam.
  8. 1947 The first Tony Awards are presented for theatrical achievement.
  9. 1947 The Glazier–Higgins–Woodward tornadoes kill 181 and injure 970 in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
  10. 1947 The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride begins through the upper South in violation of Jim Crow laws. The riders wanted enforcement of the United States Supreme Court's 1946 Irene Morgan decision that banned racial segregation in interstate travel.

Arrivals

Born in 1947

Moses Blah 1947– President of Liberia in 2003
Jerzy Stuhr 1947– Polish actor (1947–2024)
James Woods 1947– American actor (born 1947)
John Blackman 1947– Australian radio and television presenter (1947–2024)
Claudia J. Kennedy 1947– First female three-star general in the US Army
Salih Neftçi 1947– Turkish economist (1947–2009)
Navin Ramgoolam 1947– Prime Minister of Mauritius (1995–2000; 2005–2014; since 2024)
David Blunkett 1947– British politician (born 1947)
Robert Englund 1947– American actor and director (born 1947)
Ada Kok 1947– Dutch swimmer (born 1947)
Keith Daniel Williams 1947– American triple murderer executed in California (1947–1996)
Thurman Munson 1947– American baseball player (1947–1979)

Farewells

Died in 1947

Jozef Tiso President of the Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945
Christian X King of Denmark (1912–1947) and Iceland (1918–1944)
Meir Feinstein (born 1929 Israeli militant
Henry James American lawyer
Nicholas Roerich Russian painter, writer, archaeologist and philosopher (1874–1947)
Fannie Charles Dillon American composer
Heinrich Häberlin Swiss politician and judge (1868–1947)
Bugsy Siegel American mobster (1906–1947)
Nils Olaf Chrisander Swedish actor and film director
James Agate English diarist and theatre critic (1877–1947)
Frans Johan Louwrens Ghijsels Dutch architect (1882–1947)
George Forbes Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1930 to 1935

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