the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with several other Academy Awards. March 25 – A coal mine explosion in Centralia, Illinois, United States; 111 miners are killed. March 28 – A World War II Japanese booby trap explodes on Corregidor Island, killing 28 people. March 29 – A rebellion against French rule erupts in Madagascar. March 31 – The leaders of the Kurdish People's Republic of Mahabad, the second Kurdish state in the history of Iran, are hanged at Chuwarchira Square in Mahabad, after the state has been overrun by the Iranian army. April April – The previous discovery of the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' in the Qumran Caves (above the northwest shore of the Dead Sea) by Bedouin shepherds, becomes known. April 1 Jackie Robinson, the first African American in Major League Baseball since the 1880s, signs a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Paul I becomes King of Greece, aged 45, following the death of his brother, King George II. The 1947 Royal New Zealand Navy mutinies begin. April 4 – The International Civil Aviation Organization begins operations. April 7 The Arab Ba'ath Party is established by merger in Damascus. Edaville Railroad opens in Massachusetts, as the first railway theme park. The largest recorded sunspot group appears on the solar surface. April 9 Multiple tornadoes strike Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, killing 184 and injuring 970. The Journey of Reconciliation in the Southern United States 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 explodes in Texas City, Texas in one of the largest man-made non-nuclear explosions in history, 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 62 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". The first public demonstration of a TV camera zoom lens, the Jerry Fairbanks Zoomar, is held at NBC studios in New York. April 18 The British Royal Navy detonates 6,800 tons of explosives, in an attempt to demolish the fortified island of Heligoland, Germany, in another of the largest man-made