1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950
A federal court at New York finds Alger Hiss guilty January 25 of having committed perjury when he denied the allegations made by Whittaker Chambers in 1948. Sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment, he will begin serving time in March of next year after exhausting all appeals (a model prisoner, he will be released after 44 months).
President Truman advises the Atomic Energy Commission January 31 to proceed with development of a hydrogen bomb (see 1946; 1952).
Physicist Klaus Fuchs is found guilty March 1 of having given British atomic secrets to Soviet agents (see 1944; 1946). Attorney General Lord Shawcross of Nuremberg trials fame has prosecuted Fuchs, whom the British hired to do nuclear research in 1941, knowing he was a communist; he was a member of the team that developed the atomic bomb beginning in 1943, his work at Alamagordo and Los Alamos, N.M., made him privy to the bomb's design, construction, components, and detonating devices, and he will serve 9 years in a British prison. His U.S. accomplice, Harry Gold, gets 30 years.
A federal jury at New York finds March 7 that former U.S. Department of Justice analyst Judith Coplon, 28, and United Nations engineering staff employee Valentin A. Gubitchev, 33, were guilty of spying for Moscow. FBI agents arrested them a year ago as they were walking on Third Avenue near 16th Street; slips regarding FBI security reports were found in Coplon's handbag, her job involved the study of Soviet espionage, and the jury of six men and six women rejects her lawyer's arguments that she was collecting material for a book and that she and Gubitchev acted furtively because they were in love and feared that their liaison would bring down the wrath of Gubitchev's wife or cost Coplon her job. KGB controllers spirit agents Morris and Lona Cohen out of the United States in June.
Marshal K. E. (Kliment Yefremovich) Voroshilov, 69, announces Soviet possession of an atomic bomb March 8 (see 1949).
Dresden's Mozart Girls Choir seeks protection as political refugees at West Berlin April 4.
President Truman receives a top-secret paper April 7 from Amherst, Mass.-born National Security Adviser Paul H. (Henry) Nitze, 43, warning that the Kremlin is "inescapably militant" and desires "world domination." Secretary of State Dean Acheson has dismissed George F. Kennan Jr. in January and replaced him with Nitze, a former Wall Street banker who has earlier suggested that the U.S. use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been unnecessary but whose paper "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security" ("NSC-68") urges a U.S. military buildup and will set a lasting course in U.S.-Soviet relations.
Former French president Albert Lebrun dies at Paris March 6 at age 78; former French Popular Front leader Léon Blum at Jouy-en-Sosas March 30 at age 77; former British field marshal Archibald P. Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell, at London May 24 at age 67. He served as viceroy of India from 1943 to 1947.
Turkish statesman Fevzi Cakmak dies at his native Istanbul April 10 at age 74 and the Republican People's Party loses the general election May 14 as the opposition Democrat Party gains an overwhelming victory under the leadership of former prime minister Celâl Bayar, now 67 (or 68), who helped to organize the new party 4 years ago and will serve as president until 1960, giving priority to private enterprise and limiting the state's economic role.
The king of the Belgians Leopold III returns July 22 after 6 years in exile (he was a prisoner of war from 1940 until 1945), socialist demonstrations against him break out July 23 at Brussels, he abdicates August 1 after a 16-year reign, and he is succeeded by his 19-year-old son Baudouin, who will reign until his death in 1993.
Sweden's Gustav V dies October 29 at age 92 after a 43-year reign. His 66-year-old son succeeds to the throne and will reign until 1973 as Gustav VI Adolf.
A tripartite declaration by Britain, France, and the United States May 25 pledges immediate action in the event that any Mideast nation violates Israel's frontiers or armistice lines (see 1949). Five Arab League nations sign a collective security pact June 17, and Egypt July 19 bars ships bound for Israel from using the Suez Canal (see 1951).
Iraq's premier Nuri as-Said abrogates his country's alliance with Britain November 27 (see 1948; Baghdad Pact, 1955).
A new 395-article Indian constitution takes effect January 26, making the nation "a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic" (see 1947). Adopted by the Constituent Assembly November 26 of last year and modeled on the unwritten British constitution, it outlines in detail the structure and powers of India's central and state governments and in what manner they shall operate. Cooch Behar is joined to Bengal.
A Sino-Soviet treaty of friendship, alliance, and mutual assistance signed February 14 names Japan and the United States as common enemies and pledges joint action against "Japanese imperialism." Former Japanese foreign minister Shigenori Togo dies in prison July 23 at age 68, having been given a 20-year sentence for war crimes.
Chiang Kai-shek resumes the presidency of Nationalist China following British recognition of the People's Republic (see 1949).
Communist North Korean armored columns clank across the border into the Republic of South Korea June 25, beginning a 3-year Korean War that will involve 16 nations against the communists. Josef Stalin rejected Kim Il Sung's request for assistance last year, but he saw that the United States did not come to Chiang Kai-shek's aid against Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and has construed a statement made in January by U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson to mean that the United States would not go to war in support of South Korea; he has supplied his client state with planes, tanks, and other military weapons, UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie urges UN members to support South Korea June 27, and President Truman that day orders U.S. air and sea forces to "give the Korean government troops cover and support." He has resisted sending ground troops to the peninsula, but Seoul falls to the North Koreans June 28. Gen. MacArthur visits Korea June 29 and resolves not only to drive the communists back but also to unite Korea. He takes command of UN forces July 9.
U.S. planes strafe Korean civilians near the village of No Gun Ri some 100 miles south of Seoul July 26, killing about 100 people; members of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry open fire with machine guns on the survivors, forcing them to take refuge under a railway bridge. The shooting continues off and on for 60 hours, killing as many as 300 more civilians (the incident will be hushed up for nearly 50 years, as will atrocities committed against civilians by communist forces). North Korean forces drive the U.S. and other UN troops back to the southeast corner of the peninsula, and it appears that they may have won.
The U.S. X Corps (1st Marine and 7th Infantry divisions, reinforced) under the command of Virginia-born Gen. Edward M. (Mallory) Almond, 57, land at Inchon north of the 38th parallel September 14 and take 125,000 prisoners. (The communist high command has not expected the amphibious landing at Inchon since the 32-foot-high tide there makes the beach accessible for only 6 hours in 24. Gen. MacArthur wins praise for his initiative in ordering the move.) UN forces retake Seoul September 26 but fail to trap the North Korean army. The UN General Assembly sanctions a move across the 38th parallel October 9, ROK troops occupy the North Korean capital of Pyongyang October 19, Gen. MacArthur assures President Truman that the People's Republic will not enter the conflict, but Mao Zedong responds to urging from Moscow and sends Chinese forces cross the Yalu River October 26 with support from Russian pilots flying MiG-15 fighter jets against piston-powered U.S. planes.
U.S. troops reach the Yalu November 21 and expect to be home by Christmas, but some 300,000 Chinese and North Korean forces attack UN lines in sub-zero weather November 26, inflicting (and sustaining) heavy losses. U.S. troops retreat in wild disorder, 15,000 Marines are trapped (3,000 die, 7,000 are wounded), and the U.S. 8th Army abandons Pyongyang December 8 (little is left of the city). Gen. Walton H. Walker is killed December 3 at age 50, and some 200 U.S. vessels converge later in the month on the Korean port of Hungnam, where more than 90,000 North Korean civilians fleeing Chinese invasion forces jam the town along with 105,000 U.S. and South Korean Marines and soldiers. Lt. Col. Bruce Hinton becomes the first F-86 Sabre fighter pilot to shoot down a Chinese MiG-15 December 17 (but the MiG is faster at altitudes above 60,000 feet, can climb faster, make tighter turns, and has heavier armament); U.S. planes and ships bombard Hungnam's perimeter December 22 to hold off the communists while the 455-foot Moore-McCormick Lines freighter Meredith Victory takes aboard 14,000 refugees (the ship is designed to hold 12 passengers and 47 crewmen plus cargo); she arrives at Pusan December 24, is turned away because that city already has too many refugees, and arrives December 25 at the island of Koje Do 40 miles to the southwest.
Virginia-born Gen. Matthew B. (Bunker) Ridgway, 55, takes command of defeated UN forces December 25, but Chinese forces cross the 38th Parallel December 28 and UN forces retreat to the 37th as thousands of refugees stream south (see 1951).
The United States recognizes Vietnam's Bao Dai government, supplies arms to Saigon, sends a military mission to advise the Vietnamese on how to use the arms, and signs a military assistance pact with France, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam (see 1949; 1951).
Chinese authorities release former Manchurian emperor Kang Te (Kang Teh, the former Chinese emperor Pu Yi), having undertaken to reeducate him politically. Now 44, he becomes a private citizen at Beijing (Peking).
Chinese Red Army forces invade Tibet from Xiangjing (Sinkiang) October 21 following rejection of Beijing's offer to permit Tibet regional autonomy if she will join the communist system. One Chinese army comes through Ladakh, provoking a protest from India; two other Chinese armies advance from Shanghai and Szechuan and join up at Chamdo. The soldiers destroy Tibetan monasteries, provoking international protests, but Beijing (Peking) proclaims Tibet to be an integral part of China and says that Tibetan issues are a domestic Chinese problem (see 1951).
French forces withdraw from the northern frontier of Indochina November 3.
Former New Zealand prime minister Peter Fraser dies at Wellington December 12 at age 66.
Sen. Joseph McCarthy, 41, (R. Wis.) addresses a Republican women's club at Wheeling, W. Va., in February and claims to have a list of more than 100 "known communists" employed by the State Department. His numbers keep changing (he actually has very few names) but he starts a "witch-hunt" that will continue for the next 4 years, calling the "Democrat Party" the "party of treason." Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, 52, (R. Me.) objects June 1: "The Nation sorely needs a Republican victory," she says, "But I do not want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear." The Senate Foreign Relations Committee refutes his charges July 20, calling them a hoax perpetrated on the public; McCarthy accuses Far Eastern scholar Owen Lattimore, 50, of being the "top Soviet espionage agent in the United States" and claims congressional privilege to protect himself from retaliation for his campaign of reckless character assassination (Washington Post political cartoonist Herblock coins the term McCarthyism) (see 1951).
Red Channels makes sweeping accusations of communist subversion in the American entertainment industry (see Hollywood Black List, 1947; Adler and Draper, 1949). Published anonymously in June, the paperback book written by former U.S. Naval Intelligence officer Vincent W. Hartnett with help from former FBI agents Theodore Kirkpatrick and Kenneth Bierly lists 151 names of alleged "Reds" and will lead to hearings before the House Un-American Affairs (Dies) Committee, Hedda Hopper and other gossip columnists will defame scores of actors, choreographers, playwrights, musicians, producers, directors, and screenwriters, who will be given no opportunity to defend themselves despite flimsy evidence of their connections to any communist cause, and dozens will be barred from employment on suspicion of using the films, stage, radio, and television as vehicles for communist propaganda. Hollywood actress Jean Muir is dropped from the cast of The Aldrich Family August 28 following allegations that she has had communist associations.
The McCarran Act (Control of Communists Act) passed by Congress September 20 over President Truman's veto calls for severe restrictions against suspected communists, especially in sensitive positions and during emergencies.
Director Cecil B. DeMille gives a speech to the Screen Directors Guild at the Beverly Hills Hotel October 22 demanding the ouster of Joseph Mankiewicz for his alleged leftist leanings (DeMille deliberately mispronounces the names of Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and Fred Zinnemann who have foreign names or accents); right-wing director John Ford tells DeMille that he is wrong, calls for a vote of confidence in Mankiewicz, and suggests that they all go home, which they do. Abe Burrows, Edward Dmytryk, Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets, Jerome Robbins, and others will survive the witch hunt by collaborating with blacklisters, others will serve prison terms or at best have their careers crippled for years by the Red Channels accusations. They will include Bertolt Brecht, Alvah Bessie, Charles Chaplin, Norman Corwin, José Ferrer, John Garfield, Jack Gilford, Lee Grant, Dashiell Hammett, Judy Holliday, Howard Koch, Canada Lee, Ring Lardner Jr., Arthur Miller, Zero Mostel, Larry Parks, Doré Schary, screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart (who served as president of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League before and during the war), and Dalton Trumbo (who has moved to Mexico after a year in prison and is grinding out screenplays under a pseudonym) (see Lillian Hellman, 1952).
Gen. Henry H. "Hap" Arnold (U.S. Army Air Force, ret.) dies of a heart attack at his farm near Sonoma, Calif., January 15 at age 63; former Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King of pneumonia at Kingsmere, Ontario, July 22 at age 75; former U.S. secretary of state Henry L. Stimson at his Long Island, N.Y., estate October 20 at age 83.
Colombia has a presidential election, but Liberals refuse to participate, martial law is imposed, press censorship is imposed, and right-wing leader Laureano Eleuterio Gómez, 61, emerges the winner, having returned from self-imposed exile in Spain (see 1948). Gómez will rule despotically until his ouster in 1953.
Peruvian dictator Gen. Manuel A. Odria resigns June 1 in order to run unopposed for election and is inaugurated July 28 (see 1948). The Korean War gives a boost to Peru's economy by increasing demand for copper and other minerals (see 1956).
Brazil reelects Getulio Vargas president October 3 amidst economic difficulties, notably rising inflation, that have persisted since 1945 (see 1954).
Haiti's president Dumarsais Estimé tries to extend his term, a military junta headed by Col. Paul E. Magloire, 42, seizes control May 10 as it did in 1946, the junta holds a plebiscite, and Magloire is elected president in October (see 1956).
The Puerto Rican Commonwealth Bill signed into law by President Truman October 30 provides for autonomous self-government with continued economic ties to the United States (see 1947), but a small minority of Puerto Rican nationalists has demanded independence, they are enraged by the new law, and President Truman escapes an assassination attempt November 1. White House guards outside the Blair-Lee House, occupied by the Trumans during a White House remodeling, shoot two Puerto Ricans, one fatally, after the Puerto Ricans have killed one guard and wounded another (see 1951).
Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas (D. Calif.) defeats California's incumbent senator Sheridan Downey in the Democratic senatorial primary but loses in the general election to Republican Richard M. Nixon, now 37, who won his congressional seat in 1946 by charging that veteran congressman H. Jerry Voorhis had communist support. Nixon uses the same smear tactics against Douglas, now 49, who has opposed renewal of funding for the House Un-American Affairs Committee, opposed President Truman's appeals for aid to Greece and Turkey, and opposed contempt citations for the so-called Hollywood Ten. Capitalizing on anti-communist hysteria, Nixon says Douglas is "pink right down to her underwear."
Former South African prime minister Jan Christiaan Smuts dies of a cerebral embolism at his modest farm outside Pretoria September 11 at age 80. South Africa refuses to place South-West Africa (Namibia) under UN trusteeship.
The UN votes December 2 to unite Ethiopia with Eritrea, whose government has been administered by British authorities (see 1941; 1952).
Washington and Madrid resume diplomatic relations at year's end.
Johannesburg has riots January 29 as blacks begin violent protests against the apartheid program that went into effect last year (see 1951).
Civil-rights leader Charles Hamilton Houston dies of heart disease at his native Washington, D.C., April 22 at age 54, having laid the legal ground for overturning the Supreme Court's 1896 "separate but equal" decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. The U.S. Supreme Court June 5 overturns a Texas court's ruling that upheld the exclusion of a black applicant to the University of Texas Law School at Austin (Sweatt v. Painter). Postal worker Heman Sweatt applied for admission in 1946, the governor set up a separate law school for blacks at Houston, Sweatt obtained help from the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) to sue the state (see Brown decision, 1954).
The Mattachine Society founded at Los Angeles by English-born U.S. Communist Party member and pioneer gay-rights activist Harry Hay (originally Henry Hay Jr.), 38, and a few others is a secret group whose existence defies a California law making it illegal for homosexuals to assemble in public (other states have similar laws, and the American Psychiatric Association defines homosexuality as a mental illness). The group takes its name from a medieval French term for male dancers who wear only masks as they perform in public, sometimes satirizing social customs (see 1969).
India grants women the right to vote on the same basis as men under terms of its new constitution (see Pakistan, 1947).
North and South Koreans commit atrocities, as do UN forces, and subject prisoners of war to unspeakable cruelty. Both sides execute suspected collaborators and dissidents without trial.
The Ford Foundation distributes $24 million in grants 1 year after coming into the bulk of its 1943 and 1947 bequests (see 1954).
Diplomat-industrialist Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach dies at Blühnbach, near Salzburg, January 16 at age 79 (he married Bertha Krupp and adopted her family name; their son Alfried, now 42, was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment for helping the Nazi war machine but will be released from Landsburgh Prison next year to carry on the family business. Property valued at about $43 million will be restored to him, and his company will soon be the world's 12th largest).
The Schuman Plan proposed May 9 to French foreign minister Robert Schuman by statesman Jean (Omer Marie Gabriel) Monnet, 61, calls for a pooling of Western Europe's coal and steel resources. Monnet is a onetime champagne salesman whose plan will evolve into the European Economic Community (see 1948; 1951).
The Korean War brings a boom to the Japanese economy, lifting it out of recession. The United States will pour nearly $4 billion into Japan in the next few years as it procures trucks and other equipment from Japanese producers, spurring development of the country's steel, motorcar, and electronic industries.
President Truman requests a $10 billion war fund plus internal economic controls July 10. The Defense Production Act passed by Congress September 8 establishes a system of priorities for materials, provides for wage and price stabilization, and curbs installment buying.
The Revenue Act passed by Congress September 23 increases income and corporation taxes.
General Motors announces 1949 profits of nearly $636.5 million, a new high for any U.S. corporation. GM signs a 5-year contract May 23 granting UAW employees pensions and wage boosts.
American Federation of Labor (AFL) membership reaches roughly 8 million, CIO membership 6 million.
The U.S. Gross National Product (GNP) reaches $284 billion, up from $99 billion in 1940 and $103 billion in 1929. Government spending accounts for 21 percent of the total, up from 18 percent in 1940, 10 percent in 1929 (see 1960).
The U.S. Consumer Price Index for all goods and services will rise by 10 percent in the next decade.
The Federal Reserve Board estimates December 25 that four out of 10 U.S. families are worth at least $5,000 and one in 10 has assets of at least $25,000.
The Celler-Kefauver Amendment (Antimerger Act) closes a major loophole in Section 7 of the 1914 Clayton Anti-Trust Act and "puts teeth" in that law by curbing vertical mergers of U.S. business firms. Written by Rep. Emmanuel Celler, 62, (D. N.Y.) and Sen. Estes Kefauver, 47, (D. Tenn.), the new law passed December 29 stops companies from buying up stock in other companies. Congress will pass no further laws this century to thwart anti-competitive practices, but large corporations will simply buy up competitor's assets, and the number of mergers in years to come will dwarf this year's 219 (see 1960).
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 30 at 235.41, up from 200.13 at the end of 1949.
The world's first regional shopping center opens beside a highway on the outskirts of Seattle, where architect John Graham Jr. has designed Northgate—a long, open-air pedestrian thoroughfare lined with a department store and smaller retail establishments that surround a 4,000-car parking lot, with a drive-in bank, a gas station, and a movie theater as well (see Dallas, 1931). By year's end the country has about 100 shopping malls, up from eight in 1946 (see Northland, 1954; architecture [Fort Worth Plan], 1952).
U.S. anthracite coal production falls to 46 million tons, down from a peak of 100 million in 1917, with 35 percent coming from surface facilities or reprocessing of culm deposits. The fatality rate among coal miners drops to 1.86 per million tons, down from 6.5 in 1931 (see Knox Coal Co. disaster, 1959).
Phillips Petroleum cofounder Frank Phillips dies at Atlantic City, N.J., August 23 at age 76.
Arabian-American Oil Co. (Aramco) agrees December 26 to share its profits on a 50-50 basis with Saudi Arabia, setting a pattern for agreements with other Mideast oil-producing nations (see 1938; 1973).
London dock workers strike from April 19 to May 1.
Federal troops seize U.S. railroads August 25 on orders from President Truman to avert a scheduled strike (see 1948). Railroad trackage for passenger traffic will decline in the next 22 years from 150,000 to 68,000, and electric railway trackage will decline from 9,600 miles to 790 as bus lines replace rail transit and more and more Americans drive automobiles (see General Motors, 1949).
Le Mistral goes into service for the French National Railways, whose workers have welded and polished seams between track lengths to eliminate the clickety-clack of the wheels. The new electric luxury passenger train between Paris and Nice has a barbershop and other amenities not found on U.S. trains, and it covers the 676-mile route in 9 hours, 8 minutes.
Stockholm's T-line subway opens with modern stations, inaugurating a system that will grow to have 60 miles of track with 94 stations.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is reestablished at Nagasaki (see 1885) and will be a major shipbuilder and producer of rolling stock, aircraft, and automobiles. The automobile division will become independent in 1970 under the name Mitsubishi Motors.
U.S. auto production reaches 6.7 million, up from 5.1 million last year. Used car sales exceed 13 million. Auto registrations show one passenger car for every 3.75 Americans, up from one for every 5.5 in 1930 (see 1960). Americans own some 40 million cars, up from 32.6 in 1941, and the figure will more than double in the next 25 years until U.S. families own, on average, 1.4 automobiles.
The Volkswagen Microbus goes into production in Germany with a design sketched 3 years ago by the first U.S. importer of VW Beetles, Ben Pon. The loaf-shaped, air-cooled van will be called the bulli in Germany, the combi in Brazil and Mexico.
The Henry J motorcar introduced by Henry J. Kaiser and his son Edgar has a four-cylinder engine and gets 25 miles per gallon (see 1946). A six-cylinder engine will be introduced as an option, but the car costs nearly $2,000, Americans who want compacts prefer Volkswagens, and although some 127,000 Henry Js will be sold, the make will be discontinued in 1954. The larger Kaiser make will expire in 1955.
Automobile pioneer Ransom E. Olds dies at Lansing, Mich., August 26 at age 86; former General Motors finance committee chairman John Jakob Raskob at his Centreville, Md., estate October 15 at age 71.
The United States has 1.68 million miles of surfaced road, up from 1.34 million in 1940, and only 1.31 million miles of dirt road, down from 1.65 (see 1960).
A second Tacoma Narrows bridge opens to traffic across Washington's Puget Sound (see 1940). The new suspension bridge has a 2,800-foot main span stiffened with a web truss.
Bridge designer Sir Ralph Freeman of 1932 Sydney Harbor Bridge fame dies at his native London March 11 at age 69.
New York's Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel opens May 25 and carries nearly twice the traffic anticipated; construction was interrupted by the war.
New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal opens on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets. The facility will handle upwards of 7,000 buses and 200,000 passengers per week as it becomes the world's busiest bus terminal (it will be enlarged in 1989).
A chartered British Avro Tudor nosedives into a field near Cardiff, Wales, March 12, killing 80 of the 83 persons aboard in aviation's worst disaster thus far. Some Cardiff businessmen had chartered the plane for a trip to watch a rugby match at Belfast.
E. I. du Pont introduces Orlon. The company began developing the wool-like polymerized acrylonitrile fiber in 1941 under the direction of William Hale Church of 1926 waterproof cellophane fame (see Dacron, Terylene, 1941).
A four-page paper by British chemist Derek H. R. (Harold Richard) Barton, 31, shows that the three-dimensional nature of organic molecules provides an explanation of the properties of certain ring systems (see Bijvoet, 1946). His observation alters the understanding of such molecules and pioneers conformational analysis—a new field of chemistry (see Lee, Yang, 1956).
Variation and Evolution in Plants by Lawrence, N.Y.-born University of California botanist and geneticist George Ledyard Stebbins Jr., 44, applies the modern synthetic theory of evolution for the first time to plant evolution. The first scientist to synthesize artificially a plant capable of thriving under natural conditions, Stebbins moves from UC Berkeley to UC Davis.
The National Science Foundation Act signed into law by President Truman May 10 establishes the NSF—an independent U.S. Government agency that will support basic research and education in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering. The advances in science and technology that have taken place since the start of World War II have made it apparent that such an agency was needed, and it will grow in 45 years to have an annual budget of about $3 billion, enabling it to award about 20,000 grants.
Geographer Isaiah Bowman dies at Baltimore January 6 at age 71. He retired from Johns Hopkins in 1948; radio astronomer Karl G. Jansky dies at Red Bank, N.J., February 14 at age 44; physicist Arthur Dempster at Stuart, Fla., March 11 at age 63; astrophysicist-cosmologist (Edward) Arthur Milne at Dublin September 21 at age 74, having pioneered the study of kinematic relativism.
The United States has 33,000 new cases of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) (see 1947). The disease remains mysterious to most people, families with afflicted members are often treated as pariahs, and although the 12-year-old March of Dimes continues to raise funds for research there is still no cure and no vaccine (see Salk, 1952).
The antibiotic Nystatin announced by U.S. Department of Agriculture fungus authority Elizabeth Lee Hazen, 65, and USDA chemist Rachel Brown, 52, is the first safe fungicide, effective for everything from curing athlete's foot, ringworm, life-threatening diseases, and dutch elm disease, to restoring moldy paintings and books. Scientists hail it as the first biomedical breakthrough since the 1928 discovery of penicillin. Hazen has found a soil sample on a friend's farm in Virginia, she showed it to Brown when they met 2 years ago, and within a year they had found and separated the antifungal substance, naming it for the New York State Department of Health. Hazen and Brown will receive a patent (#2,797,183) June 25, 1957, but will refuse any share in the royalties, living until their deaths on Civil Service salaries and pensions. Nystatin will be marketed through a non-profit research foundation, sales will generate profits of $13 million in the next 30 years, and the money will all go into grants, playing a key role in mycology research.
A poll of U.S. physicians reveals that penicillin is prescribed for roughly 60 percent of all patients.
Tranquilizer drugs (ataraxics) that eliminate anxiety and excitement without making users too drowsy are developed by Wallace Laboratories of Carter Products, Inc., and by Wyeth Laboratories. Chemists B. J. Ludwig and E. C. Piech at Wallace in New Brunswick, N.J., have synthesized meprobamate (methyl+propyl+carbamate) to produce the new tranquilizers (see Miltown, Equanil, 1954).
Blue Cross programs cover 37 million Americans, up from 6 million in 1940, but most Americans have no health insurance (see 1969; Britain, 1948; Medicare, 1965).
The U.S. ranks tenth among all countries in terms of life expectancy for men, but its ranking will drop sharply in the next decade and a half.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association of America is founded by Paul Cohen, 33.
Sales of Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound fall below $2 million for the first time in a decade (see 1883).
Physician Charles R. Drew of 1940 blood bank fame falls asleep at the wheel and dies in an auto accident at Burlington, N.C., April 1 at age 45. He has been driving to a meeting at Tuskegeee, Ala., with three colleagues, all of whom survive.
The passion play performed by Oberammergau villagers in Bavaria since 1634 casts in the role of Jesus a man who has been convicted of being a Nazi (he will play the role again in 1960, and 10 years later will become the play's artistic director). The late Adolf Hitler attended performances on two occasions, and the passion play retains its anti-Semitic character.
Pope Pius XII proclaims the dogma of the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary.
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States is created by 25 Protestant and four Eastern Orthodox church groups with 32 million members. Church attendance by members of all denominations will remain strong through the end of the century, but the horrific events of World War II have persuaded many Britons and Europeans that God does not exist, and regular church attendance in Britain will fall to about 6 percent.
U.S. Catholic schools report June 4 that they have enrolled a record 3.5 million pupils for fall classes. Roman Catholic bishops issue a statement at Washington, D.C., November 18 protesting sex education in public schools.
Educating Our Daughters: A Challenge to the Colleges by San Francisco-born Mills College president Lynn (Townsend) White Jr., 43, says that college-educated women have a special duty to ensure a stable population by counteracting the "sterility" that is overtaking better-educated and more affluent women and thus threatening democracy. Higher education, he says, must instill the idea that it is both an "incentive" and a "duty" to bear at least three children in order to counteract the "drift toward totalitarianism."
Only 2 percent of Japanese university students are women.
The University of Dakar has its beginnings in the Institute for Higher Studies established by French authorities in Senegal. The first French West African university, it will be followed by similar institutions at Abidjan and Brazzaville.
India's new constitution permits use of English in government work (including courtrooms) until Hindi can take over; the transition is supposed to be completed within 15 years, but millions of people in the nation's southern states speak Tamil, Telagu, Malayalam, and other languages. They will resist imposition of Hindi, and although public schools may teach in Hindi the language of the raj will continue to be a valuable legacy of British rule not only for official proceedings but also for use by the upper classes (see education, 1993).
Haloid Co. of Rochester, N.Y. produces the first Xerox copying machine (see Carlson, 1938; Haloid, 1946). A. B. Dick, Eastman Kodak, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing, and Ricoh sell copying machines based on dye-transfer processes, heat-sensitive papers, or other technologies, and they enjoy fairly good sales, but they are either difficult to operate, require specially-treated paper that is expensive, produce wet copies that have to be air dried, or copies that fade or darken over time, making them unsuitable for long-term storage (see model 914, 1960).
Bic Pen Corp. is founded by Italian-born French entrepreneur Marcel Bich, 36, to make cheap ballpoint pens (see 1945) and lighters. Bich has licensed the Biro patents and developed a faster-drying ink, employs a strong ball point made of titanium, and uses a plastic cover instead of metal to produce a 19¢ disposable pen.
The first Japanese tape recorder weighs nearly 40 pounds, uses tape made from rice paper, and sells for nearly $500 (see 1946; tape recorder, 1940). Masaru Ibuka of Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. (Sony) has seen an American tape recorder and tried to improve on it. Although his G-type recorder is intended for institutional use and has few buyers at first, his partner Akio Morita tours Japanese schools and gives demonstrations that persuade teachers to buy the recorder as a teaching device. Some 50,000 orders come in when the company introduces the H-type recorder, its first big consumer product; by next year Totsuko will have sales of $430,500 and employ 159 persons (see 1954; radio, 1955).
Magnetic recording pioneer Marvin Camras unveils a prototype video recorder (see 1944).
U.S. television set sales begin a rapid rise (see 1948). By June, more than 100 TV stations operate in 38 states, and while the U.S. census for the year shows 5 million homes with sets, the figure is belied by sales figures that show 8 million sets in use (45 million U.S. homes have radios).
The Montreal-based media colossus Quebecor founded with a $1,500 loan from his mother by Montreal entrepreneur Pierre Péladeau, 25, will become Canada's second-largest newspaper publisher (its Journal de Montréal will be the nation's largest French-language paper and third-largest paper of any kind) and North America's second-largest commercial printer. The enterprise will grow to own three other Canadian papers, several magazines, a multimedia company, and the forestry concern Donohue, Inc.
"Peanuts" by St. Paul Pioneer Press cartoonist Charles M. (Monroe) Schulz, 27, appears in eight newspapers starting October 2 with the comic-strip character Charlie Brown ("good grief") and expanding to include Snoopy (a beagle, who debuts October 4), Schroeder (who will debut May 30, 1951), Lucy Van Pelt (who will debut March 3, 1952), Linus Van Pelt (and his security blanket, who will debut September 19, 1952), Pig Pen (who will debut July 13, 1954), Sally (who will debut August 23, 1959), Peppermint Patty (who will debut August 22, 1966), Woodstock (a bird, who will debut April 4, 1967), Marcie (who will debut June 18, 1968), Franklin (who will debut July 31, 1968), and others. Their seemingly innocuous problems incorporate dark humor and profound themes (some will say that Schulz has introduced existential angst in the form of comedy). Syndicated by the United Press, "Peanuts" will make the "funny papers" something more than just funny, entertain readers of more than 900 newspapers by 1970, continue until early 2000, and bring Schulz an eight-figure income as it becomes the basis of books, television shows, and countless manufactured items.
Publisher S. S. McClure dies at New York March 21 at age 92; cartoonist Robert L. "Believe It or Not" Ripley at New York May 27 at age 55; former Chicago Tribune cartoonist John T. McCutcheon at Lake Forest, Ill., June 10 at age 79; former New York Evening Post owner-editor and Nation magazine editor Oswald Garrison Villard at New York October 1 at age 77; New Yorker magazine cartoonist Helen Hokinson in an airplane crash near Washington, D.C., November 1 at age 50.
Nonfiction: The Labyrinth of Solitude by Mexican poet-diplomat Octavio Paz, 36, angers many of his compatriots by portraying Mexicans as a people wounded and confused by centuries of bitter divisions between Indian and Spanish cultures, radical atheism and religious fanatacism, revolutionary idealism and official corruption, machismo and mother worship: "The Mexican can bend, can bow humbly, can even stooop, but he cannot back down, that is, he cannot allow the outside world to penetrate his privacy"; The Lonely Crowd by Philadelphia-born University of Chicago social sciences professor David Riesman Jr., 41, with New York-born poet Reuel Denney, 37, and New York-born sociologist Nathan Glazer, 27, analyzes inner-directed, outer-directed, and other-directed character types. Twentieth century Americans are more likely to be other-directed, say the authors, working to get ahead within a group and adjusting to the needs of others, so where earlier, inner-directed, Americans pioneered new production efficiency, the emphasis now is on efficient administration (see Whyte, 1956); The Human Use of Human Beings by Norbert Wiener warns against abuse of the new technology; Childhood and Society (essays) by German-born U.S. psychoanalyst Erik H. (Homburger) Erikson, 47, who emigrated to America in 1933, has worked with Sioux children on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation, and joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, in 1942; The Nature of Personality by psychologist Gordon W. Allport; The Arabs in History by Bernard Lewis; The Liberal Imagination by Lionel Trilling; Testament for Social Science by English social scientist Barbara Frances Wootton, 53, endeavors to assimilate the social and natural sciences; Agrarian Socialism by New York-born sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, 28; Command of the Sea by Cambridge history lecturer Sir (Francis) Harry Hinsley, 31, whose work with British intelligence at Bletchley Park during the war helped decipher Germany's Enigma codes; The England of Elizabeth by A. L. Rowse; England in the Eighteenth Century by Cambridge University historian J. H. (John Harold) Plumb, 39; A Dictionary of Underworld by Eric Partridge; Hollywood: The Dream Factory by anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker expresses concern about the impact on society of a community that is dominated by crass values and projects those values in the films it makes; Worlds in Collision by Russian-born U.S. physician Immanuel Velikovsky, 55, draws on mythology, archaeology, astronomy, and other disciplines to evolve a theory that the Earth barely avoided colliding with several other celestial bodies sometime about 3200 B.C. (see Donnelly, 1883); Dianetics—The Modern Science of Mental Health by pulp-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, whose work will be a perennial bestseller. His book Dianetics: The Evolution of Religion as Science is also published (see religion, 1954).
Author-lecturer (and animal collector) Frank Buck dies at Houston March 25 at age 66; literary critic F. O. Matthiessen jumps to his death from the 12th floor of Boston's Manger Hotel April 1 at age 48 after several years of increasing depression; journalist-author Agnes Smedley dies of acute circulatory failure at Oxford, Enlgand, May 6 at age 58; political scientist and socialist theorist Harold J. Laski at London September 24 at age 56.
Fiction: The Wall by John Hersey deals with the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis; "For Esme—With Love and Squalor" (story) by New York writer J. D. (Jerome David) Salinger, 31, in the New Yorker magazine April 8; The Delicate Prey and Other Stories by Paul Bowles; The Short Life (La vida breve) by Uruguayan novelist Juan Carlos Onetti, 41; Strong Wind by Guatemalan novelist-story writer Miguel Angel Asturias, 50; A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute; The Grass Is Singing by Persian-born Rhodesian novelist Doris (May) Lessing (née Tayler), 31; Some Tame Gazelle by English novelist Barbara Pym, 37; The Preacher and the Slave by Wallace Stegner deals with the late labor organizer Joe Hill; Simple Speaks His Mind (stories) by Langston Hughes, whose newspaper columns have chronicled the adventures and philosophy of his fictional character Jesse B. Simple; Follow the Dawn by Shelby Foote; Across the River and into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway, who viciously caricatures his ex-wife, Martha Gellhorn; A Stretch on the River by Dubuque, Iowa, novelist Richard (Pike) Bissell, 37, who has served as a Mississippi, Ohio, and Monongahela riverboat pilot; The Martian Chronicles (stories) by Ray Bradbury; Farmer in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein; The Dreaming Jewels by Staten Island, N.Y.-born science-fiction novelist Theodore Sturgeon, 32; Needle by Somerville, Mass.-born science-fiction novelist Hal Clement (Harry C. [Clement] Stubbs), 28; Pebble in the Sky and I, Robot by Isaac Asimov; The Beautiful Visit by English novelist Elizabeth (Jane) Howard, 27; Kate Hennigan by English novelist Catherine Cookson (née Katie McMullen), 44, who has been encouraged to write her autobiographical novel by her husband, Tom, after years of suicidal depression related to a stillbirth and three miscarriages; The Drowning Pool by John Ross MacDonald (Kenneth Millar); The Brass Cupcake by Pennsylvania-born mystery novelist John D. (Dann) MacDonald, 34; Strangers on a Train by Texas-born mystery novelist Patricia Highsmith, 29.
Novelist George Orwell dies of tuberculosis at London January 21 at age 46, having written, "So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot"; novelist-playwright Rafael Sabatini dies while on holiday at Adelboden, Switzerland, February 13 at age 74; Edgar Rice Burroughs at Los Angeles March 19 at age 74, leaving 15 unpublished manuscripts; Heinrich Mann dies at Santa Monica, Calif., March 12 at age 78; Joseph Hergesheimer at West Chester, Pa., April 25 at age 74; Cesare Pavese commits suicide in a Turin hotel room August 27 at age 41 shortly after receiving the coveted Premio Strega.
Poetry: Canto General by Pablo Neruda, who lived through the civil war in Spain from 1935 to 1939, returned to Chile in 1945 after working for Spanish Republican refugees at Paris, and has been publishing his epic hymn to virgin America since 1947; "Homage to Mistress Bradstreet" by John Berryman; Mink on Weekdays (Ermine on Sunday) by New York-born M-G-M subtitle writer Felicia Lamport, 33; Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks, whose work wins the first Pulitzer Prize for literature ever given to a black author.
Poet Edgar Lee Masters dies at Melrose Park, Pa., March 5 at age 80; Edna St. Vincent Millay goes up to bed at her Austerlitz, N.Y., farm Steepletop the night of October 18, takes a sleeping pill, goes back to the staircase where she has left a bottle of wine, pitches forward, breaks her neck, and dies at age 58.
Juvenile: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis is the first of his Narnia Chronicles; Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren is published in America (see 1945); If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Seuss; Amos Fortune, Free Man by Buffalo, N.Y.-born author Elizabeth Yates, 44, illustrations by British artist Nora Unwin; The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber.
Painting: Chief by New York "action" painter Franz Kline, 40; The Constructors by Fernand Léger; Excavation by Willem de Kooning; Lavender Mist, Number 27, and Autumn Rhythm: Number 30 by Jackson Pollock; Tundra and The Wild by Barnett Newman; La Combe I by New York abstract expressionist Ellsworth Kelly, 27; Months and Moon by New York abstract expressionist Grace Hartigan, 28; Zulma by Henri Matisse. Max Beckmann dies at New York December 27 at age 66.
Sculpture: Seven Figures and a Head by Alberto Giacometti; The Goat by Pablo Picasso; Blackburn—Song of an Irish Blacksmith by Indiana-born welded metal sculptor David (Roland) Smith, 44, who learned to work with metal in 1925 when he was employed briefly as a riveter in a Studebaker assembly plant at South Bend.
The Story of Art by E. H. Gombrich traces art history from prehistory to the present; it will go through at least 16 editions, be translated into 18 languages, and have sales of more than 4 million copies.
Polaroid replaces its sepia print of 1947 with a black-and-white print, but the new print fades and a crisis develops until company chemists come up with a new film. The company introduces a new "electric eye" shutter that will automatically select shutter speeds between 1/10th and 1/1,000th of a second for the camera's fixed F/5.4 lens. Polaroid contracts with U.S. Time Corp. to produce Polaroid Land Cameras (see everyday life [Timex], 1946; high-speed film, 1960).
Theater: The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers 1/5 at New York's Empire Theater, with Ethel Waters, Michigan-born actress Julie (Julia) Harris, 24, and Brandon de Wilde in a play directed by Harold Clurman based on the 1946 McCullers novel, 501 perfs.; Venus Observed by Christopher Fry 1/18 at the St. James's Theatre, London; The Cocktail Party by T. S. Eliot 1/21 at New York's Henry Miller Theater, with Alec Guinness, English actress Cathleen Nesbit, 60, Irene Worth, 409 perfs.; The Happy Time by Chicago-born playwright Samuel (Albert) Taylor, 36 (based on a novel by Robert Fontaine) 1/24 at New York's Plymouth Theater, with Budapest-born actress Eva Gabor, 28, Vienna-born actor Kurt Kasznar (originally Serwicher), 36, sets and costumes by Aline Bernstein, 614 perfs.; Come Back, Little Sheba by Kansas-born playwright William (Motter) Inge, 37, 2/15 at New York's Booth Theater, with Shirley Booth, Sidney Blackmer, Joan Loring, 191 perfs.; The Rial Trilogy by Canadian playwright John Coulter 2/17 at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum Theater; Judith (Giuditta) by Carlo Terron 5/2 at Milan's Teatro Nuovo; The Bald Prima Donna (La Cantatrice chauve) by Romanian-born French playwright Eugène Ionesco (originallly Eugen Ionescu), 38, 5/11 at the Théâtre des Noctambules, Paris (Ionesco uses meaningless platitudes to convey the sterility of modern life); The Little Hut by French playwright André Roussin (adapted by Nancy Mitford) 8/23 at London's Lyric Theatre, with Robert Morley, New York-born actress Joan Tetzel, 29, 1,261 perfs; Season in the Sun by drama critic Wolcott Gibbs 9/28 at New York's Cort Theater (to Booth Theater 5/14/1951), with Anthony Ross, Cleveland-born actor Jack Weston (originally Weinstein), 26, Nancy Kelly, Richard Whorf, Baltimore-born actor Eddie Mayehoff, 36, 367 perfs.; Affairs of State by French playwright Louis Verneuil 9/25 at New York's Royale Theater, with Reginald Owen, Celeste Holm, Shepperd Strudwick, Harry Bannister, 610 perfs.; Top of the Ladder by Tyrone Guthrie 10/11 at St. James's Theatre, London (adapted from Guthrie's "microphone play" The Flowers Are Not for You to Pick aired on BBC in 1931); The Rehearsal (La repetition, ou L'amour Pani) by Jean Anouilh 10/25 at the Théâtre Marigny, Paris; Trial of the Innocent (Processo agli innocenti) by Carlo Terron 11/7 at Milan's Teatro Oden; The Country Girl by Clifford Odets 11/10 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with Paul Kelly, Uta Hagen, Steven Hill, 235 perfs.; The Great and the Small Maneuvers (La grande et la petite manoeuvre) by Russian-born avant-garde French Theater of the Absurd playwright Arthur Adamov, 42, 11/11 at the Théâtre des Noctambules, Paris, with music by Pierre May (Adamov's realistic work has been influenced by his late friend Antonin Artaud); The Invasion (L'Invasion) by Adamov 11/14 at the Studio des Champs-Elysées, Paris; Bell, Book, and Candle by John Van Druten 11/14 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Lili Palmer, Rex Harrison, Jean Adair, 233 perfs.; In the Burning Darkness (En la ardiente oscuridad) by Antonio Buero Vallejo 12/1 at Madrid's Teatro National Maria Guerrero.
The Elizabethan-style Mermaid Theatre opened in back of their house by actor Bernard Miles, 42, and his actress wife, Josephine (née Wilson), is the first new theater to open in London since the 17th century. Miles establishes the Mermaid Theatre Trust to raise funds for a permanent venue, and a new, 500-seat Mermaid Theatre will open in 1959.
Broadway manager-producer William A. Brady dies at New York January 6 at age 86; Variety publisher Sid Silverman at Harrison, N.Y., March 10 at age 52; Broadway producer Brock Pemberton of a heart attack at New York March 11 at age 64; Nina Boucicault at her home in the London suburb of Ealing May 4 at age 83; Jane Cowl of cancer at Santa Monica, Calif., June 22 at age 65; playwright Edward Childs Carpenter in Surrey June 28 at age 77; Chrystal Herne at New York September 19 at age 67; Pauline Lord of a heart attack at Alamogordo, N.M., October 11 at age 60; playwright George Bernard Shaw of a kidney infection at Ayot St. Lawrence, England, November 2 at age 94 (he leaves a third of his royalties to the 46-year-old Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts); actress-playwright Michael Strange dies at Boston November 5 at age 60; English-born Shakespearean actress Julia Marlowe in her apartment at New York's Plaza Hotel November 12 at age 85; Gertrude Elliot (Lady Forbes-Robertson) at her home in Kent December 24 at age 76.
Radio: The Story of Dr. Kildare 2/1 on syndicated stations with Lew Ayres, now 41 (who was a conscientious objector during World War II but served as a voluntary medic), Lionel Barrymore (to 8/3/51, 80 episodes; see Television, 1961).
Television: What's My Line 2/2 on CBS, with emcee John (Charles) Daley Jr., 35, and panelists: actress Arlene Francis, now 41; columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, now 36; and anthologist Louis Untermeyer, 64, who try to guess the occupations of guests. Publisher Bennett A. Cerf, 51, will succeed Untermeyer in 1952 (to 9/3/1967); Your Show of Shows 2/25 on NBC with Yonkers-born comedian-writer Sid Caesar, 27, Imogene Coca, New York-born comedian-writer Carl Reiner, 27, Howard Morris, and guest stars in a comedy hour developed by NBC executive Sylvester "Pat" Weaver Jr., 41, and written by Gary Belkin, New York-born comedian Mel Brooks (originally Melvin Kaminsky), 24, Caesar, Larry Gelbart, Sheldon Keller, Reiner, Aaron Ruben, New York-born writer (Marvin) Neil Simon, 22, and his brother Danny, Michael Stewart, and Mel Tolkin (160 weekly shows to 6/5/1954; retitled Caesar's Hour, to 5/25/1957); Beat the Clock 3/23 on CBS with host Bud Collyer in a quiz show created by Goodson-Todman (to 2/16/1958); ABC begins airing Saturday morning cartoon shows for children August 19; You Bet Your Life 10/5 on NBC with Groucho Marx, George Fenneman in a comedy quiz show (to 9/21/1961); The Burns & Allen Show 10/12 on CBS with comedians George Burns and Gracie Allen, Harry Von Zell (to 9/22/1958, 239 filmed episodes); The Jack Benny Show 10/28 on CBS with comedian Benny and his old radio team—Don Wilson, Mary Livingston (Mrs. Benny), Dennis Day, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Mel Blanc (to 9/10/1965); You Asked For It 12/19 on Dumont with host Art Baker, Jack Smith in a variety show (to 9/27/1959).
U.S. network television offers 130 hours of prime-time programming per week, up from 16 hours in 1947. An episode of the short-lived NBC sitcom Hank McCune Show uses a "laughtrack" invented by former CBS engineer Charles Rolland "Charlie" Douglass, now 40, who has founded Northridge Electronics. Variety notes that "there are chuckles and yocks dubbed in. Whether this induces a jovial mood in home viewers is still to be determined, but the practice may have unlimited possibilities if it's spread to include canned peals of hilarity, thunderous ovations, and gasps of sympathy." Radio comedy shows had studio audiences that responded on cue to laugh cards and applause cards; Douglass's "laff machine" allows a technician to select the style, sex, and age of a laugher with a keyboard, using a foot pedal to control the duration of the "audience" reaction, and the "Laff Box" will come into widespread use in the 1960s and '70s.
Films: Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All about Eve with Bette Davis, Indiana-born actress Anne Baxter, 27, Celeste Holm; Michael Gordon's Cyrano de Bergerac with Puerto Rican-born actor José Ferrer (originally José Vincente Ferrer y Centron), 38; Vincente Minnelli's The Father of the Bride with Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Pittsburgh-born actor Don Taylor, 29, Joan Bennett; John Boulting's Seven Days to Noon with Barry Jones, Olive Sloane; Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard with Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim (it is Swanson's 63rd feature and she has agreed to play the role of silent-screen star Norma Desmond for $53,333 when once she earned up to $1 million per year). Also: John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle with Montclair, N.J.-born actor Sterling Hayden (originally John Hamilton), 34, Louis Calhern, Chicago-born actress Jean (Ver) Hagen, 26; George Cukor's Born Yesterday with Judy Holliday, William Holden, Broderick Crawford; Michael Curtiz's The Breaking Point with John Garfield, Kentucky-born actress Patricia (originally Patsy) Neal, 23; David Lean's Breaking the Sound Barrier with Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, Nigel Patrick (originally Nigel Nemyss), 37; Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un Curé de Campagne) with Claude Laydu; Henry Koster's Harvey with James Stewart, Josephine Hull; Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame; Victor Saville's Kim with Hollywood-born actor Dean Stockwell, 12, Errol Flynn, Paul Lukas; Robert Hamer's Kind Hearts and Coronets with Alec Guinness; Herbert Wilcox's Lady with the Lamp with Anna Neagle (who married Wilcox in 1942); Fred Zinnemann's The Men with Marlon Brando; Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets with Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes; Anthony Pelissier's The Rocking Horse Winner with Valerie Hobson, John Howard Davies, John Mills; Max Ophuls's La Ronde with Anton Walbrook, Simone Simon, German-born actress Simone Signoret (originally Simone-Henriette-Charlotte Kaminker), 29, Serge Reggiani, Danielle Darrieux, Jean-Louis Barrault in a story based on an 1897 play (Merry-Go-Round) by the late Arthur Schnitzler that was first performed in 1920; Jacques Tourneur's Stars in My Crown with Joel McCrea, Ellen Drew, Dean Stockwell; Jean Negulesco's Three Came Home with Claudette Colbert, Sessue Hayakawa; Byron Haskin's Treasure Island with Bobby Driscoll, Robert Newton; Anthony Mann's Winchester 73 with James Stewart, St. Louis-born actress Shelley Winters (originally Shirley Schrift), 28; Anthony Asquith's The Winslow Boy with Robert Donat, Margaret Leighton, 28; Edward Buzzell's A Woman of Distinction with Rosalind Russell, Ray Milland; Norman Foster's Woman on the Run with Ann Sheridan.
Actor Emil Jannings dies of liver cancer and pneumonia at Strobl on Lake Wolfgang, near Salzburg, Austria, January 2 at age 65 (he continued to work in Germany during the Nazi regime); actor Alan Hale dies at Hollywood, Calif., January 22 at age 57; theater owner Sid Grauman dies of a heart attack at Hollywood March 5 at age 70; Walter Huston of an aneurism at Beverly Hills April 7 at age 66; Irish-born director Rex Ingram (originally Rex Fitchcock) at North Hollywood July 21 at age 58; Sara Allgood of cancer at the Motion Picture Country Hospital near Hollywood September 13 at age 66; Frank Morgan at his Beverly Hills home September 18 at age 59; Maurice Costello of a heart ailment at Hollywood October 29 at age 73.
Hollywood musical: Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi's Cinderella with Walt Disney animation, music by Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston, lyrics by Mack David, songs that include "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes," "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo."
Broadway musicals: Call Me Madam 10/12 at the Imperial Theater, with Ethel Merman as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg Perle Mesta (see politics, 1949), music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, songs that include "Hostess with the Mostes' on the Ball," "It's a Lovely Day Today," "The Ocarina," "The Best Thing for You," 644 perfs.; Guys and Dolls 11/24 at the 46th Street Theater, with Robert Alda, Vivian Blaine, Sam Levene, Isabel Bigley, Peter Gennaro, rotund New York comedian Stubby Kaye, 29, as Nicely-Nicely (he sings, "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat"), book based on the late Damon Runyon's story "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown," music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, songs that include "Luck Be a Lady," "Fugue for Tinhorns," "I've Never Been in Love Before," "A Bushel and a Peck," "Adelaide's Lament," "Sue Me," "If I Were a Bell," 1,200 perfs.; Out of This World 12/21 at the New Century Theater, with William Eythe, Charlotte Greenwood, Peggy Rea, music and lyrics by Cole Porter, songs that include "Use Your Imagination," 157 perfs.
Sir Harry Lauder dies after a cerebral hemorrhage in Lancashire, Scotland, February 26 at age 79; composer Kurt Weill of a heart attack at New York April 3 at age 50; softshoe hoofer Lou Clayton of cancer at Hollywood September 12 at age 63 with his old partner Jimmy Durante at his bedside; Al Jolson dies of a coronary occlusion in his San Francisco hotel suite October 23 at age 64 after his return from an exhausting USO tour in Korea; onetime Broadway musical producer Rufus LeMaire dies at Los Angeles December 2 at age 55.
Opera: The Consul 3/15 at New York, with music by Gian-Carlo Menotti. U.S. baritone Cornell MacNeil, 27, has made his operatic debut singing the role of Sorel in Menotti's new work 3/1 at Philadelphia; The Triumph of St. Joan 5/9 at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, N.Y., with music by Norman Dello Joio; Bolívar 5/12 at the Paris Opéra, with music by Darius Milhaud; Spanish soprano Victoria de Los Angeles (originally Victoria Gómez Cima), 26, makes her London debut at Covent Garden singing the role of Mimi in the 1896 Puccini opera La Bohème, goes on to make her Milan debut at La Scala, and will make her Metropolitan Opera debut next year in the 1859 Gounod opera Faust (she will appear regularly at Covent Garden until 1961, singing such roles as Manon Lescaut and Cio-cio-san); Italian bass Cesare Siepi, 27, who has sung at La Scala since 1946, makes his Metropolitan Opera debut 11/6 as Felipe II in the 1867 Verdi opera Don Carlos; German bass-baritone Hans Hotter, 41, makes his Metropolitan Opera debut 11/9 as the Dutchman in the 1843 Wagner opera Der Fliegende Holländer; New York-born soprano Roberta Peters (originally Petermann), 20, makes her Metropolitan Opera debut 11/17, replacing the ailing Nadine Conner in the role of the peasant girl Zerlina in the 1787 Mozart opera Don Giovanni. A school dropout whose father is a shoe salesman, Peters has never before appeared on stage.
The Metropolitan Opera appoints Viennese-born manager Rudolf Bing, 48, general manager. He has managed England's Glyndebourne Opera and the Edinburgh Festival.
Former Metropolitan Opera and New York Symphony conductor Walter Damrosch dies at New York December 22 at age 88.
Ballet: Judith 1/4 at Louisville, with Martha Graham, music by William Schuman; The Age of Anxiety 2/26 at the New York City Center, with Jerome Robbins, music by Leonard Bernstein.
Legendary dancer Vaslav Nijinsky dies at London April 8 at age 60. His paranoid schizophrenia was diagnosed in 1917, and he has been confined ever since to a mental institution.
First performances: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Francis Poulenc 1/6 at Boston's Symphony Hall, with Poulenc as soloist; Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Paul Creston 1/11 at Washington, D.C.; Timon of Athens symphonic portrait by David Diamond 2/1 at Louisville; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by William Schuman 2/10 at Boston's Symphony Hall, with Isaac Stern as soloist; Sinfonietta in E major by Paul Hindemith 3/1 at Louisville; Concerto No. 4 for Piano and Orchestra by Darius Milhaud 3/3 at Boston's Symphony Hall; Concerto for Cello by Virgil Thomson 3/21 at Philadelphia's Academy of Music; Variations and Fugue on aTheme by Purcell by Benjamin Britten 5/2 at Boston's Symphony Hall; Concerto for French Horn and Orchestra by Hindemith 6/8 at Baden-Baden; Fantasia (Quasi Variazione) on the "Old 104th" Psalm Tune for Piano, Orchestra, Organ, and Chorus by Ralph Vaughan Williams 9/16 at Gloucester's Three Choirs Festival; Symphony No. 3 by Creston 10/27 at Worcester, Mass.; Symphony No. 3 by Diamond 10/30 at Boston's Symphony Hall; Concerto for Clarinet, String Orchestra, Harp, and Piano by Aaron Copland 11/6 in an NBC Symphony Orchestra broadcast, with Benny Goodman as soloist; Concerto Grosso by Vaughan Williams 11/18 at London; Short Symphony by Atlanta-born composer Howard Swanson, 43, 11/23 at New York's Carnegie Hall; Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra by Hindemith 12/11 at Philadelphia's Academy of Music, with Benny Goodman as soloist.
London-born guitarist and lutenist Julian (Alexander) Bream, 17, gives his first public recital at London to begin a career that will make him an international celebrity.
The Suzuki Method of learning the violin is introduced by Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki, 52, whose Talent Education Institute will organize annual concerts at Tokyo in which several thousand children, some as young as 2 or 3, will play Bach, Handel, and Mendelssohn in unison. Educated in Germany beginning at age 23, Suzuki returned to his homeland, formed a quartet with his three younger brothers, taught at Tokyo's Imperial Music School, and has founded an institute at Matsumoto, basing his method on the fact that children can master the Japanese language through parental nurturing. The method begins, ideally, at birth, with classical music records played beside an infant's crib; children learn by listening, imitating, and memorizing. By the time of Suzuki's death at age 99 in January 1998, Tokyo will have more symphony orchestras than any other city in the world, and 400,000 children per year in 34 countries will be using the Suzuki Method, 25,000 of them in Japan.
Washington Post critic Paul (Chandler) Hume, 34, writes a disparaging review of a song recital by Margaret Truman and receives a letter in longhand from the president on White House stationery dated December 6: "Mr. Hume: I have just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an eight-ulcer man on four-ulcer pay . . . Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens, you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below."
Cantata: On Guard for Peace by Sergei Prokofiev 12/19 at Moscow.
The Mambo is introduced from Cuba to U.S. dance floors.
New York's Birdland opens on Broadway with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, now 30 (see 1944). Parker will be a leading exponent of bebop until his death in 1955 (see 1952).
New Orleans jazz trumpeter Alois Maxwell "Al" Hirt, 27, starts his own band, having studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, served in the army, and toured with the Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman bands.
Television music: Your Hit Parade 7/10 on NBC with the Lucky Strike Orchestra, Windsor, Ont.-born vocalist Dorothy Collins (originally Marjorie Chandler), 23 (see radio, 1935) (to 4/24/1959).
Popular songs: "Dearie" by Bob Hilliard and Dave Mann; "Hoop-Dee-Doo" by Frank Loesser; "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake" by Al Hoffman, lyrics by Atlantic City-born songwriter Bob Merrill (originally Henry Robert Merrill Levan), 29, and Clem Watts; "It's So Nice to Have a Man Around the House" by Harold Spina, lyrics by Jack Elliott; "Music! Music! Music!" by Stephen Weiss and Bernie Baum; "My Heart Cries for You" by Percy Faith and Carl Sigman; "Rag Mop" by Johnnie Lee Wills and Deacon Anderson; "Sam's Song" by Lew Quadling, lyrics by Jack Elliott; "Sentimental Me" by Jim Morehead and Jimmy Cassin; "Sunshine Cake" by Jimmy Van Heusen, lyrics by Johnny Burke (for the film Riding High); "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" by Louiguy, lyrics by Jacques Larme (English lyrics by Mack David); "Silver Bells" by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (for the film The Lemon Drop Kid). Nat "King" Cole records a new version of the 1948 song "Mona Lisa" for Capitol Records featuring conductor Lex Baxter and backgrounds by Oradell, N.J.-born NBC staff arranger Nelson Riddle, 29; Teresa Brewer, 19, records "Music, Music, Music" and has her first hit; "Teardrops from My Eyes" establishes Ruth Brown as the top rhythm & blues singer; Patti Page records "Tennessee Waltz" and has another big success; "Che Bandoneon" by tango composer Anibal "Pichuco" Troilo, lyrics by Homero Manzi; "The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite" recorded at New York December 21 by Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, and Buddy Rich wins acclaim for Havana-born composer-arranger Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill, 28, who got his nickname from Benny Goodman.
Philadelphia-born vocalist and songwriter Margaret Allison, 30, forms the Angelic Gospel Singers and records her song "Touch Me, Lord Jesus"; it has sales of 500,000 copies in less than 6 months.
Songwriter Joseph A. "Joe" Burke dies at his Upper Darby, Pa., home June 9 at age 66; B. G. "Buddy" DeSylva of a heart attack at Hollywood, Calif., July 11 at age 55.
The Frank J. Zamboni Co. is founded by Utah-born California ice-skating rink operator Zamboni, 49, who has designed and patented the first self-propelled, single-operator machine to resurface ice. Skater Sonja Henie has seen the machine and ordered one, Zamboni has driven it to Chicago for her, and by 1954 he will have sold his machines to the Boston Garden, Boston Arena, Worcester Arena, Providence Arena, and other venues.
English jockey Gordon Richards rides his 4,000th winner May 4, the day before his 46th birthday, setting a world record that will stand until 1956.
J. Edward "Budge" Patty, 26, (U.S.) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Louise Brough in women's singles; Arthur Larsen, 25, wins in men's singles at Forest Hills, Mrs. duPont in women's singles.
Florence Chadwick, 31, swims the English Channel August 20 and beats the record set by Gertrude Ederle in 1926. The San Diego stenographer crosses from France to England in 13 hours, 20 minutes (see 1951).
The New York Yankees win the World Series, defeating the Philadelphia Phillies 4 games to 0. The Phillies have won the National League pennant on the last day of the regular season, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers with a 10th inning three-run homer by Dick Sisler.
Baseball's Negro League ends as major league teams sign up more black players. North Carolina-born Pittsburgh Home Grays slugger Walter Fenner "Buck" Leonard, 43, hangs up his spikes after 16 years with the Grays, having helped that team win nine Negro League pennants.
Uruguay wins the fourth World Cup football (soccer) championship, edging Brazil 5 to 4 in the first competition since 1938. Some 200,000 spectators fill the three tiers of Rio's unfinished Maracana Stadium for the opening games and the finals; Germany is excluded.
Scottish golfer James Braid dies at London November 27 at age 80, having won the British Open five times, the French Open once, and designed several golf courses.
The Rolodex is introduced by Brooklyn, N.Y.-born inventor Arnold Neustadter, 40, who has attached alphabetized cards to an easily dialed cylinder, creating a device that will grow to have sales of nearly 10 million units per year worldwide.
Las Vegas hails the opening of the Desert Inn hotel-casino that will survive until September 2000 with 715 rooms, intimate wood-paneled decor, a swimming pool, an 18-hole golf course, big-name entertainers in its Crystal Showroom, and room service that includes amenities such as gold-handled champagne buckets (see Flamingo, 1946). Entrepreneur Wilbur Clark has built the place with help from Detroit "businessman" Moe Dalitz.
Cotton fiber's share of U.S. textile production rises to 85 percent, up from 68 percent in 1940, and man-made fibers—mostly rayons and acetates—decrease their share to 15 percent (see 1960).
U.S. tennis player Gussie Moran shocks many in the stands at Wimbledon by wearing lace underwear that shows every time she swings her racquet. Tennis fashion designer Theodore "Ted" Tinling, 39, has designed the panties as a response to Wimbledon's ban on colored tennis attire.
Style arbiter Elsie de Wolfe (Lady Mendl) dies at Versailles July 12 at age 84.
The acne treatment Clearasil Ointment introduced by the U.S. firm Combs Chemical Co., has benzoyl peroxide as its active ingredient. The "unsightly blemishes" of acne affect 85 percent of teenagers at one time or another as male hormone production increases in girls as well as boys; the hormones spur growth of body hair and of the skin's sebaceous glands. When the glands produce too much sebum, it can form a blackhead, which is not dirt but simply oil compacted in a pore; the sebum may back up and rupture sebum-duct walls, forming a pimple that becomes infected, and the infection may spread in a red blotch around the blocked duct.
Hoboken, N.J.-born cosmetics maker Hazel (Gladys) Bishop, 44, introduces the first no-smear lipstick. "Never again need you be embarrassed by smearing friends, children, relatives, husbands, sweetheart," her advertisements say, and her lipstick, priced at $1 per tube, finds immediate acceptance when introduced at New York's Lord & Taylor. Formulated with bromo-acid colorants that have staining power, it will soon capture 25 percent of the market.
Miss Clairol is introduced by Clairol Co., whose one-step hair coloring kit takes half the application time needed by other hair colorings (see 1931). LIFE magazine estimates that 10 million U.S. women are tinting their hair (see 1956).
The Brink's robbery at Boston January 17 breaks all previous records for losses to armed robbers. Seven men wearing Navy pea jackets, chauffeurs' caps, and crepe-soled shoes enter Boston headquarters of the 91-year-old Brink's Express Co. shortly after 7 o'clock in the evening, don Halloween masks, and force five Brink's employees to turn over $1,218,211 in cash plus $1,557,000 in money orders. J. Edgar Hoover calls the job a communist conspiracy, the FBI will spend $129 million trying to apprehend the perpetrators, agents will arrest 10 men only days before the statute of limitations expires, two will die before coming to trial, eight will be sentenced, but only $50,000 of the take will ever be recovered.
Thieves rob a branch of New York's Manufacturers Trust Co. at 47-11 Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside at gunpoint March 9. Many of the bank's employees say that Willie Sutton was among the men who make off with $64,000 (see 1948; 1952).
Kings County (Brooklyn) District Attorney Miles F. McDonald notes that lower courts rarely impose prison terms in gambling cases and asks in April for a blue-ribbon grand jury to hear testimony regarding police officers found at the scene of a raid on a "policy bank" (gambling den). Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan opens his own grand jury inquiry May 5. Sen. Kefauver begins hearings May 26 at Miami in an investigation of U.S. criminal activities. His committee studies testimony by the late Abe "Kid Twist" Reles (see 1941) and when it moves its hearings to Washington, N.J., it hears gambler-racketeer Willie Moretti testify that he never heard the word Mafia in his life. Senate Crime Committee counsel Rudolph Halley, 36, arrives at New York with Florida data May 29, saying that it will aid the city's investigation. Mayor O'Dwyer calls the probe a "witchhunt," but the White House announces August 16 that O'Dwyer will resign for what he calls reasons of health August 31 following allegations of ties to organized crime. He accepts an appointment from President Truman as ambassador to Mexico at a salary of $25,000 plus $10,000 per year for entertainment and is granted a city pension of $6,000 per year.
The FBI issues its first "Ten Most Wanted Criminals" list in a publicity move. Several criminals are arrested after being identified by citizens who saw their pictures in newspapers, magazines, or post offices, and in the next 24 years some 300 criminals on the "most wanted" list will be located.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation by critic Max Lowenthal condemns FBI activities. The Dies Committee subpoenas Lowenthal and copies of the book are soon hard to find at bookstores.
Theft losses from New York's docks reach an estimated $140 million—three times the amount stolen from all other U.S. ports combined. International Longshoremen's Association boss Joseph Ryan has headed the union since 1927 and continues to organize and enforce the waterfront racketeering—embezzlement, extortion, hijacking, kickbacks, payroll padding, and even murder—but corruption at the port has become a national issue (see 1953).
Criminologist Edwin H. Sutherland dies at Bloomington, Ind., October 11 at age 67 after suffering a stroke and a serious fall.
The White House at Washington, D.C., gets a complete overhaul under the direction of President Truman. He has the nearly 150-year-old structure gutted, replaces its timbers with steel and concrete, and adds a balcony off the private quarters on the third floor that was built in 1927.
Otis Elevator installs the first passenger elevators with self-opening doors in the Atlantic Refining building at Dallas. Self-service elevators will force thousands of operators to seek other means of employment.
New York's United Nations Secretariat building is completed by Wallace K. Harrison and consultants to provide offices for the UN's 3,400 employees on land overlooking the East River.
Twelve new office buildings are completed in New York with more than 4 million square feet of floor space.
Architect Eliel Saarinen dies at Bloomfield Hills, Mich., July 1 at age 76; air-conditioning pioneer Willis H. Carrier at New York October 7 at age 73.
Forest rangers find a badly burned little orphan black bear cub clinging to a charred tree in New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest, they fly him to Santa Fe, he is nursed back to health at the home of a game warden, and shipped to the National Zoo at Washington, D.C. Given the name Smokey, he will be used to animate the 6-year-old message, "Only you can prevent forest fires." Smokey will be officially retired as the Forest Service symbol in May 1975 and die in late 1976.
The Ecologists Union created 4 years ago changes its name September 11 to the Nature Conservancy and receives tax-exempt status November 29. Former National Audubon Society conservationist Richard Pough, now 46, has suggested the change (see house finch, 1940); he joined the American Museum of Natural History in 1948 as chairman of conservation and general ecology, he becomes the Conservancy's first president, and it will be incorporated next year at Washington, D.C., where it will share office space with the Wilderness Society; its membership will top 1,000 by May 1953, and in 1955 it will make its first land acquisition, purchasing a 60-acre expanse along the Mianus River Gorge (see 1956).
An earthquake rocks Assam, India, and parts of Tibet August 15; registering 8.7 on the Richter scale; it creates floods, landslides, and topographical changes that leave 1,530 dead.
World fisheries' production regains its prewar level of 20 million tons per year (see 1960).
Oyster production from the Connecticut coast south to New Jersey reaches 3.3 million bushels (see 1966).
Only 82 Atlantic salmon are landed on the Maine coast, less than a thousand pounds as compared with 150,000 in 1889. Dams and pollution have reduced spawning (see Danish fishermen, 1964).
Communist Party Leader Liu Shaoqi (Shao-Chi), 50, promulgates an agrarian reform law, saying, "The industrialization of China should be based on the vast market of rural China." But while Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) says China's future lies in mobilizing the peasantry, Liu follows Marxist orthodoxy, insisting that large farms depend on chemical fertilizers, electrification, tractors and other farm machinery, agronomists, and engineers. Most of the nation's budget goes to industrialization, but China's agricultural output nevertheless begins a rapid rise (see 1949; 1952).
U.S. farm prices will rise 28 percent in the next year as the Korean War fuels inflation and boosts food prices.
The average U.S. farm worker produces enough food and fiber for 15.5 people, up from seven in 1900 (see 1963). The percentage of the U.S. available workforce employed on the land falls to 11.6 percent, down from 25 percent in 1933, and 20 percent of farmers will quit the land in the next 12 years (see 1960).
Insects damage $4 billion worth of U.S. crops, consuming more food than is grown in New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania combined.
The boll weevil destroys $750 million worth of U.S. cotton; it has destroyed at least $200 million worth each year since 1909.
More than 75 percent of U.S. farms are electrified, up from 33 percent in 1940.
Moscow claims that the United States has released Colorado potato beetles on fields in East Germany as cold-war tensions mount.
The first calf born of a virgin mother is delivered at the University of Wisconsin. Transplanting of fertilized ova will permit new developments in animal breeding.
"Not in a quarter century have the food markets of Paris been fuller or more tempting," writes Genêt (Janet Flanner, 53) in The New Yorker magazine. "In the Rue du Faubourg-Saint Denis, there is a two-hundred-yard stretch of food shops and street barrows. The hucksters shout their prices and the shop apprentices have become barkers, standing at the shop doors and balling about the luscious wares inside . . . The street barrows are filled with hairy leeks and potential salads. The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis is not a rich district of the city, but these days it offers a Lucullan supply. Food is still what Parisians buy if they can. It is a nervous means of getting satisfaction, a holdover from the lean days of the Occupation."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture issues Composition of Foods—Raw, Processed, Prepared (Handbook No. 8), listing the nutritional contents of 751 items that include some frozen foods (see 1895; 1963).
Nutrition pioneer and blood expert George R. Minot dies at Brookline, Mass., February 25 at age 64; chemist Sir Walter N. Haworth of a heart attack at Birmingham, England, March 19 (his 67th birthday).
Prevention magazine begins publication at Emmaus, Pa. Publisher J. I. Rodale, now 52, has published Organic Gardening and Farming since 1942 and makes extravagant health claims for dietary supplements (Rodale and his wife will each take 70 vitamin and mineral pills per day to guard against pollution and replace nutrients lost in food processing). The magazine will warn against the "evils" of fluoridation, DDT, mercury, phosphates, monosodium glutamate, and cyclamates, and it will criticize wheat (saying that it can make people overly aggressive or deaf), sugar (even worse), and milk (good only for infants). Initial subscribers—mostly elderly people who distrust "new-fangled" methods and yearn for a simpler past—will soon find the magazine's pages filled with ads for dietary supplements (see 1971).
Look Younger, Live Longer by German-born California food faddist Gayelord Hauser, 51, promises miracles to those who will eat the "wonder foods" yogurt, wheat germ, brewers' yeast, blackstrap molasses, and powdered skim milk. A condensation appears in The Reader's Digest and boosts demands for the "wonder foods" as the book becomes a bestseller.
A House Select Committee on Foods and Cosmetics begins 3 years of hearings at Washington, D.C., under the chairmanship of Brooklyn, N.Y., Democrat James J. Delaney (see Swanson, 1956).
Many UN soldiers in Korea will fall ill from eating kimchee, the pickled vegetable mixture that Koreans keep in dark cellars or on roofs in less than sanitary conditions, and GIs will be forbidden to eat the staple that carries Koreans through their cold winters.
Cyclamates are introduced commercially for use as artificial sweeteners (see Sveda, 1937). Abbott Laboratories launches Sucaryl, a cyclamate-based artificial sweetener (see 1951; No-Cal, 1952).
U.S. foods use 19 synthetic colors; the number will decline to 11 by 1967.
Consumers' Research Bulletin observes that soluble crystals make a cup that is "hot and wet and looks like coffee," but "any resemblance to coffee is purely coincidental." U.S. sales of instant coffee increase by 25 percent as the price of regular roast coffee rises to 80¢/lb., and by the end of 1952 instant coffee will account for 17 percent of all U.S. coffee consumption.
A federal tax of 10¢ per pound on U.S. margarine is removed as are all federal restrictions on coloring margarine yellow (see 1943). Butter is in such short supply that retail prices often top $1/lb., and consumers turn increasingly to margarine, whose average retail price is 33¢/lb. versus an average of 73¢ for butter.
General Foods introduces Minute Rice, developed by inventor Ataullah K. Ozai Durrani. Durrani obtained an interview with a company executive 9 years ago, produced a hot plate, cooked up a pot of his rice in 10 minutes, was given a laboratory to refine his precooked, quick-dried rice, and saw it distributed to GIs in C-ration packages. General Foods scientists have learned that long-grain rice is better suited to precooking than short- or medium-grain and that rice shrinks less if it is cooked only partially. The new product is launched with the first consumer advertising ever put behind rice.
Britain's first self-service grocery store opens July 31 at London. J. Sainsbury's store is the first in a chain that will grow to be the nation's largest (see 1869).
Cookbooks: A Book of Mediterranean Food by English food writer Elizabeth David (née Gwynne), 37, launches her on a career. David spent the war years in Alexandria and Cairo.
The Diner's Club issues its first credit cards May 13 at New York. Having discovered that he had no cash in his pocket after an elegant dinner at a posh restaurant, local lawyer Frank X. McNamara, 33, has developed a plan to give charge-card privileges at a group of 27 New York area restaurants. He starts with 200 card holders. They must pay all charges at the end of each month plus an annual membership fee for the card that will be accepted within a few years at hotels, motels, car rental agencies, airline ticket counters, and retail shops as well as at restaurants in most of the United States and in many foreign countries (see commerce [credit cards], 1965).
Dunkin' Donuts opens at Quincy, Mass., where Boston-born Cornell graduate William Rosenberg, 36, changes the name of The Open Kettle that he opened 2 years ago as a coffee-and-doughnut shop in a converted awning shop. Rosenberg worked in a shipyard at Hingham during World War II, saw the need for a new kind of food-services business, cashed in $1,500 in war bonds, borrowed another $1,000, and started a catering business that purveyed coffee, pastries, and sandwiches to factory workers. He serves top-quality, whole-bean, arabica coffee at 10¢ per cup (others charge a nickel but serve cheaper coffee); by 1955 he will have six Dunkin' Donut shops and sign his first franchise agreement, starting a chain that will grow to have 100 shops by 1963 and 5,000 by 2000, with locations from coast to coast and in 37 countries, offering 52 kinds of doughnuts.
Oscar of the Waldorf (Oscar Tschirky) dies at his New Paltz, N.Y., home November 7 at age 84.
The population of the world reaches 2.52 billion, up from 1.65 billion in 1900, nearly 2 million in 1930 (see 1960). The U.S. Census shows a population of 150,697,361, up from fewer than 75 million in 1900, and while the nation's urban population will increase by only 1.5 percent in the decade ahead, its suburban population will increase by 44 percent as middle-class whites flee to the suburbs, partly to escape the decaying social milieu of the inner cities (suburban land values will rise in the next decade by 100 percent to 3,760 percent).
1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950
