1949 - Wikiwand

1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1949th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 949th year of the 2nd millennium, the 49th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1940s decade.

From top to bottom, left to right: British astronomer Fred Hoyle coins the term Big Bang; the North Atlantic Treaty is signed, forming NATO; Police and protesters clash during the 1949 Kemi strike; EDSAC is the second electronic digital stored-program computer to go into regular service; The first Soviet atomic bomb, RDS-1, is made; Devastation after the Prüm explosion in Germany; Wreckage of an Avio Linee Italiane Fiat G.212 after the Superga air disaster; Mao Zedong proclaiming the foundation of the People's Republic of China.

Quick Facts

1949 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1949 MCMXLIX
Ab urbe condita	2702
Armenian calendar	1398 ԹՎ ՌՅՂԸ
Assyrian calendar	6699
Baháʼí calendar	105–106
Balinese saka calendar	1870–1871
Bengali calendar	1355–1356
Berber calendar	2899
British Regnal year	13 Geo. 6 – 14 Geo. 6
Buddhist calendar	2493
Burmese calendar	1311
Byzantine calendar	7457–7458
Chinese calendar	戊子年 (Earth Rat) 4646 or 4439 — to — 己丑年 (Earth Ox) 4647 or 4440
Coptic calendar	1665–1666
Discordian calendar	3115
Ethiopian calendar	1941–1942
Hebrew calendar	5709–5710
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2005–2006
- Shaka Samvat	1870–1871
- Kali Yuga	5049–5050
Holocene calendar	11949
Igbo calendar	949–950
Iranian calendar	1327–1328
Islamic calendar	1368–1369
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 24 (昭和２４年)
Javanese calendar	1880–1881
Juche calendar	38
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4282
Minguo calendar	ROC 38 民國38年
Nanakshahi calendar	481
Thai solar calendar	2492
Tibetan calendar	阳土鼠年 (male Earth-Rat) 2075 or 1694 or 922 — to — 阴土牛年 (female Earth-Ox) 2076 or 1695 or 923

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Events

January

January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2025
January 2 – Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
January 11 – The first "networked" television broadcasts take place, as KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, goes on the air, connecting east coast and mid-west programming in the United States.
January 16 – Şemsettin Günaltay forms the new government of Turkey. It is the 18th government, last single party government of the Republican People's Party.

January 17 – The first VW Type 1 to arrive in the United States, a 1948 model, is brought to New York by Dutch businessman Ben Pon. Unable to interest dealers or importers in the Volkswagen, Pon sells the sample car to pay his travel expenses. Only two 1949 models are sold in America that year, convincing Volkswagen chairman Heinrich Nordhoff the car has no future in the U.S. (The Type 1 goes on to become an automotive phenomenon.)
January 25
- The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or COMECON) is established by the Soviet Union and other communist nations.
- In the first Israeli elections, David Ben-Gurion becomes Prime Minister.
January 26 – Australian citizenship comes into being.
c. January 28 – Stalin and antisemitism: The media in the Soviet Union resume a propaganda campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans", a euphemism for Soviet Jews, accusing them of being pro-Western and antisocialist.
January 31 – Forces from the Chinese Communist Party enter Beijing.

February

February 13 – António Óscar Carmona is re-elected president of Portugal, for lack of an opposing candidate.
February 17 – Chaim Weizmann begins his term as the first President of Israel.
February 26 – The Revolutionary Communist Party of India stages attacks at Dum Dum.

March

March 1 – Indonesia seizes Yogyakarta from the Dutch.
March 2 – The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II (under Captain James Gallagher) lands in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight (it was refueled in flight 4 times).
March 20 – The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, Denver and Rio Grande Western and Western Pacific railroads inaugurate the California Zephyr passenger train between Chicago and Oakland, California, as the first long-distance train to feature Vistadome cars as regular equipment.
March 24 – The 21st Academy Awards Ceremony is held. The movie Hamlet wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.
March 25
- Operation Priboi: An extensive deportation campaign begins in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Soviet authorities deport more than 92,000 people from the Baltic states to remote areas of the Soviet Union.
- First issue of weekly magazine Paris Match published in France.^[1]^[2]
March 26 – The first half of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida, conducted by legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini, and performed in concert (i.e. no scenery or costumes), is telecast by NBC, live from Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center. The second half is telecast a week later. This is the only complete opera that Toscanini ever conducts on television.
March 28
- United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal resigns suddenly.
- English astronomer Fred Hoyle coins the term Big Bang (intending it to be derogatory) during a BBC Third Programme radio broadcast.^[3]^[4]^[5]
March 30 – An anti-NATO riot in Iceland takes place, prompted by the decision of the Icelandic parliament to join the newly formed NATO.
March 31 – The former British colony of Newfoundland joins Canada, as its 10th province.

April

April 4 – The North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., creating the NATO defense alliance.
April 7 – Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, starring Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, opens on Broadway, and goes on to become Rodgers and Hammerstein's second longest-running musical. It becomes an instant classic of the musical theatre. The score's biggest hit is the song "Some Enchanted Evening".
April 14 – The N'Ko alphabet is completed by Solomana Kante.
April 18 – The Republic of Ireland formally becomes a republic, and leaves the British Commonwealth.
April 20 – Royal Navy frigate HMS Amethyst goes up the Yangtze River, to evacuate British Commonwealth refugees escaping the advance of Mao's Communist forces. Under heavy fire, she grounds off Rose Island. After an abortive rescue attempt on April 26, she anchors 10 miles (16 km) upstream. Negotiations with the Communists to let the ship leave drag on for weeks, during which time the ship's cat Simon raises the crew's morale.
April 23 – Chinese Communist troops take Nanjing.
April 26 – Transjordan changes its name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
April 28
- The 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference issues the London Declaration, enabling India (and, thereafter, any other nation) to remain in the Commonwealth despite becoming a republic, creating the position of 'Head of the Commonwealth' (held by the ruling British monarch), and renaming the organization, from the 'British Commonwealth' to the 'Commonwealth of Nations'.
- Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, 61, is assassinated while en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and 10 others are also killed.

May

May 1 – Nereid, a moon of Neptune, is discovered by Gerard Kuiper.
May 4 – Superga air disaster: A Fiat G.212 airliner of Avio Linee Italiane, carrying the entire Torino F.C. football team, crashes into the back wall of the Basilica of Superga, killing all 31 on board.
May 5 – The Council of Europe is founded, by the signing of the Treaty of London.
May 6 – EDSAC, the first practicable stored-program computer, runs its first program at Cambridge University.^[6]
May 9 – Rainier III becomes Prince of Monaco, upon the death of his maternal grandfather Louis II.
May 11
- Israel is admitted to the United Nations, as its 59th member.
- Siam officially changes its French name to "Thaïlande" (English name to "Thailand"), having officially changed its Thai name to "Prated Thai" since 1939.
May 12 – Cold War: The Soviet Union lifts the Berlin Blockade.
May 16 – The Tokyo Stock Exchange resumes operations, after a four-year shutdown.
May 20
- The AFSA (predecessor of the NSA) is established.
- The Kuomintang regime declares martial law in Taiwan, which lasts until 1987.
May 22 – After two months in Bethesda Naval Hospital, James Forrestal commits suicide under suspicious circumstances.
May 23 – The Federal Republic of Germany is established.
May 31 – The first trial of Alger Hiss for perjury begins in New York City, with Whittaker Chambers as principal witness for the prosecution.

June

June 5 – Thailand elects Orapin Chaiyakan, the first Thai female member of Thailand's Parliament.
June 6 – With the passage of the Bodh Gaya Temple Act by the Indian government, Mahabodhi Temple is restored to partial Buddhist control.
June 7–25 – Dock workers strike in the United Kingdom.
June 8
- Second Red Scare in the United States: Celebrities including Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named as Communist Party members in a Federal Bureau of Investigation report.
- George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in London.
June 14 – Albert II, a rhesus monkey aboard U.S. Hermes project V-2 rocket Blossom IVB, becomes the first primate to enter space. He is killed on impact at return.
June 19 – Glenn Dunaway wins the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Charlotte Speedway, a 3/4 mile oval in Charlotte, North Carolina, but is disqualified due to illegal springs. Jim Roper is declared the official winner.
June 24 – The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, airs on NBC in the United States.
June 29 – Apartheid: The South African Citizenship Act suspends the granting of citizenship to Commonwealth of Nations immigrants after 5 years, and imposes a ban on mixed marriages.

July

July 1 – The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is established.
July 11 – Pamir is the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, under sail alone.
July 15 – In an explosion at Prüm in Germany, the town is badly damaged and 12 people die. The explosion crater is one of the largest ever recorded.
July 19 – The Kingdom of Laos is officially formed, but is not independent from the French Army.
July 20 – Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their 19-month war.
July 24 (St John's Day) – Eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma begins.
July 27
- The de Havilland Comet, the world's first jet-powered airliner, makes its first flight, in England.
- Rhodesia beats the New Zealand national rugby union team (the All Blacks) 10–8, in an exhibition match in Bulawayo, the only non-Test nation ever to achieve this feat.
July 30 – Legal aid is introduced in England and Wales.
July 31 – Captain Kerans of HMS Amethyst decides to make a break after nightfall, under heavy fire from the Chinese People's Liberation Army on both sides of the Yangtze River, and successfully rejoins the fleet at Woosung the next day.

August

August 3 – The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League finalize the merger that will create the National Basketball Association.
August 5 – In Ecuador, the 6.8 M_L Ambato earthquake kills more than 5,000, and destroys a number of villages.
August 8 – Bhutan signs a Treaty of Friendship with newly independent India, agreeing non-interference in internal affairs, but allowing India to "guide" its foreign policy (similar to the previous arrangements with the British administration in India).
August 10 – the Avro Canada C102 Jetliner makes its first flight; it is the first jet airliner to fly in North America.
August 12 – The Fourth Geneva Convention is agreed to.
August 14
- Pakistan becomes independent
- The Salvatore Giuliano Gang explodes mines under a police barracks, outside Palermo, Sicily.
- A military coup in Syria ousts President Shukri al-Quwatli.
August 18 – Kemi Bloody Thursday: two protesters die in the scuffle between the police and the strikers' protest procession in Kemi, Finland.^[7]
August 21
- The Vatican announces that bones uncovered in its catacombs could be those of the apostle Peter; 19 years later, Pope Paul VI announces confirmation that the bones belong to this first Pope.^[8]
- Deportivo Saprissa enters Costa Rican soccer's first division.
- The 1949 Queen Charlotte Islands earthquake is Canada's largest earthquake since the 1700 Cascadia earthquake.
August 24 – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is established.
August 29
- The Council of Europe meets for the first time.
- The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, RDS-1 ("Joe 1"). Its design imitates the American plutonium bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
August 31
- The retreat of the Democratic Army of Greece to Albania, after its defeat at Mount Gramos, marks the end of the Greek Civil War.
- Six of the last sixteen surviving veterans of the Union Army, in the American Civil War, meet in Indianapolis.

September

September 2 – Film noir The Third Man, with screenplay by Graham Greene and set in Allied-occupied Vienna, is released in the United Kingdom; it wins the 1949 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
September 6
- Howard Unruh, a World War II veteran, kills 13 neighbors in Camden, New Jersey with a souvenir Parabellum P.08 pistol, to become America's first single-episode mass murderer.
- Allied military authorities relinquish control of former Nazi Germany assets back to Germany.

September 7 – The Federal Republic of Germany is officially founded. Konrad Adenauer is the first federal chancellor.
September 9
- Albert Guay affair: A dynamite bomb destroys Canadian Pacific Airlines Douglas DC-3, in Quebec.
- Notorious World War II veteran Edwin Alonzo Boyd commits his first career bank robbery, in Toronto.
September 13 – The Soviet Union vetoes United Nations membership for Ceylon, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Jordan and Portugal.
September 17
- Canadian steamship SS Noronic burns in Toronto Harbour, with the loss of over 118 lives.
- Warner Bros. cartoon, "Fast and Furry-ous" is released. It also marks the debut of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. The director is Chuck Jones (credited as Charles M. Jones).
September 19 – The United Kingdom government devalues the pound sterling from $4.03 to $2.80, leading to many other currencies being devalued.
September 23 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces that the Soviet Union has tested the atomic bomb.
September 24 – László Rajk, ex-foreign minister of Hungary, is sentenced to death.
September 25 – U.S. Christian evangelist Billy Graham starts his Los Angeles Crusade, his first great evangelistic campaign. It runs for eight weeks during which Graham speaks to 350,000 people and the event is subsequently described as the greatest revival since the time of Billy Sunday. After this, Graham becomes a national figure in the United States.
September 29
- The first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference approves a design for the flag of the People's Republic of China.
- Iva Toguri D'Aquino is found guilty in the United States of broadcasting for Japan as "Tokyo Rose" at the end of World War II.

October

October 1 – The People's Republic of China is officially proclaimed.
October 2 – The Soviet Union recognizes the People's Republic of China.
October 3 – Albanian Subversion: First Anglo-American attempt to infiltrate guerillas into Albania; the operation is fatally flawed, by being under the control of double agent Kim Philby.
October 7 – The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) is officially established.
October 13 – Severe flooding hits Guatemala.
October 14 – The Foley Square trial of Eugene Dennis and ten other leaders of the Communist Party USA ends in New York City (the longest trial in U.S. history to this date); all defendants are found guilty and all but one sentenced to five years of prison.
October 16 – Greek Civil War ends with a communist surrender.
October 17 – Chinese communist troops take Guangzhou.
October 20 – China People's Insurance Corporation, as predecessor of China Life was founded.^[9]
October 24 – The cornerstone of the Headquarters of the United Nations on Manhattan is laid.
October 27
- Battle of Kuningtou: Chinese communist troops fail to take Quemoy; their advance towards Taiwan is halted.
- 1949 Air France Lockheed Constellation crash: An Air France flight from Paris to New York crashes in the Azores on São Miguel Island, killing all aboard. Among the victims are violinist Ginette Neveu, and French boxer Marcel Cerdan.

November

November 7 – Oil is discovered beneath the Caspian Sea, off the coast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.
November 12 – The Volkswagen Type 2 panel van is unveiled in Germany.
November 15 – Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte are executed for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi.
November 17 – The second trial of Alger Hiss for perjury begins in New York, again with Whittaker Chambers as principal witness.
November 24 – The ski resort in Squaw Valley, Placer County, California officially opens.
November 26 – The Indian Constituent Assembly adopts India's constitution.^[10]
November 28 – Winston Churchill makes a landmark speech in support of the idea of a European Union, at Kingsway Hall, London - but does not see UK as part of it, "The British Government have rightly stated that they cannot commit this country to entering any European Union without the agreement of the other members of the British Commonwealth".^[11]
November 30 – 1949 New Zealand general election: The New Zealand National Party, led by Sidney Holland defeats the incumbent New Zealand Labour Party, led by Peter Fraser.

December

December 7
- Retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan finishes, and it declares Taipei its temporary capital city, a status it will retain more than 50 years later.^[12]
- The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is established as a United Nations agency.
December 10 – 1949 Australian federal election: The Liberal/Country Coalition led by Robert Menzies defeats the Labor government, led by Prime Minister Ben Chifley. Menzies is sworn in on December 19, his second stint as Prime Minister; he will hold the office for over 16 years until his retirement in 1966 and Labor will not win office again until 1972, under Gough Whitlam.
December 13 – The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.
December 14 – Traicho Kostov, who until March was acting President of the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria, is sentenced to death for anti-Communist Party activity.
December 15 – A typhoon strikes a fishing fleet off Korea, killing several thousand.
December 16 – Sukarno is elected president of the Republic of Indonesia.
December 17 – Burma recognises the People's Republic of China.
December 18 – In the American National Football League, the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the Los Angeles Rams 14–0, to win the championship.
December 21 – Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin's 70th Birthday is Held in Moscow.
December 27 – The Treaty of The Hague ends the Indonesian National Revolution by recognizing transfer of the sovereignty of the Dutch East Indies from Queen Juliana of the Netherlands to the United States of Indonesia; the Susanto Cabinet takes office in the Republic of Indonesia.^[13]
December 29
- KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut, becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.
- Smouha SC (sports club) is founded in Alexandria, Egypt, by Joseph Smouha, a Mizrahi Iraqi Jew.
December 30 – India recognizes the People's Republic of China.

Date unknown

The Malta Labour Party is founded.
D. R. Kaprekar discovers the convergence property of the number 6174.
Slavery in Kuwait is abolished.

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