istoryworld
All Events
The Soviet Union lifts the blockade on Berlin and the airlift ends, after providing for nearly a year a lifeline to the city
The Federal Republic of Germany is formed from the British, French and US zones of occupation
The USSR grants nominal independence to east Germany as the newly established German Democratic Republic
US state department official Alger Hiss is sentenced to a five-year prison sentence, after being convicted of perjury in a second trial
French dramatist Eugène Ionesco's play The Bald Prima Donna launches the Theatre of the Absurd
In response to the Soviet atom bomb, President Truman announces a crash programme to develop a hydrogen bomb
A witch hunt begins when Senator Joseph McCarthy says he knows the names of 205 Communists in the US State Department
US evangelist Billy Graham forms the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, to take the Christian message to the world
A prehistoric victim of strangling is found in Tollund Moss in Denmark, with part of the noose still round his neck
The Family Moskat, about a Jewish family in Warsaw, is the first of Isaac Bashevis Singer's books to be published in English
C.S. Lewis gives the first glimpse of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Anton Dolin and Alicia Markova form the Festival Ballet, in time for next year's Festival of Britain
British author Doris Lessing publishes her first novel, The Grass is Singing
The Canadian schooner St Roch becomes the first ship to travel through the Panama Canal and the Northwest Passage, thus circumnavigating North America
US sociologist David Riesman analyzes the American character in The Lonely Crowd
Chinese troops move into Tibet, meeting little resistance
Julius Rosenberg is arrested on suspicion of being a Soviet spy, and his wife Ethel is arrested a few weeks later
North Korean troops cross the 38th parallel to invade the southern half of the region
North Korean forces press far enough south to capture the South Korean capital of Seoul
UN troops are sent to defend South Korea, as the invasion from the north rolls on
Soweto begins to be built outside Johannesburg to segregate the city's black labour force
The British government bans hereditary ruler Seretse Khama from Bechuanaland because he has married a white woman
Kirsten Flagstad sings the posthumous premiere, in London, of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs
The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda publishes his epic account of South America and its people, Canto general
UN troops push north across the 38th parallel in a major Korean counter-offensive
