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 24 - Sudden heavy snowfall in
Algeria.
★
January 24 -
Vincent Massey sworn in as first
Canada-born
Governor-General of Canada.
February
★
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.
★
February 6 -
Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of Canada at
Rideau Hall,
Ottawa,
Ontario.
★
February 6 - 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 L. 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 26 -
United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that his nation has an
atomic bomb.
March
★
March 4 -
Ronald Reagan marries
Nancy Davis.
★
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 elected the Prime Minister of the
Gold Coast.
★
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.
★
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.
★
April 18 -
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.
★
April 28 -
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 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
★
July 13 -
East Germany announces formation of its people's army.
★
July 19 to
August 3 - The
Summer Olympic Games are held in
Helsinki.
★
July 19 to
July 26 - Washington D.C. "buzzed" by several
UFOs tracked on multiple radars. Jets scrambled on several occasions and objects took evasive action only to return after the jets left the area.
★
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.
★
July 23 - 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
IMF.
★
August 14 -
West Germany joins
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.
September
★
September 2 - Dr.
C. Walton Lillehei and Dr.
F. John Lewis perform first open-
heart surgery at the
University of Minnesota.
★
September 4 -
September 9 - Thick
smog in
London, England causes 4,000 fatalities.
★
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 of
ceasefire in
Korea are postponed.
★
October 8 - 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
★
October 19 -
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
★
November 4 -
United States presidential election, 1952:
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats
Democrat Adlai Stevenson (correctly predicted by the
UNIVAC computer).
★
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.
★
November 20 - Fireball crashes in a backyard in
Havelock North,
New Zealand
★
November 20 - 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 2004, 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 1 - The
New York Daily News carries a front page story announcing that
Christine Jorgensen, a
transsexual woman in
Denmark became the recipient of the first successful
sexual reassignment operation.
★
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.
[ A New Challenge for Former Polio Patients, Zamula, Evelyn, , , FDA Consumer, 1991 ]
★
National Security Agency is founded.
★
Cold War over
Germany's frontiers intensify.
★
Charles Chaplin is expelled from the
U.S..
★
Cheez Whiz is introduced.
★
Traffic lights in
New York City.
★
Wernher von Braun talks about a manned flight to
Mars.
★
Nordic Council agrees free transport of people, goods and services throughout the
Nordic Countries.
★
National Prohibition Foundation incorporated.
★
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) founded.
★
American Embassy School of New Delhi founded.
★
Fallskärmsjägarna - Swedish paratrooper training school (FJS) created.
Ongoing
★
Marshall Plan
Fictional
The following are references to year 1952 in fiction: (unknown).
Births
January-February
★
January 1 -
Jury Zacharanka, Belarusian politician abducted and probably killed in
1999
★
January 12 -
Walter Mosley, American author
★
January 14 -
Maureen Dowd, American writer
★
January 17 -
Ryuichi Sakamoto, Japanese musician, composer, producer, and actor (
Yellow Magic Orchestra)
★
January 21 -
Marco Camenisch, Swiss environmental activist
★
January 21 -
Louis Menand, American writer and critic
★
January 25 -
Edward Fialkowski, political activist
★
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 -
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''
★
February 29 -
Sharon Dahlonega Raiford Bush, American television's first primetime weather anchor
March-April
★
March 1 -
Steven Barnes, American author
★
March 1 -
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
★
March 4 -
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 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 7 -
Nichita Danilov, Romanian writer
★
April 11 -
Peter Windsor, British sports reporter
★
April 12 -
Ralph Wiley, American sports journalist (d.
2004)
★
April 16 -
Billy West, American voice actor
★
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
★
May 2 -
Isla St Clair, Scottish singer
★
May 3 -
Allan Wells, Scottish athlete
★
May 3 -
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
★
May 11 -
Shohreh Aghdashloo, Iranian actress
★
May 11 -
Mike Lupica, American sports journalist
★
May 14 -
David Byrne, Scottish-born singer, songwriter, and guitarist (
Talking Heads)
★
May 14 -
Robert Zemeckis, American director
★
May 16 -
James Herndon, American media psychologist
★
May 18 -
George Strait, American musician
★
May 18 -
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 -
Orhan Pamuk, Turkish writer, Nobel prize.
★
June 7 -
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
★
June 20 -
Vikram Seth, Indian novelist
★
June 21 -
Jeremy Coney,
New Zealand cricket captains
★
June 21 -
Kôichi Mashimo, Japanese anime director
★
June 22 -
Alastair Stewart, British newsreader
★
June 22 -
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
★
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 -
Voja Antonić,
Serbian inventor and writer
★
July 14 -
Franklin Graham, American evangelist
★
July 20 -
Keiko Matsuzaka, Japanese actress
★
July 27 -
Hannu-Pekka Hänninen, Finnish sports commentator
★
July 31 -
Chris Ahrens, American ice hockey player
★
July 31 -
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
★
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 28 -
Wendelin Wiedeking, German businessman
★
August 29 -
Karen Hesse, American children's writer
September-October
★
September 12 -
Sergei Karaganov,
Russian political scientist
September 12th-Neil Peart-Drummer/Songwriter for the canadian progressive rock band rush
★
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)
★
September 24 -
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
★
October 5 -
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 14 -
Vicki Michelle, English actress
★
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)
★
March 31 -
Walter Schellenberg (b.
1910)
★
April 3 -
Miina Sillanpää, Finnish politician (b.
1866)
★
April 5 -
Fala, Scottish Terrior to President Roosevelt (b.
1940)
★
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 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 Peron, Argentine wife of
Juan Peron (b.
1919)
★
September 29 -
George Santayana, Spanish-born writer (b.
1863)
★
September 30 -
Viscount Waldorf Astor, American-born businessman and politician (b.
1879)
★
October 28 -
Billy Hughes, seventh
Prime Minister of Australia (b.
1862)
★
November 9 -
Chaim Weizmann, first
President of Israel (b.
1874)
★
November 18 -
Paul Eluard, French poet (b.
1895)
★
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 28 -
Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Queen consort of
Christian X of Denmark (b.
1879)
★
December 28 -
Fletcher Henderson, American musician (b.
1897)
Unknown dates
★
Ernst Rüdin, Swiss psychiatrist, geneticist, and eugenicist (b.
1874)
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
See also
★
20th century
Notes
External links
Table of contents
__TOC__
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