Paul M. Henkels (left), fresh from Haverford College where he receives a B.A. in Engineering, joins the company full time as a laborer on a gas crew. No stranger to hard work, Paul also worked during high school summers as a laborer. Concentrating primarily on the growing telecommunications field in the following years, he will rise to Supervisor in 1949 and then to the offices of Vice President in 1958, Executive Vice President in 1961, President and CEO in 1972, and Chairman, President and CEO in 1987.

Communication Conduit and Cabling work in 1947 includes duct construction work in Philadelphia as well as West Chester to Milltown, Clifton Heights to Media and Dickson City to Olyphant for Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania; Duct Rodding from Elkton, Maryland to Philadelphia for American Telephone & Telegraph Company... H&M also installs an Instrument Landing System at Drew Field, Tampa, Florida for the Civil Aeronautics Administration as well as taxiway lighting and runway high intensity extensions at Andrews Field in Camp Spring, Maryland for the US Engineer District, and a floodlighting project for a new War Memorial in York, Pennsylvania... Some Marine Construction work was also performed at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland this year as was a soil stabilization project in Wallop's Island, Virginia and, closer to home, an athletic field for the Norristown School District, in Pennsylvania... This was in addition to regular maintenance projects for Bell Telephone, Philadelphia Electric and other utilities, and private, residential, and institutional landscaping projects... This year is also another benchmark for us, as Henkels & McCoy undertakes its very first foreign project, seeding work in Guantanamo, Cuba at a new US military airport under construction.
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January 3
United States Congress proceedings are televised for the first time.

January 22
KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi begins operation in Hollywood.

January 30
FCC rejects the color television broadcast system proposed by CBS

February 17
The Voice of America begins to transmit radio broadcasts into the USSR.

February 25
In a controversial act, the country of Prussia is legally abolished by the Allied Control Council, the governing body comprised of the victorious US, UK, USSR and France. The former Prussia's territory is divided among Poland, Russia, and East and West Germany. Prussia was illegally annexed by pre-Nazi (Weimar Republic) Germany in July of 1932.

March 25
An explosion in Centralia, Illinois kills 111 coal miners.

April 15
African-American Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier in major league baseball. He plays first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

April 27
Babe Ruth Day is celebrated at Yankee Stadium.

May 22
President Harry S. Truman signs an act implementing the Truman Doctrine. The act grants $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece to fight the spread of Communism.

June 5
US Secretary of State George Marshall (left) gives a commencement address at Harvard, stating, "It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed, not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desertion and chaos." It is the unveiling of the Marshall Plan, which will revive Western Europe after eight years of war and privation..

July 26
President Truman signs the National Security Act into law, creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.

August 7
Thor Heyerdahl crosses the Pacific in the Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft, proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

August 15
India (and the new state of Pakistan) finally receive independence from Britain.

October 5
First televised presidential address. President Truman speaks of the world food shortage.

October 14
Captain Charles E. (Chuck) Yeager flies faster than the speed of sound in the rocket powered Bell X-1.

October
It’s down to the wire as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games in the first televised World Series.

November 2
Millionaire Howard Hughes’ giant Spruce Goose aircraft (wingspan 320 feet; capacity 700 passengers) lifts off for a one-mile flight. The controversial airplane, first proposed in 1942 as a troop transport, will never fly again.

November 20
Meet the Press debuts on NBC. The first network telecast show will become television's longest-running program. In 1947 there are 14,000 television sets in the US.

November 24
The infamous Hollywood Black List is created by the House Un-American Activities Committee, which cites 10 Hollywood writers and directors with contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the committee and a refusal to disclose political affiliations to the committee. Convicted in 1948, the ten will be fired or denied work for many years.

November 29
The UN General Assembly meets to vote on the proposal to partition Palestine.

December 3
Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway with newcomer Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski and Jessica Tandy as Blanche DuBois. The play will win the 1948 Pulitzer Prize and catapult Brando to stardom.

December 17
The first all-jet bomber, the Boeing B-47 flies. A total of 2,040 B-47s will be delivered to the US Air Force.

December 27
Hey Kids! What Time Is It? Puppet Television Theater (later called Howdy Doody), makes its debut on NBC.

December 28
Chicago Cardinals defeat the Philadelphia Eagles, 28-21 for the NFL championship.

Also in 1947:

"Any fool can build homes—what counts is how many you can sell for how little."
-- William J. Levitt

The first Levittown sprang to life in 1947 on 1,200 acres of potato fields on Long Island. To speed production and cut costs, William J. Levitt (right) offered just two basic house types. The scale of the project attracted national attention and made Levitt and Sons a household name. Veterans and their families applied by the thousands to rent and later buy one of Levitt’s mass-produced homes. Another Levittown will be erected in the northern Philadelphia suburbs.

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission approves preliminary plans for developing the Schuylkill River route as an expressway. Borrowing from the "Valley Forge Parkway" design of the 1930s, the Schuylkill Expressway will offer controlled access, but unlike the parkway design, which was to permit access only to passenger cars, the expressway design will also allow access to trucks and buses.

John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain,and William B. Shockley develop the transistor.

Microwave oven is invented by Percy Spencer. Will somebody please invent microwave popcorn?

The Dead Sea Scrolls are discovered in Qumran.

Rocky Graziano defeats Tony Zale to win boxing’s world middleweight championship.

In the book shops readers are treated to Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl, Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, Thomas Mann, Dr. Faustus, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism.

In movie theatres this year the best films include, Gentleman's Agreement with Gregory Peck and John Garfield, dealing with covert anti-Semitism in the US. Christmas-themed films include Miracle on 34th Street with Maureen O’Hara as a world weary department store executive and a young Natalie Wood as her skeptical daughter; and The Bishop'sWife with David Niven as a struggling clergyman, Cary Grant as a visiting undercover angel, and Loretta Young in the title role.

Tenor Mario Lanza performs at Hollywood Bowl, draws accolades, launches career of "the Voice of the Century."

Deaths in 1947 include:
Henry Ford, automobile manufacturing pioneer, founder of Ford Motor Company
William Durant, automobile pioneer, founder of General Motors
Al Capone, gangster