A Look Back At

Born in 1947

What Was Life Like in 1947?

Who Was in Charge?

President

Harry S. Truman

What Things Cost

Gas (per gallon)

$0.23

Loaf of Bread

$0.12

Average House

$4,900

Weekly Wage

$46

Events of 1947 in the United States

A selection from Wikipedia's '1947 in the United States'. Not a complete list.

  • May 22 – Cold War: In an effort to fight the spread of Communism, President Harry S. Truman signs an Act of Congress that implements the Truman Doctrine. This Act grants $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece.
  • July 7 – A supposedly downed extraterrestrial spacecraft is reportedly found in the Roswell UFO incident, near Roswell, New Mexico, which will be written about by Stanton T. Friedman and many others.
  • July 26 – Cold War: President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into law, creating the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.
  • October 14 – The United States Air Force test pilot Captain Chuck Yeager flies a Bell X-1 rocket plane faster than the speed of sound, the first time that this has been accomplished in level flight, or climbing.
  • October 20 – Pakistan establishes diplomatic relations with the United States.
  • November 2 – In California, designer Howard Hughes pilots the maiden flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat known as "Spruce Goose", the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built; the flight lasts only eight minutes and the craft is never flown again.
  • December 3 – The Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire opens in a Broadway theater.
  • December 22 – The first practical electronic transistor is demonstrated by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain working under William Shockley at AT&T's Bell Labs.

Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)