January 1946

The following events occurred in January 1946:

January 1, 1946 (Tuesday)

* Humanity Declaration: Japan's Emperor Hirohito surprised his subjects with the news that he was not descended from the Shinto Sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami, and that "The Emperor is not a living god". He added that his people had to "proceed unflinchingly toward the elimination of misguided practices of the past", including "the false conception that the Emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world". The admission was published in newspapers throughout Japan.

January 2, 1946 (Wednesday)

*In León, Mexico, federal troops, called in by the Governor of the State of Guanajuato, fired into a crowd of demonstrators, killing at least 40 people.
*The U.S. Army partially lifted a ban against marriage between American soldiers and enemy nationals, allowing servicemen to marry Austrian citizens. The ban against marriage of Germans was not lifted until December 11.

January 3, 1946 (Thursday)

*George Woolf, a jockey who had ridden both Seabiscuit and Bold Venture to victory, was thrown from his horse during a race at Santa Anita Park. He died the next day at the age of 35. Woolf, nicknamed "The Ice Man", was in the first group of people admitted to the U.S. Jockey Hall of Fame when it opened in 1955.
*At a congressional hearing, Admiral Harold R. Stark testified that more than two months before the United States entered the Second World War, President Roosevelt had ordered American warships to destroy "German and Italian naval, land, and air forces encountered" if requested by British officers.
*Poland nationalized its main industries, with passage of a law "on taking public ownership of the basic branches of the national economy".
*Born:
** John Paul Jones (real name John Baldwin), English rock bassist ( Led Zeppelin), in Sidcup, Kent
**Cissy King, American singer on '' The Lawrence Welk Show'', in Trinidad, Colorado
*Died: William Joyce, 39, nicknamed "Lord Haw Haw" by his British listeners, a U.S.-born citizen of the United Kingdom who had defected to Germany to broadcast Nazi propaganda to Britain during World War II, was hanged at Britain's Wandsworth Prison at for treason. A foreign correspondent noted that "Joyce's regular wartime broadcasts over the German radio made him one of the most hated and most ridiculed of men."

January 4, 1946 (Friday)

*The United States Department of War announced a slowdown in demobilization of U.S. Army soldiers in the Pacific theater, cutting army discharges by 60 percent, from 800,000 down to 300,000 per month. In the week that followed, American soldiers around the world protested, in the Philippines, France, Guam, Germany, India and the United States. The War Department reversed the decision as a result of pressure from the "'Bring Em Home' Movement".
*General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) during the occupation of Japan, began a purge of the Japanese government, with the goal of removing "undesirable personnel" from office. Over two and a half years, there were 210,287 people removed or barred from public office.
*The ''Reichskleinodien'', treasures of the Holy Roman Empire which had been taken from Austria after the '' Anschluss'', were returned to Vienna by General Mark Clark. Members of the U.S. Army had located the collection of 30 pieces, some more than 1,000 years old, including a Bible that had been found in the tomb of Charlemagne, and the "Holy Lance".
* A series of tornadoes swept through east Texas, killing 28 people and injuring 310 in Anderson, Angelina and Nacogdoches counties.

January 5, 1946 (Saturday)

*Adolf Eichmann

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