istoryworld
London timeline
English author and alcoholic Malcolm Lowry publishes an autobiographical novel, Under the Volcano
Hungarian-born British engineer Dennis Gabor creates the first three-dimensional image from reflected light, subsequently known as a hologram
Parliament Mews is built on the site of Cromwell House, with the original high boundary walls still in place around the Mews
J.B. Priestley challenges audiences with An Inspector Calls, a play in which moral guilt spreads like an infection
Ham House is donated by Sir Lyonel Tollemache and his son to the National Trust
British dancer Robert Helpmann choreographs the ballet scenes in the film The Red Shoes, featuring Moira Shearer
The Morris Minor is launched, designed by Alec Issigonis, and becomes one of Britain's best-selling cars
Christopher Fry's verse drama The Lady's Not For Burning engages in high-spirited poetic word play
British astronomer Fred Hoyle puts forward a 'steady-state' theory of the universe, in which matter is continually created
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears together establish an annual festival in the Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh
Frederick Ashton's Cinderella, to music by Prokofiev, is the first full-length ballet by an English choreographer
Roland Petit's ballet Carmen, starring himself and his wife Zizi Jeanmaire, is a sensation at its London premiere
Ealing Studios produce a film of Compton Mackenzie's 1947 novel Whisky Galore, about an alcoholic windfall on the island of Barra
Carol Reed directs The Third Man, starring Orson Welles and written by Graham Greene
Enid Blyton introduces her most successful character, Noddy, a small boy who can't avoid nodding when he speaks
British atomic physicist Klaus Fuchs is discovered to be a Soviet agent, passing nuclear secrets to the USSR
The world's first commercial jet airliner, the Comet, designed by de Havilland, goes into service with BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation)
Eire is renamed the republic of Ireland and withdraws from the Commonwealth, severing the last link with the British crown
The British government declares that northern Ireland will remain British unless the parliament in Stormont decides otherwise
George Orwell publishes Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel set in a terrifying totalitarian state of the future, watched over by Big Brother
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
Kirsten Flagstad sings the posthumous premiere, in London, of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs
The Medical Research Council in Britain produces a report, by Austin Hill and Richard Doll, linking smoking and lung cancer
