1946 Year

On Wednesday morning, Oct. 16, 1946, the Page 1 banner in The Times read: "GOERING KILLS SELF WITH POISON; 10 OTHER NAZI LEADERS HANGED." Next to that story from Nuremberg, Germany, was a one-column headline: "CARDS WIN WORLD SERIES IN 4-3 GAME." Taken together, these were among the more notable developments of that watershed year half a century ago--in the real world and in sports. World War II had ended cataclysmically the year before, and justice was being carried out in Germany.

On Wednesday morning, Oct. 16, 1946, the Page 1 banner in The Times read: "GOERING KILLS SELF WITH POISON; 10 OTHER NAZI LEADERS HANGED." Next to that story from Nuremberg, Germany, was a one-column headline: "CARDS WIN WORLD SERIES IN 4-3 GAME." Taken together, these were among the more notable developments of that watershed year half a century ago--in the real world and in sports. World War II had ended cataclysmically the year before, and justice was being carried out in Germany.

'Leaving Las Vegas," Mike Figgis' downbeat tale of a suicidal alcoholic writer (Nicolas Cage) and the prostitute (Elisabeth Shue) who loves him, is nominated for four Oscars. Fifty years before "Leaving Las Vegas," another harrowing depiction of alcoholism, "The Lost Weekend," won four Oscars: best picture, best actor (Ray Milland), best screenplay (Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett) and best director (Wilder).

'Leaving Las Vegas," Mike Figgis' downbeat tale of a suicidal alcoholic writer (Nicolas Cage) and the prostitute (Elisabeth Shue) who loves him, is nominated for four Oscars. Fifty years before "Leaving Las Vegas," another harrowing depiction of alcoholism, "The Lost Weekend," won four Oscars: best picture, best actor (Ray Milland), best screenplay (Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett) and best director (Wilder).

Japanese students are in danger of becoming too fat and are being put on a diet, at least at lunchtime, the government said today. The Health and Welfare Ministry said it will revise the nutrition standard for the school lunch program for the first time in 15 years, beginning in April this year. The ministry launched a school lunch program in 1946, a year after Japan's surrender in World War II, to supplement food shortages.

As executioners poked his limbs with an IV needle, Romell Broom initially tried to speed along his own demise, flexing his arm and tugging on a rubber tourniquet to better expose a vein on the inside of his elbow. But as prison workers repeatedly failed to find a vein strong enough to take the lethal injections, the convicted rapist-murderer began to despair over his protracted end. Witnesses and the execution-team log from Tuesday describe how the 53-year-old winced and cried as a shunt inserted in his leg also failed to open a pathway for the fatal drugs.

Dining alfresco on the famed River Walk has its risks. Trust me. I know. One pleasantly temperate afternoon not long ago, while gearing up to ravage a plate of chicken enchiladas slathered in verde sauce, I unrolled my cloth napkin to fetch the utensils within — and inadvertently rolled my fork into the San Antonio River. Not to worry. Given the apparent robust economic health of the River Walk, with its bustling hotels, saloons and open-air restaurants, I suspect the fork will not be missed.

With the death of Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess in West Berlin's Spandau prison on Monday, two German Nazis in a Dutch jail became the last known remaining war criminals held continuously since 1946, the year after the end of World War II. The two, a noncommissioned officer and a captain, exist in relative obscurity with 180 short-stay convicts behind bars in this southern Dutch town.

Harold Held, 87, a longtime Los Angeles real estate developer and philanthropist, died Wednesday of leukemia. Held launched his real estate career during California's postwar building boom, beginning with home and apartment construction. He later focused on commercial buildings and medical offices on the Westside, including the 100 Medical Plaza building at the UCLA Medical Center and others in Westwood, Beverly Hills and Century City. Born in Cleveland in 1920, Held received a bachelor's degree in engineering from Ohio State University in 1941.

William A. Palmer, 85, pioneer in audio recording that revolutionized "live" radio and television shows. After impressing Bing Crosby with their experiments and winning his backing, Palmer and his colleague John T. Mullin perfected an American version of the German "magnetophon" high-fidelity audio tape recorder in 1946. A year later, Crosby used their tape decks to record and edit his ABC network show, "Philco Radio Time," the first broadcast with magnetic tape.

Jack Stephens, 81, a financier who built one of the largest investment banking firms off Wall Street and donated millions of dollars to charitable causes, died Saturday at home in Little Rock, Ark., said a spokesman for the firm Stephens Inc. Stephens, along with his brother W.R. "Witt" Stephens, was one of the richest people in Arkansas. He gave generously to charity, including $48 million to a spinal institute in Little Rock. Stephens grew up on a farm near Prattsville, Ark.

Edith Clinton Truslow, 91, who co-wrote a history of the experiment that produced the atomic bomb, died Saturday in Santa Fe, N.M. The cause of death was not disclosed. She was co-author with David Hawkins and Ralph C. Smith of "Project Y: The Los Alamos Story," which was published in 1983, 36 years after it was written and classified secret by the federal government. It was declassified in the early 1960s, but was virtually unavailable until its reissue two decades later.