1947 in the United States

Federal Government

• President: Harry S. Truman (D-Missouri)
• Vice President: vacant
• Chief Justice: Fred M. Vinson (Kentucky)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-Texas) (until January 3), Joseph William Martin, Jr. (R-Massachusetts) (starting January 3)
• Senate Majority Leader: Alben W. Barkley (D-Kentucky) (until January 3), Wallace H. White, Jr. (R-Maine) (starting January 3)
• Congress: 79th (until January 3), 80th (starting January 3)

January–March

• January 15 – Elizabeth Short, an aspiring actress nicknamed the "Black Dahlia", is found brutally murdered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The case remains unsolved to this day.
• February 3 – Percival Prattis becomes the first African-American news correspondent allowed in the United States House of Representatives and Senate press galleries.
• February 17 – Cold War: The Voice of America begins to transmit radio broadcasts into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
• February 20
  • An explosion at the O'Connor Electro-Plating Company in Los Angeles, California, leaves 17 dead, 100 buildings damaged, and a 22-foot-deep (6.7 m) crater in the ground.
  • Ordnance Corps Hermes project V-2 rocket Blossom I launched into space carrying plant material and fruitflies, the first animals to enter space.
• February 21 – In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", his Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
• February 28 – The United States grants France a military base in Casablanca.
• March 6 – The USS Newport News, the first completely air-conditioned warship, is launched in Newport News, Virginia.
• March 19 – The 19th Academy Awards ceremony is held. The movie Best Years of Our Lives wins the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with several other Academy Awards.
• March 25 – A coal mine explosion in Centralia, Illinois, kills 111 miners.

April–June

• April 1 – Jackie Robinson, the first African American baseball professional since the 1880s, signs a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
• April 6 – The 1st Tony Awards, recognizing achievement in American theater, are awarded at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
• April 9
  • Multiple tornadoes strike Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas killing 181 and injuring 970.
  • The Journey of Reconciliation begins, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality.
• April 15 – Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to play Major League Baseball since the 1880s.
• April 16
  • Texas City Disaster: The ammonium nitrate cargo of French-registered Liberty ship SS Grandcamp explodes in Texas City, Texas, killing at least 581, including all but one member of the city fire department, injuring at least 5,000 and destroying 20 city blocks. Of the dead, remains of 113 are never found and 63 are unidentifiable.
  • American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch describes the post–World War II tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States as a "Cold War".
• April 26 – Academy award-winning Tom and Jerry cartoon, The Cat Concerto, is released to theatres.
• May 6 – The Wisconsin earthquake affected Alaska with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (Strong), causing a destructive basin wide tsunami, leaving 165–173 dead.
• 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.^[1]
  • David Lean's film Great Expectations, based on the novel by Charles Dickens, opens in the U.S. Critics call it the finest film ever made from a Charles Dickens novel.
• June – Langer's Deli opens in Los Angeles.
• June 5 – Secretary of State George Marshall outlines the Marshall Plan for American reconstruction and relief aid to Europe.
• June 21 – Seaman Harold Dahl claims to have seen six UFOs near Maury Island in Puget Sound, Washington. On the next morning, Dahl reports the first modern so-called "Men in Black" encounter.
• June 23 – The United States Senate follows the House of Representatives in overriding President Harry S. Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.
• June 24 – Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington.

July–September

• July 7 – A supposedly downed extraterrestrial spacecraft is reportedly found in the Roswell UFO incident, near Roswell, New Mexico, which has been written about by Stanton T. Friedman and many others.
• July 18 – President Harry S. Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act into law, which places the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate next in the line of succession after the United States Vice President.
• July 26 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. 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.
• August – Fernwood Park race riot in Chicago.
• August 29 – US announces the discovery of plutonium fission, suitable for nuclear power generation.
• September 17–21 – The 1947 Fort Lauderdale Hurricane in southeastern Florida, and also in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, causes widespread damage and kills 51 people.
• September 17 – Office of Indian Affairs renamed Bureau of Indian Affairs.
• September 18 – Most provisions of the National Security Act go into effect, reorganizing the military to form the National Military Establishment (later the Department of Defense) with subordinate Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; creating the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council; and establishing the Secretary of Defense.
• September 26 – U.S. Air Force is made a separate branch of the military.

October–December

October 14: Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in the Bell X-1

Girls sunbathing at Cabrillo Beach, California, Dec. 28, 1947

• October–November – Great Fires of 1947: Forest fires in Maine consume more than 200,000 acres of wooded land statewide, including over 17,000 acres on Mount Desert Island alone. 16 persons are killed and more than 1,000 homes destroyed in the blazes, with total property damage exceeding $23 million.
• October – The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigations into communism in Hollywood.
• October 6 – World Series games are broadcast on television for the first time.
• 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 1 – U.S. Caribbean Command.
• November 2 – In California, the designer and airplane pilot Howard Hughes performs the maiden flight of the Spruce Goose, the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built. (The flight lasts only eight minutes, and the "Spruce Goose" is never flown again.)
• November 6 – The program Meet the Press makes its television debut on the NBC-TV network in the United States.
• November 24 – Red Scare: The U.S. House of Representatives votes 346–17 to approve citations of Contempt of Congress against the so-called Hollywood 10, after the ten men refuse to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee concerning allegations of communist influences in the movie business. (The ten men are blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios on the following day).
• December 3 – The Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire opens in a Broadway theater.
• December 6 – Arturo Toscanini conducts a concert performance of the first half of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello, which was based on William Shakespeare's play Othello, for a broadcast on NBC Radio. The second half of the opera is broadcast a week later.
• 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.

Ongoing

• Cold War (1945–1991)
• Second Red Scare (1947–1957)
• Baby boom (1946–1964)

January

• January 1 – Jon Corzine, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 2001 to 2006.
• January 5
  • Mike DeWine, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1995 to 2007.
  • Mercury Morris, American football player
• January 19 – Ann Compton, American journalist
• January 23 – Tom Carper, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 2001.
• January 24 – Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and science popularizer.
• January 26 – Mark Dayton, Governor of Minnesota since 2011 and U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 2001 to 2007.
• January 28 – Jeanne Shaheen, U.S. Senator from New Hampshire.
• January 29 – Linda B. Buck, biologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

March

• March 5 – Ottis Toole, murderer (d. 1996)
• March 12 – Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.
• March 19 – Glenn Close, actress

April

• April 20 - Andrew Tobias, journalist and author
• April 22 - Norma Harris, sprinter

May

• May 2 – Terry Tarnoff, writer
• May 10 – Jay Ferguson, singer-songwriter and keyboard player (Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne)

June

• June 6 – Robert Englund, actor, director and singer
• June 7
  • Thurman Munson, baseball player (d. 1979)
  • Edward C. Prado, federal judge
• June 19 – Linda Myers, archer

July

• July 9 – O. J. Simpson, American football player, sportscaster, actor, author, alleged murderer

August

• August 16 – Carol Moseley-Braun, United States Senator from Illinois from 1993 till 1999.
• August 24 – Joe Manchin, United States Senator from West Virginia since 2010.

September

• September 1 – Al Green, politician
• September 6 – Jane Curtin, actress and comedian
• September 8 – Benjamin Orr, singer-songwriter (d. 2000)
• September 9 – Freddy Weller, singer-songwriter
• September 19 – Steve Bartlett, Texas politician
• September 21
  • Don Felder, rock guitarist
  • Stephen King, horror novelist
• September 22 – Norma McCorvey, abortion plaintiff (Roe v. Wade) (d. 2017)
• September 23 – Mary Kay Place, screen actress
• September 26 – Lynn Anderson, country-music singer (d. 2015)

• =October 18 - Donald Slodysko,engineer
• October 23 – Frank DiLeo, actor and music industry executive (d. 2011)
• October 24 – Kevin Kline, actor
• October 26 – Hillary Clinton, First Lady of the United States, 67th Secretary of State, United States Senator from New York from 2001 till 2009 and wife of Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States
• October 29 – Richard Dreyfuss, actor

November

• November 3 – Mazie Hirono, United States Senator from Hawaii since 2013.
• November 12 – Ron Bryant, baseball player
• November 13
  • Toy Caldwell, guitarist and songwriter (The Marshall Tucker Band) (d. 1993)
  • Gene Garber, baseball player

December

• December 8 – Gregg Allman, singer-songwriter (died 2017)
• December 9 – Tom Daschle, U.S. Senator from South Dakota from 1987 to 2005
• December 20 – Bo Ryan, basketball player and coach

January–June

• January 3 – Gus Wickie, singer and voice actor (b. 1885)
• January 10 – Arthur E. Andersen, accountant (b. 1885)
• January 14 – Bill Hewitt, football player (Chicago Bears) and member of Pro Football Hall of Fame (b. 1909)
• January 16
  • Sonny Berman, jazz trumpeter, of suspected drug overdose (b. 1925)
  • Fate Marable, jazz pianist and bandleader, of pneumonia (b. 1890)
• January 20
  • Andrew Volstead, politician (b. 1860)
  • Josh Gibson, African-American baseball player and member of MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1911)
• January 25 – Al Capone, gangster (b. 1899)
• January 26 – Grace Moore, operatic soprano, in plane crash (b. 1898)
• February 12
  • Kurt Lewin, German-American psychologist (b. 1890)
  • Sidney Toler, actor (b. 1874)
• March 8 – Victor Potel, character actor and comedian (b. 1889)
• March 12 – Winston Churchill, novelist (b. 1871)
• March 18 – William C. Durant, automobile pioneer (b. 1861)
• March 21 – Homer Lusk Collyer, hermit brother (Collyer brothers) (b. 1881)
• March 28 – Johnny Evers, baseball player (Chicago Cubs) and member of MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1881)
• April 7 – Henry Ford, automobile manufacturer (b. 1863)
• April 8 – Langley Collyer, hermit brother (b. 1885)
• April 10 – John Ince, actor (b. 1878)
• April 24 – Willa Cather, novelist (b. 1873)
• May 6 – Louise Homer, operatic contralto (b. 1871)
• May 8 – Harry Gordon Selfridge, department store magnate (b. 1858)
• May 14 – John R. Sinnock, eighth Chief Engraver of the United States Mint (b. 1888)
• May 18 – Lucile Gleason, actress (b. 1888)
• May 30 – Baron Georg von Trapp, Austrian naval officer, patriarch of the Von Trapp Family Singers (b. 1880)
• May 31 – Adrienne Ames, actress (b. 1907)
• June 9 – J. Warren Kerrigan, actor (b. 1879)
• June 11 – Richard Hönigswald, Hungarian-born philosopher (b. 1875)
• June 17 – Maxwell Perkins, literary editor (b. 1884)
• June 20 – Bugsy Siegel, gangster (b. 1906)
• June 22 – Jim Tully, vagabond, pugilist and writer (b. 1891)

July–December

• July 12 – Jimmie Lunceford, African-American jazz saxophonist and bandleader, of cardiac arrest (b. 1902)
• July 15
  • Walter Donaldson, songwriter (b. 1893)
  • Brandon Hurst, stage and screen actor (b. 1866)
• August 3 – Vic Willis, baseball player (Boston Braves) and member of MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1876)
• September 1 – Frederick Russell Burnham, father of the international Scouting movement (b. 1861)
• September 18 – Bert Kalmar, lyricist (b. 1884)
• September 20
  • Fiorello H. La Guardia, Mayor of New York (b. 1882)
  • Edward McCartan, sculptor (b. 1879)
• September 21 – Harry Carey, film actor (b. 1878)
• October 1
  • Olive Borden, actress (b. 1906)
  • James Gamble Rogers, architect (b. 1867)
• October 3 – Ernest L. Riebau, politician (b. 1895)
• October 17 – John Halliday, actor (b. 1880)
• October 29 – Frances Cleveland, First Lady, wife of President Grover Cleveland (b. 1864)
• November 3 – John Gilbert Winant, politician and diplomat, suicide (b. 1889)
• November 20 – Walter J. Mathews, California architect (b. 1850)
• November 28 – W. E. Lawrence, silent film actor (b. 1896)
• December 7 – Nicholas Murray Butler, polymath, president of Columbia University and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1862)