1952

Published on Friday, October 24th 2008. Edited by Kit Shyfedmet, Tokyo, Japan.

Centuries: 19th century – 20th century – 21st century

Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s – 1950s – 1960s 1970s 1980s

Years: 1949 1950 1951 – 1952 – 1953 1954 1955

Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events of 1952

January

January 8 – West Germany has 8 million refugees inside its borders.
January 14 – The Today Show premieres on NBC.
January 16 – Heir to the throne of Egypt & Sudan H.R.H. Prince Ahmed Fuad Farouk is born, later to become H.M. Fuad II the last King of Egypt & Sudan, Nubia, Kordofan and Darfur.
January 24
Sudden heavy snowfall in Algeria.
Vincent Massey sworn in as first Canada-born Governor-General of Canada.

February

The 3 Queens in mourning- Queen Elizabeth II, her grandmother Queen Mary and mother Queen Elizabeth at the funeral of King George VI.

February 2 – A tropical storm forms just north of Cuba moving northeast. The storm makes landfall in southern Florida the next day. It is the earliest reported landfall from a tropical storm, and the earliest formation of a tropical storm on record in the Atlantic basin.
February 6
Elizabeth II becomes Queen upon the death of her father George VI. She is simultaneously proclaimed Queen of Canada at Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Ontario.
In the United States, a mechanical heart is used for the first time in a human patient.
February 7 – Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom at St. James’s Palace, London, England.
February 14 to February 25 – Winter Olympics in Oslo.
February 15 – Funeral of King George VI takes place at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.
February 20 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.
February 21 – Winston Churchill scraps UK compulsory national Identity Cards.
February 21 – In Dhaka, East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) police open fire on a procession of students, killing four people and starting a country-wide protest which leads to the recognition of Bengali as one of the national languages of Pakistan. The day was later declared as “International Mother Language Day” by UNESCO.
February 26 – United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that his nation has an atomic bomb.

March

March 10 – General Fulgencio Batista re-takes power in Cuba.
March 15 to March 16 – 73 inches (1,870mm) of rain falls in Cilaos, Réunion, the most rainfall ever in one day.
March 20 – The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
March 21 – The last two executions in the Netherlands take place.
March 21 – Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is elected Prime Minister of the Gold Coast.
March 21 – Tornadoes ravage the lower Mississippi River Valley, leaving 208 dead, through March 22.
March 27 – Failed assassination attempt against Konrad Adenauer.
March 29 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces that he will not seek reelection.

April

April 4 – In Hague tribunal, Israel demands reparations worth 3 billion dollars from Germany.
c. April 4 – During a severe storm in the West Ice, east of Greenland, five Norwegian seal hunting vessels with a crew of 78 seal hunters perish without a trace in what is known as the West Ice accidents.
April 8 – Hours before the 1952 steel strike is to begin, President Harry S. Truman nationalizes all steel mills in the United States—creating a dispute which led to landmark legal ruling in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer.
April 9 – Hugo Ballivián’s government is overthrown by the Bolivian National Revolution, starting a period of agrarian reform, universal suffrage and the nationalisation of tin mines.
April 11 – Battle of Nanri island took place.
April 15 – The B-52 Stratofortress flies for the first time.
April 18
Bolivia National Revolution: universal vote enables indigenous and women to vote, nationalization of mines and agrarian reform.
West Germany and Japan form diplomatic relations.
April 23 – Nuclear test in Nevada desert.
April 28
The Treaty of San Francisco goes into effect, formally ending the occupation of Japan.
Treaty of Taipei (Treaty of Peace between Japan and the Republic of China).
April 29 – Lever House officially opens in New York City, heralding a new age of commercial architecture in the United States.

May

May 1 – East Germany threatens to form its own army.
May 2 – First passenger jet flight route between London and Johannesburg.
May 3 – U.S. lieutenant colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict land a plane at the geographic North Pole.
May 6 – Farouk of Egypt had himself announced as a descendant of prophet Muhammad.
May 13 – Pandit Nehru forms his first government.
May 15 – Diplomatic relations established between the governments of Israel and Japan at the level of Legations.
May 18 – Ann Davison became the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean.

June

June 1 – Roman Catholic church bans books of André Gide.
June 1 – Navigation opens on the Volga-Don Canal, connecting the Caspian Sea basin with that of the Black Sea.
June 5 – Remains of a Viking ship found near Boston, Massachusetts.
June 14 – The keel is laid for the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
June 15 – The Diary of Anne Frank published.
June 21 – Philippine School of Commerce, through a republic act, was converted to Philippine College of Commerce; later to be the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
June 29 – Finnish Armi Kuusela wins the title of Miss Universe.
June 30 – Marshall Aid ends.

July

France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands form the European Coal and Steel community, the foundation organisation which would become the European Union.

July 13 – East Germany announced formation of its National People’s Army.
July 19 to August 3 – The Summer Olympic Games are held in Helsinki.
July 21 – A magnitude 7.5 earthquake (Richter scale) strikes Tehachapi, California, destroying unreinforced brick buildings.
July 23
Establishment of the European Coal and Steel community.
General Mohammed Naguib leads The Free Officers (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser – the real power behind the coup) in the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt.
July 25 – Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.
July 26 – Military coup in Egypt ousts King Farouk.

August

August 11 – Jordanian army forces king Talal to resign due to mental illness – his successor is his son Hussein of Jordan.
August 13 – Japan joins IMF.
August 14
West Germany joins the IMF and the World Bank.
August 16 – Lynmouth in North Devon England is devastated by floods, death toll of 34.
August 26 – British passenger jet flies twice over Atlantic Ocean in the same day.
August 27 – Reparation negotiations between West Germany and Israel end in Luxembourg – Germany will pay 3 billion Deutsche Marks.
August 29 – Premiere of John Cage’s 4' 33" in Woodstock, New York.
August 30 – Last Finnish war reparations to Soviet Union.
August 31 – Closure of the Grenzlandring racetrack in Wegberg, Germany.

September

September 2 – Dr. C. Walton Lillehei and Dr. F. John Lewis perform first open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota.
September 6 – TV debuts in Canada as the CBC in Montreal, Quebec airs.
September 8 – CBC Toronto debuts.
September 18 – Soviet Union vetoes Japan’s application for membership in the United Nations.

October

October 8
Negotiations for a ceasefire in Korea are postponed.
Three-train crash in Harrow railway station in England – 112 dead.
October 12 – Gamma Sigma Sigma National Service Sorority was founded in New York City at Beekman Towers.
October 14 – United Nations begins work in the new United Nations building in New York City.
October 17 – Indonesian troops led by Nasution surround the presidential palace, seeking the dismissal of the People’s Representative Council; Sukarno avoids confrontation.
October 19
Alain Bombard begins to sail from Canary Islands to Barbados in 65 days; he reaches them December 23.
John Bamford, aged 15, rescues victims of a house fire and becomes the youngest person to have been awarded the George Cross.
October 20 – Martial law in Kenya due to Mau Mau uprising.

November

November 1 – Nuclear testing: Operation Ivy – The United States successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed “Mike”, at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, with a yield of 10.4 megatons.
November 4
8.25 Richter scale earthquake in Kamchatka.
United States presidential election, 1952: Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson (correctly predicted by the UNIVAC computer).
The US National Security Agency is founded.
November 18 – Jomo Kenyatta is arrested in Kenya for alleged connection to Mau Mau uprising
November 20
Slánský trials – series of Stalinist and largely anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
Fireball crashes in a backyard in Havelock North, New Zealand.
First official passenger flight over the North Pole from Los Angeles to Copenhagen.
November 21 – Show trial in Czechoslovakia sentences 11 ex-communist officials to death – all of them Jews.
November 25 – Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London; as of 2007 , it continues, next door at the St. Martin’s Theatre, and remains the longest continuously running production of a play in history.
November 29 – Korean War: U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a political campaign promise by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict.

December

December 4 – Great Smog of 1952: A “killer fog” descends on London (In the process coining the word “Smog”, for “smoke” and “fog”).
December 14 – First successful surgical separation of Siamese twins in Mount Sinai Hospital, Ohio.
December 20 – Crash of U.S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster at Moses Lake, WA kills 86 servicemen.
December 25 – Shooting incident in West Berlin – one West German soldier is killed.
December 26 – Joseph Ivor Linton, first Israeli Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan, presents his credentials to the Japanese Emperor.

Undated

Nearly 58,000 cases of polio are reported in the U.S.– 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.
Charles Chaplin is expelled from the U.S..
Wernher von Braun publishes his ideas for a manned flight to Mars in The Mars Project.
Nordic Council agrees free transport of people, goods and services throughout the Nordic Countries.
National Prohibition Foundation incorporated in Indiana.
American Embassy School of New Delhi founded.
Fallskärmsjägarna – Swedish paratrooper training school (FJS) created.
World Wrestling Entertainment – Professional Wrestling Promotion was founded by Vince McMahon Sr.

Ongoing

Fictional

The following are references to year 1952 in fiction: (unknown).

Births

January-February

1952 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar 1952 MCMLII

Ab urbe condita 2705

Armenian calendar 1401 ԹՎ ՌՆԱ

Bahá'í calendar 108 – 109

Berber calendar 2902

Buddhist calendar 2496

Burmese calendar 1314

Chinese calendar 4588/4648-12-5 (辛卯年十二月初五日)

— to —

4589/4649-11-15 (壬辰年十一月十五日)

Coptic calendar 1668 – 1669

Ethiopian calendar 1944 – 1945

Hebrew calendar 5712 – 5713

Hindu calendars

- Vikram Samvat 2007 – 2008

- Shaka Samvat 1874 – 1875

- Kali Yuga 5053 – 5054

Holocene calendar 11952

Iranian calendar 1330 – 1331

Islamic calendar 1371 – 1372

Japanese calendar Shōwa 27 (昭和27年)

Korean calendar 4285

Thai solar calendar 2495

January 12 – Walter Mosley, American author
January 14 – Maureen Dowd, American writer
January 15 – Boris Blank (musician), Swiss musician
January 17 – Ryuichi Sakamoto, Japanese musician, composer, producer, and actor (Yellow Magic Orchestra)
January 21
Marco Camenisch, Swiss environmental activist
Louis Menand, American writer and critic
January 22 – Ace Vergel, Filipino actor, cardiac arrest. (d. 2007)
Teddy Gentry, vocals and bass guitar for Alabama
January 25
Edward Fialkowski, political activist
Sara Mandiano, French singer and songwriter
February 1 – Stan Kasten, baseball executive, currently President of the Washington Nationals
February 3 – Dermot Morgan, Irish actor and comedian (d. 1998)
February 14 – Nancy Keenan, current president of NARAL
February 22 – William Frist, heart surgeon and U.S. Senator
February 25
Jerry Chamberlain, American musician
Joey Dunlop, Northern Irish motorcycle racer (d. 2000)
February 29 – Gary The Retard, member of The Wack Pack from radio’s The Howard Stern Show

March-April

March 1
Steven Barnes, American author
Martin O'Neill, Northern Irish footballer and football manager
March 2 – Laraine Newman, American comedian
March 4 – Scott Hicks, Australian movie director
March 4
Ronn Moss, American actor
Umberto Tozzi, Italian singer
March 7 – Viv Richards, West Indian cricket captain
March 11 – Douglas Adams, English author (d. 2001)
March 12 – Eliézer Niyitegeka, Rwandan journalist, politician, and genocidaire
March 13 – Wolfgang Rihm, German composer
March 13 – Agnes Rapai, Hungarian writer
March 22 – Bob Costas, American sports announcer
March 23 – Kim Stanley Robinson, American author
March 25 – Jung Chang, Chinese-born author and historian
March 25 – Antanas Mockus, Colombian mathematician and politician
March 29 – Teofilo Stevenson, Cuban boxer
March 30 – Peter Knights, Australian footballer and coach
March 31 – Vanessa del Rio, American actress
April 1 – Bernard Stiegler, French philosopher
April 4 – Rosemarie Ackermann, German athlete
April 6 – Marilu Henner, American actress, author
April 7 – Nichita Danilov, Romanian writer
April 11 – Peter Windsor, British sports reporter
April 12 – Ralph Wiley, American sports journalist (d. 2004)
April 14 – Mickey O'Sullivan, Irish sportsman
April 16
Billy West, American voice actor
Bill Belichick, American football coach
April 17 – Željko Ražnatović, Serbian mobster and paramilitary leader (d. 2000)
April 22 – Marilyn Chambers, American actress
April 25 – Ketil Bjørnstad, Norwegian pianist
April 28 – Mary McDonnell, American actress

May-June

May 2
Campbell McComas, Australian impersonator and broadcaster
Isla St Clair, Scottish singer
May 3
Allan Wells, Scottish athlete
Leonid Khachiyan, Russian-born mathematician
May 4 – Michael Barrymore, British comedian and TV presenter
May 6 – Michael O'Hare, American actor
May 10 – Thomas Paty Stamps, American bankruptcy attorney and historian
May 11
Renaud Séchan, French composer
Shohreh Aghdashloo, Iranian actress
Mike Lupica, American sports journalist
May 14
David Byrne, Scottish-born singer, songwriter, and guitarist (Talking Heads)
Robert Zemeckis, American director
May 16 – James Herndon, American media psychologist
May 18
George Strait, American musician
Diane Duane, American writer
May 19 – Bert van Marwijk, Dutch football manager
May 20 – Roger Milla, Cameroonian footballer
May 21 – Mr. T, American actor
May 26 – David Meece, American musician
May 28 – Victoria Cunningham, American actress and Playmate
June 7
Hubert Auriol, French racing driver
Orhan Pamuk, Turkish writer, Nobel prize.
Liam Neeson, Northern Irish actor
June 9 – Yukihiro Takahashi, Japanese musician and singer (Yellow Magic Orchestra)
June 16 – Georgios Papandreou, Greek politician
June 17 – Mike Milbury, American ice hockey player, coach and executive
June 18 – Isabella Rossellini, Italian actress
June 20
John Goodman, American actor
Vikram Seth, Indian novelist
June 21
Jeremy Coney, New Zealand cricket captains
Kôichi Mashimo, Japanese anime director
June 22
Alastair Stewart, British newsreader
Graham Greene (actor), Canadian (First Nations) actor
June 24 – Stephen Pusey, British-born artist
June 25 – Tim Finn, New Zealand singer-songwriter
June 27 – Douglas Unger, American novelist
Madan Kumar Bhandari, Nepalese politician (d. 1993)
June 28 – Pietro Mennea, Italian athlete
June 29 – Joe Johnson, English snooker player

July-August

July 1 – Dan Aykroyd, Canadian actor
July 9 – John Tesh, American composer, musician, and television host
July 12 – Philip Taylor Kramer, Bass Guitar Player (d. 1995)
July 12 – Voja Antonić, Serbian inventor and writer
July 14 – Franklin Graham, American evangelist
July 19 – Allen Collins, American musician and band member of Lynyrd Skynyrd
July 20 – Keiko Matsuzaka, Japanese actress
July 24 – Gus Van Sant, American Film Director
July 27 – Hannu-Pekka Hänninen, Finnish sports commentator
July 31
Chris Ahrens, American ice hockey player
João Barreiros, Portuguese author
August 1 – Zoran Djindjic, Prime Minister of Serbia (d. 2003)
August 3 – Osvaldo Ardiles, Argentine footballer
August 4
James Arbuthnot, British politician
Moya Brennan, Irish singer
August 5 – Louis Walsh, music producer and reality TV show judge
August 7 – Alexei Sayle, English actor
August 8 – Jostein Gaarder, Norwegian author
August 8 – Robin Quivers, American radio personality
August 9 – Vicki Morgan, American model (d. 1983)
August 10 – Daniel Hugh Kelly, American actor
August 13 – Herb Ritts, American photographer
August 14 – Carl Lumbly, American actor
August 16 – Reginald VelJohnson, American actor
August 19 – Jonathan Frakes, American actor
August 21 – Joe Strummer, British musician (The Clash) (d. 2002)
August 24 – Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jamaican-born musician
August 26 – Bryon Baltimore, Canadian ice hockey player
August 27 – Paul Reubens, American actor, writer and comedian
August 28 – Wendelin Wiedeking, German businessman
August 29 – Karen Hesse, American children’s writer
August 29 – Jimmy Connors, tennis player

September-October

September 12
Sergei Karaganov, Russian political scientist
Neil Peart, drummer for the band Rush
September 16 – Fatos Nano, Albanian Prime Minister
September 18 – Dee Dee Ramone, American bassist (The Ramones) (d. 2002)
September 22 – Bob Goodlatte, U.S. Congressman from Virginia
September 24
Mark Sandman, American musician and artist (Morphine) (d. 1999)
Joseph Patrick Kennedy II, son of Robert F Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy and nephew of U.S president John F Kennedy and Edward M Kennedy
September 25 – Christopher Reeve, American actor and activist (d. 2004)
September 26 – Predrag Miletić, Serbian actor from Nis
September 27 – Didier Dubois, French mathematician
September 29 – Max Sandlin, American politician
September 30 – Jack Wild, English actor (d. 2006)
October 5
Duncan Regehr, Canadian actor
Clive Barker, British author
October 7 – Vladimir Putin, Russian president
October 9 – Sharon Osbourne, wife and manager of Ozzy Osbourne
October 13 – John Lone, Hong Kong actor
October 14 – Nikolai Andrianov, Soviet gymnast
October 16 – Ron Taylor, American actor (died 2002)
October 19 – Floyd Mayweather Sr., former professional boxer and trainer
October 22 – Jeff Goldblum, American actor
October 26 – Andrew Motion, English poet
October 28 – Annie Potts, American actress

November-December

November 3 – Roseanne Barr, American actress and comedian
November 3 – David Ho, Taiwanese-American AIDS researcher
November 5 – Bill Walton, American basketball player and commentator
November 6 – Michael Cunningham, American writer
November 8 – Jan Raas, Dutch professional cyclist
November 13 – Art Malik, Pakistani-born British actor
November 16 – Shigeru Miyamoto, Japanese game designer
November 17 – Ties Kruize, Dutch field hockey player
November 25 – Imran Khan, Pakistani cricketer
November 28 – S. Epatha Merkerson, American actress
November 30 – Keith Giffen, American comic book writer and artist
December 6 – Rick Charlesworth, Australian cricketer, politician, hockey player and coach
December 9 – Michael Dorn, American actor
December 12 – Harbance Singh (Herb) Dhaliwal, Canadian politician
December 15 – Hwang Woo-Suk, South Korean biomedical scientist
December 16 – Joel Garner, West Indian cricketer
December 27 – Jay Hill, Canadian politician
December 28 – Arun Jaitley, Indian politician
December 30 – June Anderson, American soprano

Deaths

January – June

January 11 – Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, French general, posthumous Marshal of France (b. 1889)
January 18 – Curly Howard, American actor and comedian (b. 1903)
February 6 – King George VI of the United Kingdom (b. 1895)
February 19 – Knut Hamsun, Norwegian author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1859)
February 22 – Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, first President of Finland (b. 1863)
March 5 – Charles Scott Sherrington, English physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1857)
March 7 – Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (b. 1893)
March 9 – Alexandra Kollontai, Russian revolutionary (b.1872)
March 22 – Uncle Dave Macon, American musician (b. 1870)
March 31
Wallace H. White, Jr., U.S. Senator from Maine (b. 1877)
Walter Schellenberg (b. 1910)
April 3 – Miina Sillanpää, Finnish politician (b. 1866)
April 5 – Fala, Scottish Terrior to President Roosevelt (b. 1940)
April 5 – Charles Collett, Great Western Railway chief mechanical engineer (b. 1871)
April 21 – Sir Stafford Cripps, British Chancellor of the Exchequer (b. 1889)
April 23 – Julius Freed, American inventor and banker (b. 1887)
May 6 – Maria Montessori, Italian educator (cerebral hemorrhage) (b. 1870)
May 21 – John Garfield, American actor (b. 1913)
June 1 – John Dewey, American philosopher (b. 1859)
June 17 – Krystyna Skarbek, Polish-born British agent in World War II (b. 1915)
June 19 – Heinrich Schlusnus, German baritone (b. 1888)

July – December

July 26 – Eva Perón, Spiritual Leader of the Argentine Nation, prominent political leader, and First Lady to and partner in power of President Juan Perón (b. 1919)
September 29 – George Santayana, Spanish-born writer (b. 1863)
September 30 – Viscount Waldorf Astor, American-born businessman and politician (b. 1879)
October 22 – Ernst Rüdin, Swiss psychiatrist, geneticist, and eugenicist (b. 1874)
October 28 – Billy Hughes, seventh Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1862)
November 3 – Louis Verneuil, French playwright, screenwriter (b. 1893)
November 8 – Harold Innis, Canadian communications scholar (b. 1894)
November 9 – Chaim Weizmann, first President of Israel (b. 1874)
November 18 – Paul Eluard, French poet (b. 1895)
November 20 – Benedetto Croce, Italian critic, philosopher, and politician (b. 1866)
November 21 – William D. Upshaw, American temperance movement leader (b. 1866)
November 26 – Sven Hedin, Swedish explorer, geographer and geopolitician (b. 1865)
December 12 – Bedrich Hrozný, Czech orientalist and linguist (b. 1879)
December 19 – Pehr G. Holmes, American Politician
December 28 – Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Queen consort of Christian X of Denmark (b. 1879)
December 28 – Fletcher Henderson, American musician (b. 1897)

Nobel prizes

Physics – Felix Bloch, Edward Mills Purcell
Chemistry – Archer John Porter Martin, Richard Laurence Millington Synge
Medicine – Selman Abraham Waksman
Literature – François Mauriac
Peace – Albert Schweitzer

Ship events

List of ship commissionings in 1952
List of ship decommissionings in 1952

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952”