October 16, 1946: The Nuremberg Executions

Göring, at the far left (or so to speak)

In the year 1947, America was able to do fun things again. In that year, we desegregated baseball, established network television, began watching Howdy Doody Time on said television, invented the microwave oven and the transistor, and began looking for UFOs.

But first, in 1946, we had serious work to tend to: Punishing Nazis.

October 16, 1946: Ten Nazi war criminals, convicted of crimes against humanity, are executed by hanging at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany. They included:

* Joachim von Ribbentrop, age 53, Adolf Hitler's Foreign Minister.

* Julius Streicher, 61, Nazi Germany's top propaganda publisher.

* General Alfred Jodl, 56, Chief of the Armed Forces, who had signed the surrender papers on V-E Day.

* Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, 64.

* Hans Frank, 46, Governor-General of occupied Poland.

You may have seen the "Hitler Rants Parodies," based on a scene from the 2004 film Downfall, starring Bruno Ganz as Hitler. Christian Redl played Jodl in that scene, and Dieter Mann played Keitel.

As for the other 2 Generals that Hitler had asked to remain in the room: Hans Krebs, played by Rolf Kanies, and Wilhelm Burgdorf ("Mein Führer, this is an outrage!"), played by Justus von Dohnányi, both committed suicide in the Bunker on May 2, 1945. Krebs was 47, and Burgdorf was 50.

Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, not named, also remained in the room. He committed suicide in the Bunker the day before. He was 47, and was played by Ulrich Matthes. Also not named, but remaining in the room, was Martin Bormann, head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. He escaped on May 2, but saw the Soviets closing in, and committed suicide. He was 44, and was played by Thomas Thieme. SS leader Heinrich Himmler committed suicide in British custody on May 23. He was also 44. He did not appear in the scene, but did appear in the film, and was played by Ulrich Noethen.

Not among the condemned, but scheduled to be so, was Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, the highest-ranking Nazi official to have survived V-E Day. He had made an appeal, asking to be shot as a soldier instead of hanged as a common criminal, but the court refused. So he committed suicide with a potassium cyanide capsule the night before he was to be hanged. He was 53. He also was not in the scene, but was in the film, played by Mathias Gnädinger.

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October 16, 1946 was a Wednesday. Actress Suzanne Somers was born.

With the World Series having ended the day before, with the St. Louis Cardinals beating the Boston Red Sox in Game 7, there was only one sporting event on this day. And it is the NHL debut of Gordie Howe. The 18-year-old native of Floral, Saskatchewan wore Number 15, instead of the familiar 9 that he will start wearing the next season. The right wing scores against Turk Broda, and the Detroit Red Wings play the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 3-3 tie at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

The goal will be the 1st of 786 that the man who becomes known as Mr. Hockey will score for the Wings, going on to win 4 Stanley Cups and becoming the greatest player the game has ever known, and I don't want to hear about no Number 99: Gordie was better. We lost him in 2016, at the age of 88.