1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960
Seoul falls again to communist forces January 4, but UN forces retake it March 14 as superior UN air power knocks Russian-piloted MiG-15s out of the skies and uses bombs, rockets, strafing, and napalm to destroy enemy ground forces (see 1950). While Seoul has been 80 percent destroyed, North Korea's supply lines remain intact and she builds underground factories, dormitories, and schools to carry on the war.
Gen. MacArthur offers to discuss a truce, Beijing (Peking) rejects his bid March 29, President Truman calls for a "limited war," MacArthur makes public his call for air attacks on Chinese cities, repeating his insistence that there is "no substitute for victory," and President Truman relieves him of his command April 11 (Gen. Ridgway takes over). Some Republicans in Congress threaten to impeach the president, but Sen. Richard M. Nixon (R. Cal.) proposes instead that the Senate pass a resolution of censure, saying that Truman "has not acted in the best interests of the American people." MacArthur, now 71, returns to America, is hailed as a hero and urged to run for president, but makes a farewell address to a joint session of Congress, ending with words from a World War I British Army song: "Old soldiers never die; they simply fade away" (the line draws tears, but nobody knows quite what it means). The Senate votes unanimous approval April 25 of a resolution calling for its Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees to "conduct an inquiry into the military situation in the Far East and the facts surrounding the relief of Gen. MacArthur." Chaired by Richard B. (Brevard) Russell (Jr.), 53, (D. Ga.), the highly politicized hearings begin May 3, MacArthur testifies for 3 days, he admits no mistakes, insists that "infiltrative" operations across the Formosa Strait would have brought "a decisive end without the calamity of a third world war," and repeats his long-held argument that failure to fight communism in Asia will mean that "it will roll around to Europe as sure as the sun rolls around." But Gen. George C. Marshall and Gen. Omar Bradley support President Truman's action in dismissing MacArthur; Marshall expresses the administration's fear that MacArthur's proposals for taking the conflict directly to the People's Republic would risk an expanded war with the Chinese, loss of American allies, and "an all-out war with the Soviet Union." "General MacArthur's actions were continuing to jeopardize the civilian control over military authorities," Bradley testifies, and by the time the hearings wind up June 25 the transcript runs to more than 2 million words. Gen. MacArthur retires to private life.
Japan regains her autonomy May 3 (Constitution Day) after nearly 6 years of Allied military government. A U.S.-Japanese treaty of peace and mutual security pact signed September 8 at the San Francisco Opera House restores Japan's national sovereignty but permits U.S. troops to remain in Japan indefinitely to assist UN operations in the Far East; no other nation is to have Japanese bases without U.S. consent. Prime Minister Yoshida has flown to San Francisco to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and sign the agreement with representatives of 47 other nations.
Former Australian prime minister Joseph B. "Ben" Chifley dies at Canberra June 13 at age 65, having led the opposition in Parliament since his defeat at the polls 2 years ago. Former United Nations General Assembly president Herbert Vere Evatt, 57, becomes leader of the Labor Party and successfully counters Prime Minister Menzies's effort to outlaw Australia's Communist Party.
A U.S.-Philippine mutual defense pact signed August 30 is the first of several security pacts among anticommunist powers in the Far East (see SEATO, 1954).
Chinese armies enter Lhasa in September, securing their control of Tibet (see 1950; Dalai Lama, 1959).
French forces under Gen. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, now 62, repulse communist attacks on Hanoi in French Indochina, turning back the Red River delta offensive of Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, 39, but illness obliges Lattre de Tassigny to return home; the communists revert to guerrilla tactics. Vietnamese prince Cuong De has died in exile at Tokyo April 6 at age 68 (approximate), having failed in his hopes of obtaining the imperial throne (see 1953).
Former newspaper publisher and Nazi supporter Alfred Hugenberg dies at Kukenbruch, West Germany, March 12 at age 85; former chief Comintern agent in China Mikhail Borodin dies in a Siberian labor camp May 29 at age 76.
Soviet UN representative Jacob A. Malik, 45, proposes a Korean cease-fire June 23; Gen. Ridgway broadcasts an offer to negotiate, talks open July 8 at Kaesong but break off August 23. Heartbreak Ridge falls to UN forces September 23 after 37 days of bitter trench warfare to gain the strategic heights north of Yanggu. UN forces grow to 500,000 and outnumber the communists; new peace talks begin October 25 at Panmunjom, but a 30-day "trial" armistice ends December 27.
Former Finnish field marshal and president Carl G. Mannerheim dies at Lausanne January 27 at age 83; former British foreign minister Ernest Bevin at London April 14 at age 70; former French chief of state Henri Pétain July 23 at age 95 on the Ile de Yeu, where he has been imprisoned since 1946 on treason charges; Rear Admiral Max Horton, Royal Navy (ret.), dies at London July 30 at age 67, having won fame as a submarine commander in World War I.
The Twenty-second Amendment limits U.S. presidential terms to two. Ratified February 27, it represents the culmination of Republican Party frustration at Democratic Party control of the White House since March 1933.
A federal judge at New York finds Ethel Rosenberg, 35, her husband Julius, 34, and their friend Morton Sobell guilty March 30 of having sold atomic secrets to Soviet agents. Mrs. Rosenberg's brother David Greenglass worked at the Los Alamos nuclear research station in New Mexico; it will turn out that the Rosenbergs supplied the agents with valuable information about radar and sonar, but although they knew nothing about the Manhattan Project the couple is sentenced to death April 5 (see 1953; Fuchs, Gold, 1950).
Sen. McCarthy calls George C. Marshall, now 70, a communist agent, but the junior senator from Wisconsin has been unable to prove, or even show any real evidence, that anyone in the State Department is guilty of any subversive activity (see 1950). Sen. Millard E. Tydings, 61, (D. Md.) has attacked McCarthy for perpetrating "a fraud and a hoax," but the campaign of accusations continues (see 1954; Lattimore, 1952).
Sen. Arthur H. Vandenburg (R. Mich.) dies at his native Grand Rapids April 15 at age 67. An isolationist before Pearl Harbor, he became the chief Republican architect of America's bipartisan foreign policy, supporting the Marshall Plan and U.S. participation in the United Nations.
U.S. nuclear scientists headed by Edward Teller set off the world's first thermonuclear reaction May 8 in a test at the uninhabited mid-Pacific atoll Eniwetok (see hydrogen bomb, 1952).
British diplomats Guy (Francis de Moncy) Burgess, 41, and Donald (Duart) Maclean, 38, flee to Moscow in late June amidst suspicions that they transmitted classified information to the communists. Indian-born British double agent H. A. R. (Harry Adrian Russell) "Kim" Philby, 40, has told Burgess and Maclean (who are also double agents) that their cover was blown and that British intelligence agents were closing in (see 1963).
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith dies at Washington, D.C., August 9 at age 65; communist leader Ella "Mother" Bloor at Richlandtown, Pa., August 10 at age 89.
President Truman directs federal agencies August 10 to support a program that would disperse industrial plants to prevent total destruction in the event of a nuclear war.
Gen. George C. Marshall resigns as secretary of state in September. President Truman appoints Marshall's Texas-born deputy Robert A. (Abercrombie) Lovett, 56, to succeed him, and Lovett will continue in the position until January 1953.
President Truman demands more stringent classification of security information by government agencies September 25.
Britain's Labour government falls in the general elections October 26 after 6 years in power. Winston Churchill becomes prime minister once again at age 77, but most of the social programs introduced by Clement Attlee's Labour government remain in place under the new Conservative government that takes office October 27.
The U.S. Army explodes an atomic device over the Nevada desert November 1 in the first war maneuver involving troops and nuclear weapons.
Guatemalan minister of war Jacobo Arbenz (Guzmán), 37, succeeds to the presidency in March with support from the army and left-wing groups that include the Guatemalan Communist Party. His emphasis on agrarian reform will lead him to attempt the expropriation of idle lands belonging to the United Fruit Company, Guatemala's largest landowner, and to impose higher taxes on the company and on other large landowners. Argentinian communist Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, 25, completes his medical studies and travels to Guatemala, where his Argentinian speech mannerism of interjecting "che" soon gives him the nickname Che Guevara (see 1954).
Puerto Ricans approve last year's Commonwealth Bill by an overwhelming majority in a referendum held June 4 (see 1952).
Eva Perón announces her candidacy for vice president, the Argentine military objects, she disclaims any intentions of running August 22, an Argentine Army group stages a revolt against President Perón's repressive regime September 28, but he wins reelection November 11 with campaign help from the popular Evita.
Iran's senate and majlis name Mohammed Mossadegh, 70, premier April 29. The leader of the extremist National Front will hold power for nearly 15 months (see 1953).
Jordan's Abdullah is assassinated at Jerusalem July 20 after a 5-year reign, his heir Emir Talal is proclaimed king by the national assembly September 5, but the new king suffers from schizophrenia and will be declared unfit to rule within the next year (see 1949; 1952).
French authorities in Morocco encourage a tribal rebellion against the sultan Muhammad V and surround his palace with troops on the pretext of protecting him. Encouraged by the late President Roosevelt to seek independence, the sultan is obliged to denounce the nationalist movement (see 1953).
The UN Security Council protests Egyptian restrictions that prevent Israel-bound ships from using the Suez Canal (the USSR, the People's Republic of China, and India abstain). Egypt refuses September 1 to comply with a UN resolution calling for an end to her nearly 14-month-old embargo on Israeli-bound shipping in the Suez and refuses October 15 to join in a western-oriented Mideast defense plan. Egypt abrogates her 1936 alliance with Britain October 27 and abrogates also the condominium agreement of 1899 covering the Sudan.
Libya proclaims herself an independent kingdom December 24 with a grandson of the late Islamic theologian as-Sanusi as monarch (see 1943); (see religion, 1859). Now 61, the emir of Cyrenaica Sidi Muhammad Idris al-Mahdi as-Sanusi has headed the mystical Sanusiyah brotherhood since 1916. The United Nations General Assembly voted in November 1949 that Cyrenaica, Fezzan, and Tripolitania should be combined into a single kingdom no later than January 1, 1952, and the pro-British Idris will reign until 1969 as Idris I (see energy, 1959).
U.S. authorities spirit Klaus Barbie and his family out of Germany after having used him for counterintelligence work (see 1945). Known as the "butcher of Lyons" ("boucher de Lyons"), the former Gestapo chief for that city will live in Bolivia as a businessman under the name Klaus Altmann until extradited to France for trial (see 1983).
The United Nations drafts a convention on women's rights August 19.
Mongolia grants women the right to vote on the same basis as men.
Switzerland's Parliament votes September 20 to quash a woman suffrage bill.
South Africa's Department of the Interior color-classifies residents and issues cards to prove that they are white, black, or colored as the government moves to enforce its apartheid policies (see 1949; 1952).
Florida civil rights worker Harry T. Moore, 44, and his wife, Harriet, are fatally injured Christmas night in a bombing of their house at Mims. Formerly NAACP state secretary, Moore has for years protested the failure of Florida's governor Millard F. Caldwell and other state officials to "take effective action" against police brutality, lynchings, and participation by law-enforcement authorities in violence and intimidation against blacks, but no arrests will ever be made in the case.
The 21-year-old W. K. Kellogg Foundation becomes a major philanthropic organization following the death of breakfast-food pioneer Will Keith Kellogg at Battle Creek, Mich., October 6 at age 91 (his brother John Harvey Kellogg died at the same age in 1943 after making a futile effort to reconcile the family's long-standing feud). Kellogg's will leaves the bulk of his fortune to the foundation, whose assets for more than 20 years will be surpassed only by those of the Rockefeller and Ford foundations and the Carnegie Corporation.
Recording for the Blind has its beginnings in a two-room New York office opened by former American Red Cross Nurses' Aide Corps assistant director Anne MacDonald (née Thompson), 54, who next year will persuade friends to establish studios at Athens, Ga.; Chicago; Denver; Los Angeles; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and Phoenix. While working for the Women's Auxiliary of the New York Public Library, MacDonald has observed a program that provided recordings for blind veterans attending college on the G.I. Bill of Rights. Her organization will grow in 40 years to have 32 studios in 16 states with some 4,000 volunteers recording fiction and non-fiction books on tape for students from fifth grade to graduate school. They will record 80,000 books to serve about 33,000 "readers" per year.
The first United Cerebral Palsy Associations telethon raises funds for treating U.S. children and adults afflicted with palsy (see 1946).
Polar explorer Lincoln Ellsworth dies at New York May 26 at age 71.
President Truman submits the largest peacetime budget in history January 15 with much of the $71.6 billion earmarked to meet the Korean emergency.
The Federal Reserve Board raises stock-purchase margin requirements January 16 from 50 to 75 percent in a move to discourage credit expansion.
The Wage Stabilization Board freezes U.S. wages and salaries January 26, the second wage-salary freeze in less than 9 years.
German industrialist Fritz Thyssen dies at Buenos Aires February 8 at age 77. Industrialists Friedrich Flick and Alfried Krupp gain release from prison on orders from the U.S. high commissioner for Germany John J. McCloy; now 68, Flick was originally given a 7-year sentence for war crimes 4 years ago, he will own more than 100 companies by 1955, and by then he will reportedly be the richest man in Germany, the fifth richest in the world. Krupp received a 12-year sentence and was ordered to forfeit all his property, real and personal, but McCloy's amnesty restores all his holdings, he works to rebuild his family firm, and within a decade he will have a net worth of more than $1 billion.
The European Coal and Steel Community issues its first bonds under terms of the Schuman Plan proposed last year by Jean Monnet, who saw a practical way of merging the basic industries of France and Germany (see 1953).
The Japanese award the first Deming Prizes, honoring companies that have improved the quality of their products by adopting the ideas of Iowa-born statistician-quality control expert W. Edwards Deming, 50, who has adapted the ideas of Bell Telephone Laboratories management guru Walter A. Shewhart, now 60 (see 1924). Deming has devised a systematic critique of data-based management, preaching the gospel that poor quality is not the fault of workers but rather of inefficient management.
Congress extends the Defense Production Act July 31 but with reduced anti-inflation powers.
One of every four middle-class U.S. wives is in the workforce, up from 7 percent in 1945. More than half of all female college graduates are employed.
The credit card is pioneered by Brooklyn-born Long Island banker William Boyle, 40, who has devised the Franklin Charge Account Plan for Franklin National Bank to facilitate fuel oil dealers' credit and collections. Banks have typically required anyone borrowing less than $500 to file an application with two co-signatures, but Franklin markets its plan with the slogan, "Just charge it." By October of next year it will have broadened its program to 750 merchants serving 28,000 customers, who will charge $2.5 million per year; the First National Bank of Kalamazoo, Mich. will license the charge-account plan from Franklin next year, signing up 30 merchants and 18,000 customers in its first 3 months; banks at Rochester, N.Y., and Plainfield, N.J., will quickly follow suit, receiving small fees in exchange for relieving retail establishments of concerns about creditworthiness, accounting, bookkeeping, billing, and other paperwork as the credit card gains popularity among clothiers, hardware dealers, and specialty stores. The American Banker magazine will observe in October of next year that the Franklin Charge Account Plan is allying merchants and bankers in the same way that car dealers and finance companies allied themselves in the 1920s and 1930s (see Visa, American Express, 1958).
U.S. income tax receipts reach a record high of $56.1 billion.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 269.23, up from 235.41 at the end of 1950.
The Office of Price Stabilization orders "margin" profit ceilings on more than 200,000 U.S. consumer items February 27. State "fair trade" price-fixing laws are not binding on retailers, the Supreme Court rules May 21. Price wars begin immediately and department stores are mobbed.
Leon L. Bean gives orders that his 34-year-old Freeport, Me., store is to remain open 24 hours per day 7 days per week (see 1912). Now 78, he has seen demand for L. L. Bean sporting goods soar and has grown tired of opening the store at nights and on Sundays for hunters who have forgotten to buy something (see 1967).
The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission established in 1946 builds the first power-producing nuclear fission (atomic) reactor (see 1958; Calder Hall, 1956; Jersey Central Power and Light, 1963).
Iran's extremist new National Front government nationalizes the British-held Anglo-American Oil Co. March 15, abrogating a 1933 concession treaty signed with London. The decree of nationalization takes effect May 2 retroactive to March 20. Britain appeals to the International Court of Justice May 26, the court rules against Iran July 5, President Truman appeals for a compromise and sends W. Averell Harriman to urge a settlement, Iranian forces occupy the Abadan oil fields September 27, Anglo-Iranian Oil completes evacuation of its personnel from Abadan October 4, and Iran agrees December 10 to resubmit the issue to the Court of Justice; the dispute will continue until August 1954.
Jean Paul Getty gains control of Skelly Oil and Tidewater Oil (now called Mission Corp.) (see 1949; Getty Oil, 1956).
A Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train carrying 1,000 people derails at Woodbridge, N. J., February 6, killing 84 and injuring 330, many of them seriously; a temporary track has proved inadequate for the train's speed.
The United States has 8.62 million trucks, up from 4.85 million in 1941 (see 1961).
German automobile pioneer August Horch dies at Muenchberg, Bavaria, February 3 at age 82, having built his first motorcar 50 years ago to establish the foundation of what became Audi in 1932.
Chrysler installs power steering in 10,000 Crown Imperial sedans and convertibles. The mechanism patented by Francis Wright Davis in 1926 was used in U.S. Army armored vehicles during World War II, the patents have expired, and General Motors will begin mass production of power steering next year, using improved Davis designs.
New York's First Avenue becomes one-way northbound and Second Avenue one-way southbound beginning June 4 as U.S. cities try to speed up traffic flow in streets choked with trucks and passenger cars (see parking, 1955; Seventh and Eighth Avenues, 1954).
The New Jersey Turnpike opens November 5 to speed traffic between New York and Philadelphia. The 118-mile toll road will receive 2 billion tolls in its first 25 years.
Remington Rand introduces the Univac computer on a commercial basis for use by business firms and scientific organizations. Founded 6 years ago, the company last year acquired J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly's company with its BINAC electronic computer of 1949, developed with help from U.S. Navy reservist Grace M. Hopper, now 44 (see Mark I, 1944). The U.S. Census Bureau acquires a Univac (see compiler, 1952; IBM, 1952; Sperry-Rand, 1955).
A high-speed frequency counter introduced by Hewlett-Packard reduces from 10 seconds to just 1 or 2 the time required to measure high frequencies (see 1942). The company's new counter will (among other things) enable radio stations to comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on frequency stability (see computer, 1966).
Britain's Jodrell Bank experimental station begins operating under the direction of Manchester University radio astronomer Bernard Lovell, now 38, who will head the facility until 1981 (see 1946). It will be renamed the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories.
Archaeological excavations resume at Pompeii under the direction of Amedeo Maiuri after a long hiatus occasioned by the war (see Fiorelli, 1860). Maiuri was placed in charge of the digs in 1924 and will continue to head the project until 1961, uncovering large areas to the south of the Via dell'Abbondanza and clearing away the debris outside the ancient city's two-mile wall to reveal the Porta di Nocera, a vast cemetery occupying both sides of the road leading from the gate to Nuceria. About two-thirds of Pompeii will have been executed by 1991.
Hartford, Conn.-born Carnegie Institution geneticist Barbara McClintock, 49, announces her discovery at Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., that genes are in a constant state of transformation. She and her colleague Harriet Creighton were urged by geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1931 to publish the results of their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and while other geneticists dismiss her notion that "jumping" genes in the chromosomes of a plant will change future generations of the plants that they produce, calling the idea "crazy," McClintock will be vindicated (see 1983).
Nuclear chemist William Draper Harkins dies at Chicago March 7 at age 77, having revealed the basic process of nuclear fusion; physicist Arnold Sommerfeld dies at Munich April 26 at age 82.
President Truman appoints a commission to study U.S. health needs and recommend solutions (see Medicare, Medicaid, 1964).
Japan's Green Cross has its beginnings in the Japan Blood Center opened in March at Osaka under the direction of former Army medical officer Ryoichi Naito, who has concealed his role in the experiments on prisoners of war (see human rights, 1942) and used his English-language skills to obtain U.S. technical advice and support. Blood donors receive ¥400 for giving 200 cubic centimeters of blood (the daily wage of a laborer is little more than ¥200), so when the center opens at 8 o'clock each morning there is a long line of homeless persons, students, teenagers, unemployed day workers, and war widows waiting to sell their blood (see Japanese Red Cross, 1952).
French-born Harvard Medical School graduate student Jean Dausset, 34, discovers that giving type-O blood transfusions to persons with other than type-O blood can be hazardous (see 1940). People with type-O blood who have received vaccines against diphtheria or tetanus often have developed strong antibodies, and when this blood reacts with the properties of other blood types it can produce dangerous clotting. Dausset's studies of the human immune system will reveal the existence of a biological system that determines whether a body will accept or reject foreign substances (human leukocyte antigens, or HLAs), thereby enabling surgeons to know whether a prospective organ-transplant donor and recipient are a compatible match in terms of blood type (see 1973).
Chemist Robert B. Woodward of 1944 quinine synthesis fame completes the first total synthesis of the steroid hormone cortisone (see 1949). Syntex, S.A. researchers headed by the company's Hungarian-born vice president George Rosenkranz also synthesize cortisone (see population [birth control], 1943). Now 35, Rosenkranz will head the Mexican company from 1957 to 1980. Upjohn researchers will use microbes to produce ACTH more cheaply, and refinements in the production of synthetic cortisone will reduce its cost to 50¢ per gram, down from the present $200 per gram for natural cortisone.
Britain's minister of health Noel Browne resigns under pressure April 11; he has proposed the introduction of free ante- and post-natal care for mothers as well as free medical care for all children under age 16. Catholic bishops have objected to Catholic mothers being exposed to gynecological information from non-Catholic doctors.
Paris obstetricians Fernand Lamaze, 61, and Pierre Vellay introduce a "psychoprophylaxsis" method of "painless" childbirth derived from experimental work developed from ancient folk practices by Soviet scientists in the 1920s and 1930s and introduced this year in the Soviet Union as the "official" method of pain relief. Lamaze and Vellay have traveled to the Soviet Union to study the new methods of relieving pain without drugs. Lamaze has witnessed a 35-year-old Leningrad woman deliver an infant in 6 hours without drugs or pain, and he has simplified the Pavlovian techniques, adding rapid, shallow breathing, or "panting." The Lamaze Method calls for counteracting pain signals by concentrating the mind on extraneous sensations; it emphasizes the active role of the woman, who should never "cease to be the force which directs, controls, regulates . . . labor," but its system of rapid, shallow breathing is in fact virtually identical to earlier methods in theory, practice, and goals. The sounds of a Lamaze delivery will be broadcast on French national radio in 1954 (see book, 1956).
Argyrol co-inventor and art collector Albert C. Barnes is killed in an automobile accident in Chester County, Penna., July 24 at age 79.
Ergotism breaks out August 17 in the south of France, where people in the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit near Avignon have eaten bread containing illegal amounts of rye flour. Three hundred people are affected, 31 go mad, and four die in the largest epidemic since the Russian outbreak of 1926 (see LSD, 1943). French wage levels only now regain their Depression levels of 1938, and the ergotism episode is in part a consequence of heavy dietary reliance on cheap rye bread (see commerce [Monnet], 1953).
Numbers in Color (Nombres en Couleur) by Belgian educator Emile-Georges Cuisenaire, 60, explains the author's method of teaching children to count by having them associate numbers and colors and thus learn the basics of addition and subtraction. Colored wooden Cuisenaire rods range in length from one to 10 centimeters and will be used throughout the world.
School officials issue "identification necklaces" to children from New York to Redwood City, Calif., as fears grow of a possible nuclear attack. The Bead Chain Manufacturing Co. produces the necklaces and also supplies Army "dog tags." A film teaches children to "duck and cover" under the desks in case they see a bright flash that might come from a nuclear explosion.
Assistant editor Jerzy Turowicz, 38, takes over the 6-year-old Polish weekly Tygodnik Powszechny and will move it away from clerical control, defying censors and antagonizing Church officials as well as communists by his anticommunist positions. The paper will be turned over to the Catholic group Pax in 1953 (but see 1956).
Czech-born British publisher (Ian) Robert Maxwell (originally Jan Ludvik Hoch), 28, establishes Pergamon Press Ltd. as he begins what will become an international newspaper empire. Escaping the Holocaust that consumed the rest of his family, young Hoch made his way to Britain via France, became a British Army officer, participated in the Normandy invasion 7 years ago, went into business after the war publishing academic and scientific papers in Germany, and has acquired control of a British company; he renames it and will build it into a major publisher of trade journals as well as scientific and technical books (see 1991).
Juan Perón confiscates La Prensa April 13 to silence criticism of his Argentine dictatorship. The government-controlled newsdealers' union has forced the paper to shut down in January by staging a strike; Congress orders publisher Alberto Gainza Paz, 51, jailed for contempt in March, but he has left for Uruguay and will not resume management until after Perón is ousted in 1955.
"Dennis the Menace" appears February 11 in 16 newspapers. Seattle-born cartoonist Henry King "Hank" Ketcham, 30, has been inspired by a neighbor's comment on his 5-year-old son. The new cartoon strip meets with almost instant success and will eventually be syndicated to some 1,600 papers worldwide (see Television, 1959).
"Beetle Bailey" is introduced by El Dorado, Calif.-born cartoonist Mort Walker, 27, whose bungling General Halftrack, the general's secretary, Miss Buxley, Private Blips, and other characters will entertain readers for more than 45 years.
William Randolph Hearst dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at Beverly Hills, Calif., August 14 at age 88, having spent his final years in virtual seclusion. The six-foot-four-inch publisher's weight has fallen to below 110 pounds (his San Simeon castle will be opened to the public as a state park in 1958 along with 123 acres of his Questa Encantada estate on the Pacific [the remaining acreage lies along 12 miles of ocean]); New Yorker magazine founder Harold W. Ross dies at Boston December 6 at age 59 (William Shawn, 44, is named to succeed Ross as editor); former columnist Dorothy Dix (Elizabeth M. Gilmer) dies at New Orleans December 16 at age 81.
RCA broadcasts color television programs from the Empire State Building May 2 and they are picked up on black-and-white sets, but the U.S. Supreme Court hands down a decision May 28 affirming last year's Federal District Court ruling against RCA, whose lawyers have effectively delayed initiation of the CBS field sequential color television system and allowed sales to continue of conventional TV sets that cannot pick up color signals in black and white. RCA announces June 3 that it will turn over its tri-color TV tube to CBS for study, CBS broadcasts color television programs on a regularly-scheduled commercial basis beginning June 25 on a five-station East Coast network, but 10.5 million monochrome sets are in U.S. homes and viewers who want color must buy special sets. RCA has doomed the CBS color system with its delaying tactics, CBS is obliged to purchase Hytron Radio and Electronics Corp., and its Air-King receiver manufacturing subsidiary begins production September 20 of the CBS-Columbia Model 12CC2 that goes on sale at $499.95, but of the 200 sets shipped only 100 are sold, and Order No. M-190 issued by the National Production Authority November 20 forbids manufacturing of color sets for general public sale to conserve materials for defense (but makes no reference to manufacture and sale of monochrome sets) (see RCA, 1954).
A new coaxial cable carries the first transcontinental U.S. television broadcast September 4. See It Now with announcer Edward R. Murrow debuts live coast to coast November 18 on CBS stations via coaxial cable. Now 39, Murrow has created the documentary series in association with New York-born CBS executive Fred Friendly (originally Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer), 36, who persuaded him 2 years ago to produce the album I Can Hear It Now featuring the voices of recent world leaders and other personalities, and has launched a CBS radio program under the title Hear It Now (see 1954; Person-to-Person, 1953).
Bell Telephone gives transistors their first commercial application October 10, using them in a trunk dialing apparatus and initiating long-distance "direct dial" telephone service (see transistor, 1947). The mayor of Englewood, N.J., phones the mayor of Alameda, Calif., November 10 in the first direct-dial long-distance telephone call, and the first area codes are introduced—201 in northern New Jersey and 415 in San Francisco (Alameda shares that code but will later be in the 510 area).
The volume of U.S. telephone calls is so great that without dial systems it would require nearly half the nation's adult population to operate switchboards (see 1919). The 10-digit area-code system (North American Numbering Plan) introduced November 10 was devised 4 years ago by AT&T and Bell Labs to serve customers in Canada, the United States, and many Caribbean nations. Local telephone call rates begin jumping from 5¢ to 10¢.
Nonfiction: The Origins of Totalitarianism by German-born U.S. political theorist Hannah Arendt, 44, who fled Nazi dictatorship; God and Man at Yale—The Superstition of Academic Freedom by New York-born 1950 graduate William F. (Frank) Buckley, 25, who has been working in Mexico for the CIA; Communism, Democracy, and Catholic Power by Paul Blanshard, who compares the Vatican to the Kremlin; The Wisdom of Insecurity by English-born California philosopher Alan (Wilson) Watts, 36; White Collar: The American Middle Class by C. Wright Mills, who blames "white-collar crime" on "structural immorality" (see crime [Sutherland], 1949); Social Choice and Individual Values by New York-born Stanford University economist Kenneth (Joseph) Arrow, 30, who uses elementary mathematics to posit the notion that it is impossible under certain conditions of rationality and equality to guarantee when more than two individuals are involved and alternative choices are available that a ranking of societal preferences will correspond to rankings of individual preferences; American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power and A Theory of Price Control by Ontario-born Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, 43, who worked for the U.S. Office of Price Administration from 1941 to 1943; Struggle for Survival by New York economist Eliot Janeway (originally Jacobstein), 38, who belonged to the British Communist Party while studying at the London School of Economics but will use connections to avoid harassment by the House Un-American Affairs Committee; Disturber of the Peace: The Life of H. L. Mencken by Attleboro, Mass.-born Baltimore Sun reporter William (Raymond) Manchester, 29; The Poetry of Ezra Pound by Ontario-born University of California, Santa Barbara, English teacher (William) Hugh Kenner, 28, is the first book published in the United States to hail Pound's literary achievements while deploring his political stances; Statement on Race by Ashley Montagu; The Sea Around Us by Pennsylvania-born naturalist Rachel (Louise) Carson, 44, who earned a master's degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins before going to work writing and editing pamphlets for the Fish and Wildlife Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein dies of cancer at Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, April 19 at age 62; author-educator John Erskine at his native New York June 2 at age 71.
Fiction: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, whose hero, Holden Caulfield, seeks the pure and the good and eschews the "phonies"; From Here to Eternity by Illinois-born novelist James Jones, 30, who has served in the regular army and received encouragement from the late Maxwell Perkins at Scribner's; The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II by Herman Wouk; Lie Down in Darkness by Newport News, Va.-born novelist William Styron, 26; Adam, Where Art Thou? (Wo warst du Adam?) by Heinrich Böll, who was wounded in the war, returned to his native Cologne to find the city 80 percent destroyed, and gives a vivid account of the Nazi collapse; The Rebel (L'Homme Révolté) by Albert Camus, who refutes communism because it leads to totalitarianism; The Conformist (Il Conformiste) by Alberto Moravia; The Crimes of S. Karma (Kaba-S karumeshi no hanchi) by Kobo Abe; Love in a Dry Season by Shelby Foote; Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies begins the "Salterton Trilogy"; Mr. Beluncle by V. S. Pritchett; The Cruel Sea by English novelist Nicholas (John Turney) Monsarrat, 41, is based on the author's wartime experience in the Royal Navy; The End of the Affair by Graham Greene; The Troubled Air by Irwin Shaw deals with the communist witch-hunt in America; The Day of the Triffids by English science-fiction novelist John Wyndham (John Wyndham Parkes Lucs Beynon Harris), 48, who wrote stories for U.S. pulp magazines in the mid-1920s; Sentinel by English science-fiction novelist Arthur (Charles) Clarke, 33; Between Planets by Robert A. Heinlein; Fahrenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man (stories) by Ray Bradbury; A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell begins a roman à fleuve that will run to 12 volumes; The Loved and Envied by Enid Bagnold; The Ballad of the SadCafé (stories) by Carson McCullers; The Grass Harp (stories) by Truman Capote; In the Absence of Angels (stories) by New York-born author Hortense Calisher, 39; The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (stories) by Max Shulman; The Finer Things in Life (stories) by North Carolina-born writer Frances Gray Patton, 46, whose work has been appearing in the New Yorker magazine; My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier; A Stone for Danny Fisher by Harold Robbins; The Way Some People Die by John Ross MacDonald; The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey; Neither Five Nor Three by Helen MacInnes; Judgment on Deltchev by Eric Ambler.
Novelist Sinclair Lewis dies of a heart attack at Rome January 10 at age 65; novelist-playwright André Gide at Paris February 19 at age 81; author-publisher E. Haldeman-Julius at Girard, Kansas, July 31 at age 62; journalist-novelist Abraham Cahan at New York August 31 at age 91.
Poetry: The Mills of the Kavanaughs by Robert Lowell; Collected Poems by Marianne Moore; A Change of World by Baltimore-born poet Adrienne (Cecile) Rich, 22; First Poems by New York-born poet James (Ingram) Merrill, 25, whose family wealth (his father, Charles, is the cofounder of Merrill Lynch) will permit him to write poetry without concern about money; The Old Bachelor and Other Poems by Miami, Fla.-born poet Donald (Rodney) Justice, 25; Praise to the End! by Theodore Roethke; Say Everything (Tout dire) and Le Phénix by Paul Eluard; Death Will Stare at Me out of Your Eyes (Verrá la morte e avrá i tuoi occhi) by the late Cesare Pavese.
Humorist Gelett Burgess dies at Carmel, Calif., September 18 at age 85.
Painting: Massacre in Korea by Pablo Picasso; Black and White Painting by Jackson Pollock; #3—1951 by Clyfford Still; First Row Orchestra by Edward Hopper; Cathedra by Barnett Newman; The Burial by New York "beatnik" saxophonist-turned-painter Larry Rivers (Yizroch Loiza Grossberg), 27, who depicts his grandmother's funeral in a style evocative of Gustave Courbet's Burial at Ornans from 1850; Origins of the Land (surrealistic landscape) by Graham Sutherland; Weeping Coconuts by Frida Kahlo; Diego Rivera completes murals for Mexico City's waterworks. Illustrator J. C. Leyendecker dies of a heart attack at his palatial New Rochelle, N.Y., estate July 25 at age 77 while working on a cover illustration for American Weekly (the Saturday Evening Post let him go in 1943 after a 40-year relationship in which he had painted well over 300 covers and Hearst's weekly supplement signed a contract with him in 1945); John French Sloan dies at Hanover, N.H., September 7 at age 80.
Sculpture: Baboon and Young by Pablo Picasso; Hudson River Landscape by David Smith; Contrapuntal Forms, Vertical Forms, and Rock Form (Penwith) (all wood) by Barbara Hepworth.
Delaware's Winterthur Museum opens near Wilmington in a 112-year-old mansion built by James Antoine Bidermann and his wife, a great-aunt of Henry Francis du Pont. Du Pont inherited the house in 1927 and has renovated it to display his collection of American decorative arts and furnishings in 175 period rooms.
Photographs: Spanish Village and Nurse Midwife by W. Eugene Smith; American Girl in Italy and Artist in Montmartre by Ruth Orkin.
Theater: Second Threshold by the late Philip Barry 1/2 at New York's Morosco Theater, with Clive Brook, German-born actress Betsy von Furstenberg, 18, 126 perfs.; Darkness at Noon by Sidney Kingsley (who has adapted the Arthur Koestler novel) 1/13 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Claude Rains, Kim Hunter, Alexander Scourby, 186 perfs.; The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams 2/3 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with Maureen Stapleton, Eli Wallach, Hollywood, Calif.-born actor Don Murray, 22, Bronx-born actor Martin Balsam, 31, 306 perfs.; Count Oderland (Graf Oderland) by Max Frisch 2/10 at Zürich's Schauspielhaus; Billy Budd by Louis O. Coxe and Robert Chapman (who have adapted the posthumously-published 1924 Herman Melville novel) 2/10 at New York's Biltmore Theater, with Dennis King, Duluth-born actor Charles Nolte, 24, New York-born actor Jeff Morrow, 44, Bombay-born actor Torin Thatcher, 46, 105 perfs.; The Lesson (La leçon) by Eugène Ionesco 2/20 at the Théâtre de Poche, Paris; The Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman 3/7 at New York's Coronet Theater, with Florence Eldridge, Kent Smith, Jane Wyatt, 101 perfs.; The Moon Is Blue by F. Hugh Herbert 3/8 at Henry Miller's Theater, New York, with Barbara Bel Geddes, Donald Cook, Barry Nelson, 924 perfs.; A Sleep of Prisoners by Christopher Fry 4/3 at Oxford's University Church; Don Juan's Wife (La moglie di don Giovanni) by Edouardo De Filippo 5/5 at Turin; The Love of Four Colonels by English actor-playwright Peter Ustinov, 29, 5/23 at Wyndham's Theatre, London, with Viennese-born actor Theodore Bikel, 27, Ustinov, Moira Lister, 816 perfs.; Remains to Be Seen by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse 10/3 at New York's Morosco Theater, with Lindsay, Jackie Cooper, Tacoma, Wash.-born actress Janis Paige, 29, Georgia-born actor Ossie Davis, 34, 199 perfs.; The Four Poster by Jan de Hartog 10/24 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, 632 perfs.; The Count of Ratzeburg (Der Graf von Ratzeburg) by the late Ernst Barlach 11/25 at Nuremberg; I Am a Camera by John Van Druten 11/28 at New York's Empire Theater, with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles, William Prince as Christopher Isherwood, 262 perfs.; Point of No Return by Paul Osborn (based on the J. P. Marquand novel) 12/13 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Henry Fonda, Heywood Hale-Broun, Frank Conroy, 356 perfs.
Playwright Margaret Mayo dies at Ossining, N.Y., February 25 at age 68; actor David Warfield at New York June 27 at age 84; actor-director Louis Jouvet at Paris August 16 at age 63; playwright Annie Nathan Meyer at New York September 23 at age 84.
Radio: The Archers 1/1 on BBC's Light Programme with Ysanne Churchman: The Goon Show (initially titled Crazy People) 5/28 on BBC with Welsh-born comedian Harry (Donald) Secombe, 29, as Neddie Seagoon, Portsmouth-born actor Peter Sellers, 25, Indian-born actor-comedian Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan, 33, and Michael Bentine, who have met at London's Grafton Arms pub (Milligan lives upstairs) and produced an absurdist script full of fast talk and English in-jokes that will not go over well across the Atlantic (to 1962); John Henry Faulk Show 12/17 on CBS with Texas-born folklorist Faulk, 38, features music, political humor, and listener participation (to 1957; see 1962).
Television: Amos 'n' Andy 6/22 on CBS, with Alvin Childress, Andrew Hogg Brown, George Stevens (as "Kingfish") (see radio, 1928) (to 6/11/1953, 78 episodes); Twenty Questions (quiz show) 7/16 on Dumont (to 5/30/1954); Search for Tomorrow 9/19 on CBS (daytime) with Miami-born, Tulsa-raised actress Mary Stuart (originally Mary Houchins), 26, as Joanne Gardner, Larry Haines as Stu Bergman (to NBC 3/29/1982; to 12/26/1986); Love of Life 9/24 on CBS (15 minutes, daytime), with Peggy McCay, Jean McBride, Ron Tomme, Paul Potter in a series created (as was Search for Tomorrow) by Chicago-born writer John D. Hess, 33 (to 4/11/1958; 30 minutes from 4/14/1958 to 2/1/1980, 7,316 episodes); I Love Lucy 10/15 on CBS, with Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, William Frawley, Vivian Vance (to 5/6/1957); The Dinah Shore Show 11/27 on NBC (to 7/18/1957); Dragnet 12/16 on NBC with Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday, LAPD ("Just the facts, ma'am"), Harry Morgan as his sidekick Bill Gannon (to 9/5/1959).
Films: John Huston's The African Queen with Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, English actor Robert Morley, 43; Brian Desmond-Hurst's A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim; Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still with Patricia Neal, English actor Michael Rennie, 42; Alessandro Blasetti's Fabiola with Michele Morgan, Henry Vidal; John Boulting's The Magic Box with Robert Donat and Viennese actress Maria Schell, 25, in a biography of motion picture pioneer William Friese-Greene (who actually contributed little to the development of cinema); Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon with Toshiro Mifume; Jean Renoir's The River with Patricia Walters; Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train with Robert Walker, Farley Granger; Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire with Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh. Also: Budd Boetticher's The Bullfighter and the Lady with Los Angeles-born actor Robert (Langford) Stack, 32, Joy Page, Gilbert Roland, Mexican-born actress Katy Jurado (Maria Jurado Garcia), 24; Anthony Asquith's The Browning Version with Michael Redgrave, Jean Kent (originally Joan Summerfield), 30, Nigel Patrick; Zoltan Korda's Cry, the Beloved Country with Canada Lee, Miami, Fla.-born actor Sidney Poitier, 24; Laslo Benedek's Death of a Salesman with Fredric March, Mildred Dunnock; René Clement's Forbidden Games (Jeux Interdits) with Brigitte Fossey; Charles Crichton's The Lavender Hill Mob with Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway; Alexander Mackendrick's The Man in the White Suit with Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood; Mitchell Leisen's The Mating Season with Gene Tierney, John Lund, New York-born actress Thelma Ritter, 45; Vittorio de Sica's Miracle in Milan with Francesco Golisano; Christian Nyby's The Thing (From Another World) with Kenneth Tobey; Gordon Parry's Tom Brown's Schooldays with John Howard Davies, Robert Newton, Hermione Baddeley.
Motion picture makers stop using nitrocellulose "nitrate" film and switch to acetate "safety" film that is far less likely to go up in flames but breaks down in time into a vinegary acetone. M-G-M and Disney lead the industry in copying old films onto the new acetate film developed by Eastman Kodak.
Motion picture projector developer Albert S. Howell of Bell & Howell dies at Chicago January 3 at age 71; actor Warner Baxter of bronchial pneumonia after a lobotomy to relieve arthritis at Beverly Hills May 7 at age 58; director Robert J. Flaherty at Dummerston, Vt., July 23 at age 67; actor-director Louis Jouvet at Paris August 16 at age 63; actor Robert Walker of respiratory failure after a sedative injection at Hollywood August 28 at age 32 (he has been in psychiatric treatment for alcoholism and nerve disorders).
Hollywood musicals: Vincente Minnelli's An American in Paris with Gene Kelly, Paris-born dancer Leslie (Claire Margaret) Caron, 20, Oscar Levant, music by the late George Gershwin; Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, and Wilfred Jackson's Alice in Wonderland with Walt Disney animation, voices of Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna, and others, music by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Bob Hilliard, songs that include "I'm Late."
Broadway musicals: The King and I 3/29 at the St. James Theater, with Gertrude Lawrence, Yul Brynner, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, book based on Margaret Landon's novel Anna and the King of Siam based in turn on books by the late Anna Leonowens, songs that include "Getting to Know You," "Hello, Young Lovers," "We Kiss in a Shadow," "Shall We Dance," "Whistle a Happy Tune," 1,246 perfs.; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 4/19 at the Alvin Theater, with Shirley Booth, Johnny Johnston, music by Arthur Schwartz, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, songs that include "Make the Man Love Me," "Look Who's Dancing," "I'll Buy You a Star," 267 perfs.; Flahooley 5/14 at the Broadway Theater, with Peruvian soprano Yma Sumac (Emperatrice Chavarri), 23, who appeared at the Hollywood Bowl 2 years ago, puppeteers Bil and Cora Baird, and Atlanta-born singer Barbara (Nell) Cook, 23, music by Sammy Fain, lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, songs that include "Here's to Your Illusions," 40 perfs.; Seventeen 6/21 at the Broadhurst Theater, with Frank Albertson, Scranton, Pa.-born singer Ann Crowley, 21, Brooklyn-born Dick Kallman, 17, book by Sally Benson from the Booth Tarkington novel, music by Walter Kent, lyrics by Kim Gannon, 182 perfs.; Top Banana 11/1 at the Winter Garden Theater, with Phil Silvers, music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, 350 perfs.; Paint Your Wagon 11/12 at the Shubert Theater, with Eddie Dowling, Ann Crowley, New York-born comedienne Kay Medford, 31, music by Frederick Loewe, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, songs that include "They Call the Wind Maria," "I Talk to the Trees," "I Still See Elisa," 289 perfs.; Out of This World 12/21 at the New Century Theater, with Charlotte Greenwood, William Eythe, choreography by Hanya Holm, music and lyrics by Cole Porter, 157 perfs.
Producer Charles B. Cochrane dies at London January 31 at age 78, having discovered and promoted stars such as Hermione Baddeley, Jack Buchanan, Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, and Beatrice Lillie; actor-composer-songwriter Ivor Novello dies of a coronary thrombosis at London March 6 at age 57, having been imprisoned briefly during the war for illegal use of rationed petrol. His gay lifestyle has been an open secret; Fanny Brice dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at her Hollywood home May 29 at age 59; songwriter Herman Hupfeld at his native Montclair, N.J., June 8 at age 57; comedian Leon Errol of a heart attack at Hollywood October 12 at age 71; composer Sigmund Romberg of a cerebral hemorrhage at New York November 9 at age 64.
Opera: Victoria de Los Angeles makes her Metropolitan Opera debut 3/17 singing the role of Marguerite in the 1859 Gounod opera Faust. She will be a Met regular until 1961; The Pilgrim's Progress 5/26 at London's Covent Garden, with music by Ralph Vaughan Williams; The Rake's Progress 9/11 at the Venice Festival, with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as Anna Trulove, Jennie Tourel, now 41, as the Turk, music by Igor Stravinsky; Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) 10/12 at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, with music by the late Georges Bizet; Canadian-born U.S. bass-baritone George London (originally George Burnstein), 32, makes his Metropolitan Opera debut 11/13 singing the role of Amonasro in the 1871 Verdi opera Aïda; Billy Budd 12/1 at London's Covent Garden, with San Jose, Calif.-born baritone Theodor Uppmann, 31, singing the title role, Peter Pears as Captain Vere, music by Benjamin Britten, libretto from Herman Melville's last complete work (Melville finished Billy Budd, Foretopman in 1891 but it was not published until 1924); Amahl and the Night Visitors 12/24 on the NBC Television Opera Theater, with music by Gian-Carlo Menotti, who has written the first opera for television.
Ballet: The Miraculous Mandarin 9/6 at the New York City Center, with Canadian ballerina Melissa Hayden (Mildred Herman), 28, Hugh Laing, music by the late Béla Bartók, choreography by Todd Bolender; The Pied Piper 12/4 at the New York City Center, with Tanaquil LeClerq, Jerome Robbins, music by Aaron Copland, choreography by Robbins; New Orleans-born ballerina Janet Collins, 34, makes her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in the 1871 Verdi opera Aïda. She is the first black artist to perform on the stage at the Met and will be in the Met's corps de ballet until 1954.
Cantata: The Sons of Light by Ralph Vaughan Williams 5/6 at London, with a chorus of 1,000 schoolchildren.
First performances: Symphony No. 2 by Charles Ives (who wrote it between 1897 and 1901) 2/23 at New York's Carnegie Hail (Ives declines Leonard Bernstein's invitation to attend, but he does hear part of the performance on his housemaid's radio [he does not own one himself] and he comes out of her room dancing a jig); Suite Archaïque by Arthur Honegger 2/28 at Louisville; Symphony No. 5 (Di tre re) by Honegger 3/9 at Boston's Symphony Hall; Symphony No. 4 by Walter Piston 3/30 at Minneapolis; Monopartita by Honegger 6/12 at Zürich; Stabat Mater by Francis Poulenc 6/13 at Strasbourg.
The Marlboro Music School and Festival holds its first concert July 8 at Marlboro, Vt., with the Busch-Serkin Trio playing works by Beethoven and Schubert. The festival will grow to attract musicians from all over the world.
Composer John Alden Carpenter dies at Chicago April 26 at age 75; Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitsky at Boston's New England Medical Center June 4 at age 76; composer Arnold Schoenberg at Brentwood, Calif., July 13 at age 76; pianist Artur Schnabel at Morschach, Switzerland, August 15 at age 79.
Popular songs: "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" by Hoagy Carmichael, lyrics by Johnny Mercer (for the film Here Comes the Groom); "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" by Huddy "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, lyrics by The Weavers (Pete Seeger, 32, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, Norman Gilbert); "No Sin" by Marcus Hook, Pa.-born piano-accordionist and songwriter George Hoven, 38; "Honey Bee," "She Moves Me," "Long Distance Call," and "Louisiana Blues" by Muddy Waters; "Unforgettable" by Irving Gordon; "Mockin' Bird Hill" by Vaughn Horton (Patti Page records the song and makes it popular); "I'm a Fool to Want You" by Frank Sinatra, Joel Herron, and Jack Wolf; "Too Young" by Sid Lippman, lyrics by Sylvia Dee; "If" by Tolchard Evans, lyrics by Robert Hargreaves and Stanley J. Domerell; "It's All in the Game" by former U.S. vice president Charles Gates Dawes, lyrics by Carl Sigman; "Mixed Emotions" by Stuart F. Loucheim; "Domino" by Louis Ferrani, lyrics by Jacques Plante (English lyrics by Don Raye); "Be My Love" by Nicholas Brodszky, lyrics by Sammy Cahn (for the film The Toast of New Orleans); "Be My Life's Companion" by Milton De Lugg and Bob Hilliard; "Come on-a My House" by Ross Bagdasarian and William Saroyan (Kentucky-born vocalist Rosemary Clooney, 23, records the song with a jangly harpsichord backup orchestrated by Mitch Miller); "Real Ugly Woman" by Baltimore-born songwriter Jerry Leiber and his Queens, N.Y.-born partner Mike Stoller, both 18, is recorded by Jimmy Witherspoon; "Discepolin" by tango composer Anibal "Pichuco" Troilo, lyrics by Homero Manzi; Jo Stafford records "Shrimp Boats" by her husband, Paul Wexton, now 44, with Paul Mason Howard and has her first big success at age 30; "Cold, Cold Heart" by Hank Williams; "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" by Meredith Willson.
Charlie Parker records "My Little Suede Shoes" in March and has a hit.
Soprano Anita Carter of Mother Maybelle and the Carter Singers records the country-music single "Bluebird" at age 18 in a duet with Hank Snow and tops the popularity charts for that category along with the B-side number "Down the Trail of Achin' Hearts."
English-born U.S. jazz pianist-composer Marian (Margaret) McPartland (née Turner), 31, forms her own trio.
Cleveland disk jockey Alan Freed (originally Aldon James Freed), 30, sees black and white teenagers dancing to a new music that makes them want to "jump" and begins playing the "black" music on his WJW midnight radio show, creating a sensation. He has been playing mainstream music up to now, but he soon starts calling himself "Moondog" and next year will play host to a Moondog Coronation Ball at the 10,000-seat Cleveland Arena (the dance will be canceled when 20,000 fans crash the event; it will be considered the first rock 'n' roll concert) (see New York, 1954).
Pianist-orchestra leader Edwin Frank "Eddie" Duchin dies of leukemia at New York February 9 at age 41; songwriter Henry W. Armstrong at his Bronx, N.Y., home February 28 at age 71; Egbert Van Alstyne at Chicago July 9 at age 73; boogie-woogie piano pioneer James Edward "Jimmy" Yancey at his native Chicago September 18 at age 53.
A New York college basketball point-shaving scandal rocks the sports world. The scandal brings demands that newspapers stop printing betting odds, that a basketball czar be appointed, and that the penalties under state law for fixing an athletic contest (maximum of 5 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines) be doubled.
Detroit-born boxer "Sugar Ray" Robinson (Walker Smith), 30, wins the world middleweight title February 4 at Chicago by beating Jake LaMotta (who gave Robinson his only defeat in 123 professional bouts 8 years ago); Sugar Ray loses the title July 10 to Randy Turpin, regains it September 12, and relinquishes it to try for the light-heavyweight crown.
"Jersey Joe" Walcott (originally Arnold Raymond Cream), 37, wins the world heavyweight title July 18, knocking out Ezzard Charles in the seventh round of a championship bout at Pittsburgh.
Richard Savitt, 24, (U.S.) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Doris Hart, 26, (U.S.) in women's singles; Frank Sedgman, 23, (Australia) wins in men's singles at Forest Hills, Maureen ("Little Mo") Connolly, 16, in women's singles.
Golfer Sam Snead wins his third PGA championship.
Florence Chadwick becomes the first woman to cross the English Channel from England to France (see 1950). She makes the crossing from Dover September 11 in 16 hours, 22 minutes, and will break that record October 12, 1955, when she does it in 13 hours, 33 minutes.
The first Pan-American Games are held at Buenos Aires. Only Western Hemisphere athletes may compete.
The world's first sky-diving championship is held in Yugoslavia. Parachute jumpers compete for prizes.
Willie Mays joins the New York Giants lineup in center field. Alabama-born Willie Howard Mays Jr., 20, will play his first full season in 1954, win the National League's batting championship with a.345 average, continue with the Giants when they move from the Polo Grounds to San Francisco in 1957, and remain a stalwart of the team until 1972.
Mickey Mantle joins the New York Yankees at center field, playing alongside Joe DiMaggio, who handles left field (see 1936). Oklahoma-born Mickey Charles Mantle, 19, plays only 96 games and sets a league record of 111 strikeouts but shows that he can hit the ball out of the park; he will be a Yankee star for 17 years beginning next season and his batting average in his 10 peak years will always be above .300.
"The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" shouts radio sportscaster Russ Hodges October 3 as Scottish-born third baseman Robert Brown "Bobby" Thomson, 27, hits a three-run homer off a pitch by Ralph Branca in the bottom of the ninth inning of the third playoff game of the National League pennant race to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 5 to 4 at the Polo Grounds. "The shot heard round the world" wins it for the Giants, who have come from 13½ games behind to tie the Dodgers and force the playoff.
The New York Yankees win the World Series, defeating the New York Giants 4 games to 2.
Yankee outfielder Joe DiMaggio retires at age 36 with career totals of 361 home runs and only 369 strikeouts. His underworld connections have set up a million-dollar pension fund for him at New York's Bowery Savings Bank.
Former Chicago White Sox outfielder Joseph Jefferson "Shoeless Joe" Jackson dies at Greenville, S.C., December 5 at age 64.
U.S. imports of the Chemise Lacoste begin (see mesh polo shirt, 1933). Izod Cie. has contracted with René "The Crocodile" Lacoste to use the "alligator" symbol associated with him since he helped France win the Davis Cup in 1927. The long-tailed all-cotton tennis shirt will become a U.S. status symbol.
Marimekko has its beginnings at Helsinki, where designer Armi Ratia, 38, joins the small oilcloth and textile printing company Printex that her husband started 2 years ago. She asks some of her artist friends to apply their graphic designs to fabric, and some of them come up with abstract shapes in vibrant colors that revolutionize traditional textile printing for fabrics that will be used in home fashions as well as clothing.
The stiletto heel introduced by French shoe designer Charles Jourdan will lead to the elimination of chunkier styles (see Vivier, 1954),
Japanese fashion designer Hanae Mori, 25, opens a studio in Tokyo's Shinjuku district to begin what will become a worldwide empire. She will soon be creating costumes for Japan's growing movie industry (see 1965).
New York designer Ann Fogarty (née Whitney), 32, wins the Fashion Critics' Award. She has perfected the New Look (see 1947) and will modify the Empire style with a "camise" look for young women sized 6 to 12.
The Roman Catholic Church at Madrid announces July 7 that scanty bathing attire will henceforth be forbidden on Spanish beaches.
Europe sees its first striptease show as Le Crazy Horse Saloon opens in a former coal cellar on the Champs-Elysées in Paris. Ex-painter, ex-decorator, ex-antique dealer, ex-restaurateur Alain Bernardin, 32, has hired the Slim Briggs orchestra from Houston; he offers strip-tease shows and creates a sensation.
A Stockholm court fines an 18-year-old sailor September 22 for kissing his girlfriend in public.
Las Vegas gambler Benny Binion takes over the El Dorado casino in Fremont Street with backing from mobster Meyer Lansky and reopens it under the name Binion's Horseshoe (see 1946). Now 46, Binion has operated a casino from a table in a hotel cafeteria, the limits at his tables are higher than those elsewhere in town, and when desperate gamblers lose their cars, homes, and even ranches Binion will take possession. Although Las Vegas casinos have never offered poker because it was too hard to keep out cheats, Binion will host a regular game in a corner of the Horseshoe. He will have to sell his controlling interest in 1953 to pay the legal costs of defending himself against racketeering charges in Texas and will serve 3½ years at Leavenworth Penitentiary; his family will regain control of the Horseshoe in 1964, but Binion himself will never again be allowed to hold a gaming license (see World Series of Poker, 1972).
The U.S. Senate Special Committee on Interstate Crime (Kefauver Committee) hearings at Miami reveal extensive evidence that members of the New York Police Department have received payoffs to protect bookmaking operations. More than 100 officers are either dismissed, resign, or retire. Underworld boss Frank Costello testifies March 19 that he was only an occasional dabbler in politics, giving advice to Tammany Hall but never contributing to political campaigns, although he admits to having recognized Carmine G. De Sapio and more than a dozen Tammany district leaders. Former mayor William O'Dwyer admits to the Kefauver Committee March 20 that he visited Costello's apartment at the Majestic on Central Park West and that he appointed some men with mob connections to political jobs.
The body of New York waterfront racketeer Philip Mangano, 51, is found April 19 in a deserted marsh near Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn. Mrs. Mary Gooch, a middle-aged fishing boat owner, has discovered the body lying face down and clad only in a white shirt, white undershirt, white shorts, black socks, and black tie with a gold tie-clip. Mangano was an aide to waterfront boss Joe Adonis (who lives at Fort Lee, N.J.). Three bullets have been fired into the back of his head; he has evidently been killed elsewhere. Police grill Adonis, gambler Frank Costello, Umberto "Albert" Anastasia, and others, including Mangano's son Vincent, 22; they speculate that Mangano may have been killed because he had talked of leaving town and might have been trying to sever his connections with the Mafia hierarchy. His brother Vincent disappears shortly thereafter and Anastasia, who is believed to have had the Mangano brothers killed, assumes control of the Genovese crime family, with help from mobster Frank Scalise (see 1957; Sutton, 1952).
Victor Gruen Associates is founded by Austrian-born U.S. architect Victor Gruen, 48, whose firm will have a major impact on U.S. building design and city planning (see Fort Worth Plan, 1952). Gruen has designed shopping malls, store fronts, and some of the structures at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Pittsburgh's 30-story, aluminum-clad Alcoa building is completed on Mellon Square to designs by Harrison & Abramovitz; Pittsburgh's 41-story U.S. Steel and Mellon building is completed to designs by Harrison & Abramovitz.
The Farnsworth House is completed at Plano, Ill., to International Style designs by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, now 65, as a weekend retreat for Chicago nephrologist Edith Farnsworth, 48. A glass rectangle raised five feet above the ground by eight steel piers, it has 2,000 square feet of interior space and is surrounded by 58 acres of woods and open land.
A second Levittown goes up in Bucks County, Pa., with houses for 17,000 families plus schools and churches to be built on land donated by the developers (see 1947). A third Levittown will have 12,000 homes in New Jersey by 1965 with houses of three basic designs in a variety of color schemes commingled on each street. The three- to four-bedroom houses sell for between $$1,500 and $14,500 each including major appliances, and the low prices encourage thousands of Americans to leave the city and move into suburban developments that sprawl across the landscape as scores of builders adopt the methods pioneered by Levitt.
Britain's Peak District National Park opens in Derbyshire April 17, having been authorized by Parliament in mid-December of last year. Covering an area of 866 square miles, the park includes 10½-mile-long Lake Windermere and England's other largest lakes as well as England's highest mountains (including 3,210-foot Scafell Peak and 3,118-foot Helvellyn), but growing demand for water in the industrial northwest will require closing Thirlmere Lake for recreational purposes and making it a reservoir.
The worst floods thus far in U.S. history inundate Kansas and Missouri; 41 die between July 2 and 19. Some 200,000 are left homeless, and property damage reaches $1 billion.
A 2-year drought begins in Australia; it will kill off millions of head of livestock and force rationing of butter.
Australian sheep-raisers introduce the virus disease myxomatosis that is endemic in South America in an effort to kill off the rabbits that are consuming enough grass to feed 40 million sheep (see Austin, 1859). The introduction of hawks, weasels, snakes, and other predators has not appreciably reduced the rabbits' numbers, hundreds of thousands of miles of costly rabbit-proof fencing has not stopped them, but rabbits infected with the virus are released, mosquitoes and other insects communicate the disease, and in some areas 99 percent of the rabbits are eliminated before natural resistance to myxomatosis becomes dominant (see environment [France], 1952). Virologist Dame Jean Macnamara, 52, has helped obtain the controversial virus from South America and will be credited with saving the wool industry more than £30 million.
The chlorinated insecticide endrin is introduced to help farmers fight bugs that are resistant to DDT and other sprays introduced since 1943 (see 1945; 1948).
Texas-born U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist Edward F. (Fred) Knipling, 42, finds a new way to control insect populations biologically rather than chemically; having seen full-grown cattle die within 10 days after being attacked by the maggots hatched from eggs laid by screwworm flies twice the size of houseflies, and having noticed as far back as 1938 that male screwworms mate repeatedly while females mate only once, Knipling has worked with his colleague Raymond C. Bushland to develop an irradiation method, using an old Army X-ray machine to sterilize male insects and then releasing them on Sanibel Island, Fla., to mate with females who will die without reproducing (see 1954).
British authorities reduce the meat ration January 27 to its lowest level ever—the equivalent of four ounces of rump steak per week. A beef shortage leads to the consumption of 53,000 horses for food, but Britain produces enough food to supply half her domestic needs, up from 42 percent in 1914 when the population was 35 million as compared with 50 million today. British farms have 300,000 tractors, up from 55,000 in 1949.
Congress votes June 15 to loan India $190 million to buy U.S. grain (see agriculture [P.L. 480], 1954). India's Socialist Party has organized a huge demonstration at New Delhi to protest the Indian government's food policies.
The United States agrees to supply Yugoslavia with $38 million in food aid.
Food becomes more plentiful in the Soviet Union after years of scarcity, but deliveries of many, if not most, items are so irregular that long lines form outside shops when news spreads that the items are in stock. Shelves are full at shops that accept only hard (foreign) currency.
Kwashiorkor proves to be a worldwide disease among children whose diets were protein-deficient in infancy (see 1933). It goes by different names in different countries.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules March 26 in the case of 62 Cases of Jam v. The United States that a wholesome product clearly labeled "imitation jam" cannot be said to be "misbranded" under terms of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, even though it does not meet the standard of genuine jam. Justices Douglas and Black dissent.
U.S. food prices climb steeply in the Korean War inflation. The nation suffers a beef shortage as affluent consumers increase their demand.
Tupperware gets a new lease on life from Georgia-born saleswoman Brownie (Mae) Wise (née Humphrey), 38 (see 1947). Earl Tupper's polyethylene Wonder Bowls and other food containers have languished on hardware and department store shelves; Wise has made a success selling cleaning aids, brushes, pots, and pans for Stanley Home Products (see retail trade [Stanley], 1931), earning enough money as a divorced woman to support her young son at Detroit. Few opportunities to make decent money exist even for college-educated women. Wise joins with 20-year-old Stanley salesman Gary McDonald to start a new company under the name Tupperware Patio Parties, the two recruit enthusiastic urban and suburban housewives to give parties where their friends and neighbors can learn how to "burp" the airtight containers. The parties brighten the social lives of people without cars, and TPP is soon selling more Tupperware than the stores.
Parks Sausage is introduced by Baltimore sausage maker Henry G. Parks, 34, whose firm will grow to become one of the 10 largest black-owned enterprises in America.
Gerber Products starts using MSG (monosodium glutamate) in its baby foods to make them taste better to mothers (see MSG, 1934; consumer protection, 1969).
U.S. candy consumption falls to 17.6 pounds per capita while Britons consume 30.1 pounds.
The Food and Drug Administration gives approval to the noncaloric sweeteners sodium cyclamate and potassium cyclamate for use as food additives (see 1950; No-Cal, 1952; government ban, 1969).
Tropicana Products is founded at Bradentown Fla., to produce chilled, pasteurized orange and grapefruit juice. Italian-born entrepreneur Anthony T. Rossi, 51, established a business in the late 1940s to pack chilled fruit sections in glass jars and will develop ways to extract juice by varying degrees depending on the quality of the fruit (see 1955).
Britain's first supermarket chain begins operations in September (see 1948). Premier Supermarkets opens its first store in London's Earls Court.
L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes opens at Paris. The French cooking school for Americans is conducted by Boston cook Julia Child (née McWilliams), 39, who served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the war; Simone Beck (Simone Suzanne Renée Madeleine Beck-Fischbacher), 47; and Louisette Bertholle, who have studied under Henri-Paul Pellaprat of the Cordon Bleu (see cookbook, 1961).
The U.S. population reaches 153 million, the USSR has 172 million, China 583 million, India 357, Pakistan 76, Japan 85, Indonesia 78, Britain 50, West Germany 50, Italy 47, France 42, Brazil 52.
Infant mortality in India is 116 per thousand, down from 232 in 1900. In the United States it is 29, down from 122 in 1900, and in Britain it is 30.
New York (with suburban areas) has 12.3 million people, London 8.4 million, Paris 6.4, Tokyo 6.3, Shanghai 6.2, Chicago 5, Buenos Aires 4.8, Calcutta 4.6, Moscow 4.2, Berlin 4.4, Los Angeles 4, Leningrad 3.2, Mexico City 3.1, Bombay 2.9, Beijing (Peking) 2.8.
Margaret Sanger urges development of an oral contraceptive for humans. She visits with Gregory (Goodwin) Pincus, 48, scientific director of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, and promises him a grant to follow up on experiments he has conducted on fertility in animals (see 1948). Pincus has brought Min-Chueh Chang, an expert in artificial insemination and sperm biology, from Cambridge University to work with his team at Worcester (see 1954).
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