1947 is one of those years where a lot of history happened. As the U.S. looks to help Europe with post-war reconstruction, tensions with Russia

setting and the term the Cold War is coined. McCarthyism spreads as 10 men refused to cooperate with the House UnAmerican

Activities Committee concerning allegations of communist influences in the movie business.

They're blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios on the following day.

Jackie Robinson signs a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers,

becoming the first African American Major League Baseball

player in the modern era.

And World Series games are broadcast on TV for the very first time.

UFO sightings come in from Puget Sound and Mount Rainier, and in a little new Mexico town called Roswell,

a supposedly downed extraterrestrial spacecraft, is reported.

Tennessee Williams, a streetcar named desire, performs on Broadway, and the Tony Awards are held for the first time at the

Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Howard Hughes completes the maiden flight of the Spruce Goose, the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.

The trip lasts only eight minutes, and the Spruce Goose has never flown again.

But something else was happening in the far northeast that year.

Strange weather pattern set in in the state of Maine,

as a quick and early spring thaw proceeded months of endless rain. Finally, at the end of June, the sun broke through the clouds as temperatures climbed,

bringing about a warm summer.

Mother Nature had apparently used up all the rain in the spring as the state went through a hundred and eight days without any appreciable precipitation.

Everything became exceedingly dry in the hot sun and water supply dwindled.

Recognizing the dangers of the dry conditions, officials began implementing preventative measures.

By the second week of October, a class four state of danger was declared, and fire

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