Top News Stories from 1947

World Events

World Statistics

Population: 4.378 billion
population by decade
Nobel Peace Prize: American Friends Service Committee (US) and British Society of Friends' Service Council (UK)
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U.S. Events

U.S. Statistics

President: Harry S Truman
Vice President: none
Population: 144,126,071
Life expectancy: 66.8 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 6.1
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Economics

US GDP (1998 dollars): $244.6 billion
Federal spending: $34.50 billion
Federal debt $257.1 billion
Consumer Price Index: $22.3
Unemployment: 3.9%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.03

Sports

World Series
NY Yankees d. Brooklyn Dodgers (4-3)
NBA Championship
Philadelphia Warriors d. Chicago Stags
Stanley Cup
Toronto d. Montreal
Wimbledon
Women: Margaret Osborne d. D. Hart (6-2 6-4)
Men: Jack Kramer d. T. Brown (6-1 6-3 6-2)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Jet Pilot
NCAA Basketball Championship
Holy Cross d. Oklahoma
NCAA Football Champions
Notre Dame (9-0-0)

Entertainment

Entertainment Awards

Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction:

All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren

Music: Symphony No. 3, Charles Ives
Academy Award, Best Picture: The Best Years of Our Lives (Goldwyn; RKO Radio)
Nobel Prize for Literature: André Gide (France)
Miss America: Barbara Walker (TN)
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Events

  • The Yankees beat the Dodgers in seven games in the first televised World Series.
  • Meet the Press debuts on NBC. The first news show will become television's longest-running program.
  • Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire opens at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre, with Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski and Jessica Tandy as Blanche DuBois. The play wins the 1948 Pulitzer Prize.

Movies

  • Gentleman's Agreement, Miracle on 34th Street, Great Expectations, The Bishop's Wife

Music

Books

Science

Nobel Prizes in Science

Chemistry: Sir Robert Robinson (UK), for research in plant substances
Physics: Sir Edward Appleton (UK), for discovery of layer that reflects radio short waves in the ionosphere
Physiology or Medicine: Carl F. and Gerty T. Cori (US), for work on animal starch metabolism; Bernardo A. Houssay (Argentina), for study of pituitary
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Death

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