istoryworld
All Events
Ezra Pound publishes Pisan Cantos, about his postwar imprisonment in an American detention centre near Pisa
US novelist and poet Jack Kerouac coins a term for his contemporaries, the Beat Generation
Christopher Fry's verse drama The Lady's Not For Burning engages in high-spirited poetic word play
In the title of a new book US mathematician Norbert Wiener popularizes a term that he has coined, Cybernetics
The first West Indian immigrants to Britain arive from Jamaica on the Empire Windrush
Vittorio de Sica directs the film Bicycle Thieves, a classic of Italian neorealism
George Balanchine's New York City Ballet becomes the resident company in the City Center for Music and Drama
George Marshall, the US secretary of state, launches a plan to distribute aid to sixteen European countries
Daniel Malan becomes South Africa's prime minister after his National Party wins the general election
Richard Strauss completes his Four Last Songs in the year before his death
British astronomer Fred Hoyle puts forward a 'steady-state' theory of the universe, in which matter is continually created
John Huston directs Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a film based on B. Traven's novel of 1927
A 200-inch telescope goes into service at the Mount Palomar Observatory in California
Tito accepts Marshall Aid from the USA, setting Yugoslavia on the path of non-alignment in the Cold War
The World Council of Churches is established in Amsterdam – a significant step in the ecumenical movement
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears together establish an annual festival in the Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh
The National Health Service comes into effect in Britain, providing free medical, dental and hospital services for the entire population
US lawyer Alger Hiss is denounced, controversially, as a Soviet spy
Ballerina Mikiko Matsuyama and her husband establish a family-run balllet company in Tokyo
In their manifesto Refus global fifteen artists and authors attack the values of conservative Quebec
Daniel Malan moves swiftly to reinforce apartheid, South Africa's already existing system of racial segregation
US psychologist B.F. Skinner trains laboratory rats to use their brains in his 'Skinnner box'
Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier introduces the Modulor, an architectural unit based on the Golden Section
Kim Il Sung becomes prime minister of North Korea on the withdrawal of the Soviet occupying force
700,000 Palestinian Arabs flee from their homes in Israel and become refugees
