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Howard Hughes close to death |
| Howard Hughes, a millionaire who in the next years will own a number of casinos in Las Vegas, almost dies in a plane crash. |
| Experienced pilot, he is testing his experimental plane XF-11 when the plane crashes. He gets many fractures and deep burns, and the doctors say he will not survive. |
| He will leave the hospital nine months later. |
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Bugsy Siegel opens the Flamingo |
| Benjamin Siegel buys from Billy Wilkerson a new luxurious hotel casino on Route 91. |
| Siegel names this casino ''The Flamingo'' in honor of his girlfriend, the dancer Virginia Hill, whose long legs and red hair remembered him that bird. |
| Due to the elegance of the Flamingo, reminiscent of the clubs in the Los Angeles Sunset Strip, the police captain Guy McAfee will call this route ''The Strip''. |
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The first United Nations General Assembly |
| On January 10, the delegates of 51 nations meet in London for the first United Nations General Assembly. |
| After the failure of the League of Nations, and after the experience of the Second World War, the UN is aimed at preserving the international peace. |
| The UN accepts the invitation of the USA to put his headquarters in New York. John D. Rockefeller Jr. will donate an area in Manhattan where to build the headquarters. |
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The verdicts of the Nuremberg Trials |
| On September 30, the trials led in Nuremberg to 24 Nazi leaders reach their verdicts: 12 are sentenced to death, 3 to life imprisonment, and 4 to shorter prison terms. |
| The main accusations are crimes against humanity; crimes against peace; war crimes; criminal conspiracy. |
| Especially for the first one, namely genocide, some documents presented at the trials have proved facts whose brutality is beyond human imagination. |
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Italy votes the Republic |
| Although King Vittorio Emanuele III has already abdicated in favor of his son, Umberto II, Italians are asked to choose between monarchy and republic. |
| Although Pope Pius XII asks the Italians to ''choose Christianity over materialism'' (namely to vote for the monarchy), 54 percent vote for the republic. |
| Umberto II contests the validity of the results, but at the end he is obliged to leave Italy and to exile in Portugal. |
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The ENIAC |
| At the University of Pennsylvania, scientists build the first all-purpose digital computer. ENIAC is for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. |
| This 30-ton computer contains 18,000 vacuum tubes, and performs 5,000 mathematical operations per second. It is used by the U.S. Army to calculate ballistic equations. |
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