1953
1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960
Yugoslavia adopts a new constitution January 12 and elects Marshal Tito 2 days later as first president of a Yugoslav Republic (see 1948). Tito will work to resolve differences between Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, and Montenegrins.
Former German field marshal Karl R. von Rundstedt dies at Hanover February 24 at age 77.
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith resigns as CIA director February 26 and is succeeded by Watertown, N.Y.-born lawyer Allen W. (Welsh) Dulles, 60, who has been Smith's deputy since August 1951 and will head the agency until November 1961.
Josef Stalin dies March 5 at age 73, 4 days after being stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage in his apartment at the Kremlin. Having ruled the Soviet Union with an iron hand since 1928, he is succeeded as chairman of the Council of Ministers by World War II aircraft and tank production chief Georgi Maximilianovich Malenkov, 51, who will head the USSR until 1958. Marshal Klimenti E. Voroshilov, now 72, will serve as president until 1960. Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, 54, is dismissed July 10 and shot as a traitor December 23; Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, 58, is named first secretary of the Communist Party.
Sick and disabled Korean War prisoners are exchanged following Stalin's funeral but hostilities soon escalate.
Czechoslovakia's president Klement Gottwald dies of pneumonia at Prague March 14 at age 56, having caught a chill at Stalin's funeral. He has imposed a Soviet-style government on the country, had about 180 party officals executed after rigged trials, and is succeeded by Premier Antonín Zápotocky, 68, who will hold the position until his death in 1957.
Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld, 48, is elected Secretary-General of the UN March 31 and will hold the post until his death in 1961.
The Battle of Pork Chop Hill 50 miles north of Seoul rages from April 16 to 18, pitting Gen. Arthur Trudeau's U.S. 7th Division against Gen. Peng Dehuai's (Peng Te-huai's) Chinese communist forces, who have seized the non-strategic hill to test UN resolve. Nine U.S. artillery battalions fire 77,349 ronds in the 2-day battle, and the Chinese are driven off with heavy loss of life (U.S. casualties are also heavy, but less so).
U.S. planes bomb North Korean dams in May, flooding rice fields; President Synghman Rhee releases North Korean prisoners of war June 18 in a move to stall peace talks, 60,000 Chinese attack July 13 and 45,000 UN troops under the command of Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, now 51, counterattack 2 days later, but an armistice signed July 27 at Panmunjom near the 38th parallel ends a 3-year conflict that has left both sides in ruins (New York lawyer Arthur [Hobson] Dean, 55, of Sullivan & Cromwell has negotiated for 7 weeks on behalf of the United States and UN at the Panmunjom talks). North Korean and Chinese casualties (dead and wounded): 1,540,000; UN casualties: 344,227, including 36,914 U.S. dead, 103,284 wounded. Some 2 million Korean civilians, North and South, have been killed, thousands left homeless, and a state of war between the two countries will continue to exist for more than 50 years.
North Korean MiG-15 pilot No Kum-Sok flies his plane into Kimpo Air Base September 21 and turns over his top-secret Russian fighter plane to the Americans, who have offered a $100,000 reward for a MiG-15 (defector Kum-Sok has been unaware of the reward but receives it anyway). Communist forces have lost 954 aircraft in the course of the war, 827 of them MiG-15s (U.S. F-86 Sabres have downed 792 of the MiGs flying in "MiG Alley" south of the Yalu River to stop the MiGs from attacking UN bombers and fighter bombers from bases in China; only 78 Sabres have been lost). Test flights conducted at Okinawa and in the United States reveal that the MiG-15 is not supersonic. The Kremlin orders development of a new generation of aircraft with a speed of up to Mach 2 and a service ceiling of 20,000 meters (see MiG-21, 1959).
Philippines president Elpidio Quirino loses his bid for reelection to his secretary of defense, former schoolteacher and wartime guerrilla leader Ramon Magsaysay, 45, who has reformed the army and constabulary, gained peasant support, and defeated the communist-led Huk movement. Backed by the Nacionalista Party (even though he is a Liberal) and by former president Carlos P. Romulo, who has organized a third party, Magsaysay will serve until his death in 1957, establishing a reputation for incorruptibility, but the vested interests that control the legislature will thwart his efforts to pass land-reform measures.
Ethel Rosenberg and her husband, Julius, are executed at Sing Sing Prison June 19 for transmitting U.S. atomic secrets to Soviet agents (see 1951); a new series of U.S. atomic tests begins in the Nevada desert.
The U.S. Department of Justice tells Charlie Chaplin that he cannot re-enter the United States until he can satisfy the Immigration Office that he is not a dangerous and unwholesome character. Now 64 and still a British subject, the actor-producer joins the long list of motion picture people blacklisted because of alleged communist sympathies and "subversive, un-American" opinions.
Sen. Robert A. Taft (R. Ohio) dies of cancer at New York July 31 at age 63; Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright (ret.), of a cerebral thrombosis at San Antonio, Texas, September 2 at age 70; U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson of a heart attack at Washington, D.C., September 8 at age 63 after 7 years as head of the court. He is succeeded as chief justice September 30 by former California governor Earl Warren, now 62, who will preside until his retirement in 1968.
Publisher's wife and former playwright Clare Boothe Luce, now 49, takes office March 3 as U.S. ambassador to Italy (but see 1954).
The USSR explodes a hydrogen device August 12 and elevates physicist Andrei Sakharov to full membership in the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advances the hands on its "Doomsday Clock" to 2 minutes before midnight (see 1949); in years to come the hands will be set at times varying from 3 minutes (1984) to 17 minutes (1991) before midnight as apprehensions of a nuclear holocaust wax and wane.
U.S. authorities charge atomic physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in December with having communist sympathies and with possible treason. Now 49, Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project's scientific team that built the 1945 atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan but has opposed building a hydrogen bomb (see 1954).
Former Spanish prime minister Dámaso Berenguer, conde de Xauen, dies at Madrid May 19 at age 79.
René Coty is elected president of France on the 13th ballot December 23 to succeed Vincent Auriol. Now 71, Coty will remain in office until early 1959. World War I flying ace René Fonck has died at Paris June 18 at age 59.
Former British governor general of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Sir Reginald Wingate dies at Dunbar, East Lothian, January 28 at age 91. Britain and Egypt agree February 12 on self-determination for Sudan (see 1951). President Naguib resigns in February, but civilian and military pressures force him to resume the office that he assumed last year (see 1954).
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers conspire with British agents to overthrow Iran's nationalist prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh and return Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi to power (see 1951). Mossadegh's chief of staff gets wind of the plot and rushes troops to defend the prime minister, the shah flees to Baghdad, but a mob incited by the CIA and led by a giant thug ousts Mossadegh, and the shah regains power August 19 through a coup engineered and financed by the CIA and British Intelligence, allegedly to prevent a Soviet takeover (see 1955).
French authorities in Morocco deport the sultan Muhammad V in August, first to Corsica, then to Madagascar (see 1951), but the UN Security Council declines September 4 to respond to an Arab call to intervene in Morocco's dispute with France (see 1955).
Israel draws censure from the United Nations October 15 for heavy reprisals against border raids from Jordan.
Saudi Arabia's ibn Saud dies at at-Taif November 9 at age 73. He founded the kingdom in 1926, saw it renamed Saudi Arabia in his honor 6 years later, initiated the search for petroleum that made his kingdom rich, and has watched the vast wealth of the kingdom corrupt the austere religious principles to which he has dedicated his life. He is succeeded by his Kuwaiti-born son, 51, who will reign ineptly until 1964 as Saud ibn Abdul Aziz.
Norodom Sihanouk seizes all government buildings in a bid for complete independence after French colonial officers sign protocols May 9 giving Cambodia "full sovereignty" in military, judicial, and economic matters (see 1951). Paris-born Col. Christian (Marie Ferdinand de la Croix) de Castries, 51, is placed in charge of defending Dien Bien Phu (Dien-bienhu) in December, he is promoted to brigadier general, and the French start building a huge entrenched camp in an effort to retain Vietnam and Cochin China; Castries was captured by the Germans in 1940, escaped the following year from a prisoner-of-war camp, and served with the Allies in North Africa, Italy, and southern France; his 250,000-man army faces a communist army only half as large (but see 1954).
A 10-year campaign for independence of Kenya from Britain begins in East Africa. A court convicts Jomo Kenyatta and five other Kikuyu April 8 of masterminding the Mau Mau terrorist effort (see 1952); Kenya's Supreme Court quashes the conviction July 15, and the East African Court of Appeals sustains the ruling September 22, but colonial administrators in the next few years will place more than 100,000 Africans in detention camps, 2,000 Kikuyu loyal to the British crown will be murdered before the colonial government regains control, and 33 Europeans will die before Jomo Kenyatta is banished in 1961 (see 1963).
Colombia's military ousts President Laureano Eleuterio Gómez in the country's first such coup d'état since the 19th century after a 3-year administration in which he has antagonized all elements of society with his attempts to impose fascism, fomenting a rural rebellion with repressive measures that terrorized Protestants, tied the hands of the judiciary, and thwarted the press (see 1950). Gómez flees to Spain and is succeeded by Gen. Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, whose harshly repressive and incompetent administration will continue until 1957 as he and his daughter Maria Eugenia Rojas try to end La Violencia and stimulate the economy, appealing to the masses and making efforts to redress their grievances against the country's elite.
Cuban lawyer Fidel Castro Ruiz, 27, organizes a rebel force to unseat the dictatorship of Gen. Fulgencio Batista (see 1952). He leads about 160 men in a rash, ill-equipped attack on the Moncada military barracks at Santiago de Cuba July 26 in hopes of gaining popular support for his cause, but most of the men are killed and Castro himself is arrested. The archbishop of Santiago intercedes in his behalf, his life is spared, but he is placed on trial, convicted, and sentenced to a 15-year prison term after writing a speech that contains the phrase, "I will be absolved by history" (borrowed from Hitler's Mein Kampf). Castro and his brother Raul will be released under terms of a political amnesty in 1955 and travel to Mexico, where they will continue their campaign to oust the Batista regime (see 1956).
Britain grants British Guiana (later Guyana) a new constitution, and voters elect their first prime minister by democratic balloting. Sugar plantation foreman's son Cheddi (Berret) Jagan, 35, gave up his dentistry practice to become a union activist and 3 years ago established the country's first modern political party (the People's Progressive Party), with help from his Chicago-born wife, Janet (née Rosenberg), now 32, and (Linden) Forbes (Sampson) Burnham, now 30. He wins the election but his program of radical socioeconomic reform produces strikes and demonstrations that lead British authorities late in the year to suspend the new constitution, remove Jagan from office, and send in troops to thwart consolidation of what they view as a pro-communist government (see 1957).
Gen. George C. Marshall voyages to Norway in December aboard the S.S. Andrea Doria to accept the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. In his acceptance speech at Oslo he notes the anomaly of giving the prize to a soldier, says he knows "a great deal of the horrors and tragedies of war," and observes that while the "maintenance of peace in the present hazardous world situation does depend in very large measure on military power, together with allied cohesion," "the maintenance of large armies for an indefinite period is not a practical or a promising basis for policy. We must stand together strongly for these present years . . . but we must, I repeat, must find another solution."
The South African Parliament votes February 24 to give Prime Minister Daniel F. Malan dictatorial powers to oppose black and Indian movements against the nation's apartheid laws (see 1952; Sharpeville, 1960).
Mexico and Sudan grant women the right to vote on equal terms with men.
Hundreds of Cuban women fight police in midtown Havana December 5 as they try to march to a rally organized by the Society of Friends of the Republic. Members of the Women's Martí Centennial Civic Front, allied with the 26th of July movement headed by the exiled revolutionist Fidel Castro, they sustain casualties: scores are beaten and many arrested (see 1959).
France must industrialize if she is to surmount poverty, according to General Planning Commission chief Jean Monnet, whose Schuman Plan will lead to increased industrialization (see 1950). German parliamentary leader Heinrich von Brentano, 48, is president of the six-nation Schuman Plan committee charged with drafting a constitution for a proposed European federation (see 1959; Treaty of Rome, 1957).
Parliament votes to denationalize Britain's steel industry (see 1949). The new legislation establishes an Iron and Steel Board to supervise the privately owned companies, which remain associated in the British Iron and Steel Federation created in 1934 (see 1967).
The new Eisenhower administration gives orders in early February that all U.S. federal agencies are to curtail new requests for personnel and construction and recommend ways that the Truman budget may be cut. Federal tax reductions should be postponed until the budget is balanced, says President Eisenhower. Per-capita state taxes have increased from $29.50 to $68.04 since 1943, the Census Bureau reveals.
Moscow suspends reparation payments by East Germany March 26.
East Berlin workers rise up June 16 to protest low wages and bad conditions. Soviet tanks mow down the strikers with machine gun fire, ending illusions that communism is a workers' paradise.
The American Stock Exchange is created by a renaming of the New York Curb Exchange, whose members have not traded from curbs since 1921.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average begins the year at 293.79—87.38 short of the 1929 high—but closes December 31 at 280.9, down from 291.9 at the end of 1952.
Italian leather-goods manufacturer Aldo Gucci, 48, and his brother Rodolfo open a New York store against the wishes of their father, Guccio, who has died this year at age 72 (see everyday life, 1921). Gucci loafers with colorful fabric instep strips and double-G "shaffle-bit" metal trim will become status symbols, and Gucci shops will open at London, Paris, Palm Beach, Beverly Hills, and Tokyo.
Gen. Omar Bradley tells outgoing President Truman that a criminal investigation into the "international oil cartel" threatens national security; Truman drops his attack on Standard Oil of New Jersey, Gulf, the Texas Company, Socony-Mobil, Standard Oil of California, and their foreign colleagues Anglo-Iranian and Royal Dutch-Shell; the Justice Department drops its grand jury probe in April and files a civil complaint, accusing the companies of a conspiracy to monopolize the industry (see 1960).
Congress cancels President Truman's executive order of January 18 creating a U.S. Navy petroleum reserve out of offshore oil lands. The Tidelands Oil Act passed May 22 gives coastal states title to the submerged lands. The Supreme Court will uphold the act within a year.
Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobrás) is established under a bill signed in October by Brazil's President Vargas creating a government monopoly in oil exploration, development, refining, and transport. "O petróleo é nosso!" ("The oil is ours!"), he has said.
A giant uranium deposit found in Ontario's Algoma Basin will make Canada a leading world supplier of the ore used to produce fuel for nuclear energy. Latvian-born Toronto mining stock speculator Joseph (Herman) Hirshhorn, 54, has organized a search by some 80 field men using Geiger counters and stakes 1,400 claims covering 56,000 acres. He obtained rights 3 years ago to mine uranium on 470 square miles of territory round Lake Athabasca and established Rix Athabasca, the first Canadian uranium mine to operate on private risk capital. Hirshhorn will share his Algoma Basin find with the Rothschild-backed Rio Tinto Co. of London, a 90-year-old firm that is now selling its Spanish copper, sulfur, and iron pyrite properties and looking for new ventures (see iron ore, 1964).
President Eisenhower proposes an Atoms for Peace program December 8 in a speech to the UN General Assembly. The United States, he says, can help other nations harness the power of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes that will divert emphasis from exploitation of nuclear fission for military applications; the new Soviet regime agrees to exploratory talks.
A passenger train approaching Washington, D.C., with carloads of people coming for President Eisenhower's inauguration loses its brakes January 15, its engineer has time to advise his passengers to move to the rear cars and to have Union Station cleared of people, the Federal Express crashes through the floor of the station, 87 people are injured, but no one is killed.
A British Overseas Airways (BOAC) Comet 1 jet takes off from Calcutta May 2 and crashes soon after (see 1952). Another will break up in midair in January of next year and a third will break up 3 months later, causing the entire Comet fleet to be grounded until engineers discover that the square corners of the de Havilland plane's large windows create tiny cracks in the thin metal of the fuselage and eventually cause sudden depressurization (see 1958).
A U.S. Air Force B-29 takes off for Los Angeles from Bedford, Mass., February 8 with eight MIT professors and a flight crew and flies for 12 hours without anyone touching the controls (the crew takes over within 10 miles of LA). Missouri-born MIT aeronautical engineer Charles Stark Draper, 51, devised improved gunsight systems during World War II and has now developed an inertial guidance system that will be widely used not only in commercial aviation but also in space exploration (seeApollo 7, 1968). It employs three friction-free gyroscopes that respond to motion on one axis to "remember" a charted cources, taking into account such factors as the Earth's rotation.
The Vickers Viscount powered by Rolls-Royce turboprop Dart engines goes into service for BOAC. Nearly 440 of the new passenger planes will be sold, including 82 to U.S. airlines, and Rolls-Royce will make more than 6,000 Dart engines.
The DC-7 propeller plane introduced by Douglas Aircraft sells for well over $1.5 million as compared with less than $100,000 for the DC-3 of 1936. Douglas has been slow to move into production of commercial jets and will not build its DC-8 jet until forced by pressure from Boeing, whose 707 will give it industry leadership (see 1955; Comet, 1952).
The privately-owned Japan Air Lines (JAL) created 2 years ago is reorganized as the government-owned Japan Airlines (JAL). A JAL Martin 404 crashed last year, killing all 37 aboard; the new company acquires a DC-6, it will begin international service (initially to San Francisco) before the end of the decade, and will return to private ownership in 1987.
A Douglas Skyrocket dropped from a B-29 bomber at 34,000 feet and piloted by World War II ace Marion E. Carl sets an unofficial world altitude record August 21, ascending to 83,235 feet above California's Muroc Dry Lake (see 1947).
Britain de-nationalizes road transport in May, just before the coronation of Elizabeth II (see 1947).
German Volkswagens go on sale in Britain for the first time (see 1949; Microbus, 1950).
New York transit fares rise to 15¢ July 25 (see 1948) and the first subway tokens are introduced. Subway ridership will decline by 33 percent in the next 23 years, and on Eighth Avenue line trains such as the A Train, ridership will decline by 42 percent as fares continue to rise and frequency of trains declines (see 1966).
The last of New York's double-decker Fifth Avenue buses go out of service (see 1936). Rising labor costs have doomed buses that require fare collectors in addition to drivers.
IBM sells its 701 computer to Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., whose president has told Thomas J. Watson Jr., 39, that three floors of its building were used to store punched cards and threatened to cancel its contract (see 1952). Although the 701 is inferior to Remington Rand's Univac, the 701 is the first computer designed for business uses; customers are accustomed to IBM systems and support (see 1954).
A plastic valve mechanism for aerosol cans developed 4 years ago by New York-born inventor Robert H. Abplanalp, now 30, sharply lowers production costs. The Abplanalp valve will lead to the marketing of countless consumer products propelled by freon gas from low-cost containers (see 1945; environment [ozone question], 1958).
A new catalytic process for producing polyethylene plastic invented by German chemist Karl Ziegler, 55, uses atmospheric pressure instead of the 30,000 pounds per square inch pressure required by the ICI process of 1935. Ziegler was the first to explain the reactions involved in the synthesis of rubber and is now director of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research at Mülheim in West Germany; having set out merely to repeat a preparation of higher aluminum alkyls by heating ethylene and aluminum triethyl in an autoclave, he and his student Ernst Holzkamp have obtained a complete conversion of the ethylene monomer. It turns out that the autoclave was used earlier for hydrogenation experiments using nickel as a catalyst, a trace of colloidal nickel remained. Italian chemist Giulio Natta, 50, uses Ziegler's catalysts in experiments with the polymerization of propylene, obtaining polypropylenes whose molecular structures are highly consistent. The Ziegler-Natta catalysts usher in a new era of higher quality, low-cost plastics, and foreign companies besiege the institute with applications for rights to use the Ziegler process.
"We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA)," begins a one-page article in the April 25 issue of Nature. Chicago-born genetic researcher James D. (Dewey) Watson, 25, and English geneticist Francis H. C. (Harry Compton) Crick, 37, of Cambridge University write, "This structure has novel features that are of considerable biological interest" and in the following (May 30) issue they develop some of the implications of a model that has the basic structure of a double helix and shows how the genetic material in animal and human cells can duplicate itself (see Avery, 1944). Watson and Crick have seen X-ray diffraction studies of hydrated DNA material made by King's College, London, researcher Rosalind (Elsie) Franklin, 33, whose own paper is published in the April 25 Nature. Her New Zealand-born colleague Maurice Wilkins, 36, has made X-ray diffraction studies of his own (he worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1944 to 1945), he has shown Franklin's photographs to Watson and Crick without her permission, she quits King's College to pursue a new study project on the structure of viruses, she will die of cancer in 1958 at age 37, and she will not share in the honors that the three men will receive for discovering the basic structure of a double helix. Their work shows how genetic chromosome material in animal and human cells can duplicate itself, thus creating the modern science of molecular biology. Watson and Crick announced February 28 to regulars at a Cambridge pub that they had discovered "the secret of life"; they demonstrate that chromosomes consist of long helical strands of the substance DNA, research studies conducted throughout the world confirm their experiments, and breaking the genetic code that determines the inheritance of all physical characteristics opens new possibilities for preventing inherited disorders (see 1926; Ochoa, 1955).
The Biochemistry of Genetics by J. B. S. Haldane reports his basic studies of sex-linkage in chromosomes and of mutation rates.
Vienna-born Cambridge University molecular biologist Max Perutz, 39, makes a significant breakthrough toward understanding the hemoglobin molecule. A chance conversation with a cousin's husband at Prague in 1937 sparked his interest in hemoglobin while he was working at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. He began experiments using crystals of equine hemoglobin, and the war delayed his work. His assistant John C. Kendrew, now 36, used ovine hemoglobin crystals before recognizing that hemoglobin from diving mammals and birds would serve better because myoglobin (used to store oxygen) comprises nearly one tenth of the dry weight of their muscles. Perutz obtained a large chunk of sperm whale meat from Peru, its myoglobin yielded large crystals that produced splendid X-ray diffraction diagrams, but the diffraction pattern from a crystal showed only the amplitudes of the diffracted rays, not their phases. Perutz now solves the phase problem, Kendrew will have a rough model of the hemoglobin molecule by 1957, and by 1959 he and his associates will have an atomic model—the first such model of any protein.
New York-born University of Chicago physicist Murray Gell-Mann, 23, introduces the concept of "strangeness"—a quantum property that would account for decay patterns of certain mesons (see Yukawa, 1935; Feynman, Schwinger, 1948). Gell-Mann received his Ph.D. from MIT 2 years ago, and his doctoral research was on subatomic particles. The decay of mesons has puzzled scientists worldwide, but Gell-Mann suggests that a subatomic particle such as a meson conserves the property he calls "strangeness" when it interacts via the force that binds components of the atomic nucleus (see 1961; Segrè, Chamberlain, 1955).
"Piltdown Man Forgery / Jaw and Tooth of Modern Ape / 'Elaborate Hoax'," says a Times of London headline November 21. "The Biggest Scientific Hoax of the Century," reports the London Star. An illustrated British Museum bulletin headed "The Solution of the Piltdown Problem" has been issued the day before, revealing that the late Charles Dawson fraudulently manufactured the skull fragments he "found" in 1912. Oxford professor of physical anthropology Joseph Weiner, 38, has exposed the fraud, embarrassing many distinguished scientists who were taken in by it.
Microbiologist Sergei Winogradsky dies at Brie-Comte-Robert, France, February 25 at age 96; mathematician-aerodynamicist Richard von Mises at Boston July 14 at age 70; Nobel physicist Ludwig Prandtl at Göttingen, Germany, August 15 at age 78, having pioneered the science of aerodynamics; astronomer Edwin P. Hubble dies at San Marino, Calif., September 28 at age 63; chemist Edwin J. Cohn following a stroke at Boston October 1 at age 60; Nobel physicist Robert A. Millikan at his San Marino, Calif., home December 19 at age 85.
Brazilian-born English zoologist Peter Brian Medawar, 48, lays the groundwork for immunology and organ transplants with his finding that adult animals injected with foreign cells early in life accept skin grafts from the original cell donor (see Demikhov, 1946; kidney transplant, 1954; Thomas, 1956).
U.S. Public Health Service researcher Robert J. Huebner, now 39, and his colleague, Wallace Rowe, detect a virus that will later be called the adenovirus (see rickettsialpox, 1944). In trying to grow common cold viruses in cultures of human adenoid and tonsil tissue, they find other viruses that will be associated with acute respiratory illnesses and will go on to discover cytomegalovirus, which will be identified as a major hazard for organ-transplant recipients and people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS; see 1981; cancer, 1969).
A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Boston heart specialist Robert W. Wilkins shows positive results in treating hypertension (high blood pressure) with an extract of the herbal plant rauwolfia used in India (see reserpine, 1952; chlorothiazide, 1957).
Cryosurgery is pioneered by Denver-born University of Colorado Medical School surgeon Henry Swan, 2nd, 40, who lowers body temperature to slow circulation and permit dry-heart surgery.
English biochemist John (Henry) Gaddum, 53, shows that LSD is a potent "antagonist" of serotinin, a chemical substance that has just been found to exist in the human brain (see Hofmann, 1943). While serotinin makes muscles contract (and helps induce sleep), LSD blocks serotinin's ability to stimulate the contraction of certain muscles (see 1955).
Tobacco-tar condensates can induce cancer when painted on the backs of mice, reports German-born Ernest L. (Ludwig) Wynder, 31, of New York's Sloan-Kettering Institute of Cancer Research in a paper written with his Washington University professor and mentor Evarts A. Graham (see 1954; Reader's Digest article, 1952).
A new U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) established by Congress April 11 incorporates most of the functions of the Federal Security Agency (FSA) created by the late President Roosevelt in 1939. Former WAC commander Oveta Culp Hobby is named first secretary of HEW, whose various agencies include the 155-year-old U.S. Public Health Service; that agency will grow in 40 years to have a budget of about $17 billion, employing about 5,700 commissioned officers and 51,000 civil service workers.
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female by Alfred C. Kinsey is based on interviews with more than 5,000 women, half of whom said they engaged in sexual intercourse before marriage, one third of them with two or more men (see 1948). Published August 20, the book creates a storm of controversy. The National Research Council appointed a committee in 1950 to study Kinsey's methods, it included statistician John Tukey who antagonized Kinsey by singing Gilbert and Sullivan tunes aloud while he worked, and the committee issues a report that finds Kinsey's sampling method seriously flawed (as was true of the male study the subjects were all white, middle-class, and college-educated). One of every four women in the study admitted to having had extramarital intercourse, 62 percent said they had masturbated (as compared with 92 percent of males). The Rockefeller Foundation comes under attack from Sen. McCarthy and religious leaders for having helped finance the work, the Foundation will withdraw its funding next year, and Kinsey will be unable to find other grants.
Danish endocrinologist Christian Hamburger receives so many applications from Americans who want the procedure that enabled George Jorgensen to become Christine Jorgensen that Denmark's minister of justice restricts sex-change operations to native Danes (see 1952).
In The Conflict in Education and University of Utopia former University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins, now 54, defends nonconformity and protest.
Moscow State University's main building is completed in the Soviet capital, where the high-rise structure dominates the city skyline.
Literacy House is established at Alahabad and Lucknow in Pakistan by Rome, N.Y.-born educator Welthy Honsinger Fisher, 73, who at age 44 married a Methodist Episcopal bishop, worked with him in India and America until his death in 1938, and became a close friend of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Bengali novelist Rabindranath Tagore. Using her innovative portable libraries and classroom kits (roll-up blackboards, crayons, slates, chalk, and lamps) that can be transported on bicycles, thousands of teachers will go out from Literacy House to give instruction in functional literacy.
Japanese television broadcasting begins February 1 as NHK airs its first TV programs. A pioneer radio firm that was reorganized on a nonprofit basis in 1950, NHK will grow to have two radio networks and two TV networks whose stations will outnumber those of commercial networks.
The U.S. television industry has revenues of $538 million, thanks in part to heavy support by cigarette advertisers. Radio advertising revenues amount to $451 million and take their first downturn since the Depression of the 1930s (see 1968).
The American Broadcasting Co. (ABC) is acquired for $24.5 million by Pennsylvania-born movie theater owner Leonard H. Goldenson, 48, who will make ABC a powerful rival of NBC and CBS (see 1943). The network has five owned and operated stations plus eight affiliates, reaches 35 percent of U.S. households, and needs someone with Goldenson's entrepreneurial skills.
TV Guide begins publication April 3 with pocket-size weekly program listings and has a circulation of 1.5 million by year's end. Publisher Walter H. Annenberg has merged his 9-year-old Seventeen magazine with his father's Philadelphia Inquirer and racing publications to create Triangle Publications (see 1922; 1936). He has bought out small TV-list publishers in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, and Chicago and created 10 regional editions.
The United States Information Agency (USIA) created August 3 by President Eisenhower under Reorganization Plan No. 8 has the Voice of America (VOA) as its largest single element. The educational exchange program remains under State Department control, but the new agency, authorized by the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, reports directly to the president through the National Security Council; it receives daily guidance on U.S. foreign policy from the secretary of state. Eisenhower issues a directive October 22 defining the USIA's mission; 28 communications and public relations experts headed by PR pioneer Edward L. Bernays form a voluntary, non-partisan group (the National Committee for an Adequate Overseas Information Program) to support an information program that will be "a powerful offensive and defensive weapon for our nation and one vital to our national strength." VOA headquarters will move next year from New York to Washington, D.C.
CBS airs a weekly Person-to-Person television interview show October 12, featuring journalist Edward R. Murrow (and his omnipresent cigarette); it will continue until mid-September 1961.
BBC's current affairs program Panorama debuts November 11 with investigative reports about Britain and the world. It will survive into the 21st century as the longest-running public affairs program in the world.
I. F. Stone's Weekly begins publication at Washington, D.C. Now 45, journalist Stone picks up where George Seldes left off when he discontinued in fact 3 years ago; his absolutely independent four-page newsletter begins with a circulation of only 5,500. He will level sharp criticisms at Israel's policies and at Sen. McCarthy's red-baiting, and his circulation will grow to 68,000 by 1968.
The 7½-year-old German newspaper Die Welt is acquired September 17 by publisher Axel Springer, who retains Hans Zehrer as editor.
Journalist George Creel dies at San Francisco October 2 at age 76.
Canadian media magnate Roy Thomson turns over to his 30-year-old son Kenneth Roy his 28 Canadian and six U.S. newspapers plus his radio stations; now 59, he acquires the 136-year-old newspaper The Scotsman, moves to Edinburgh, and begins adding to an empire that will grow to include hundreds of newspapers and magazines worldwide along with other enterprises (see television, 1957; Kemsley papers, 1959).
L'Express begins publication at Paris under the direction of Elle editor Françoise Giroud, 37, and her economist lover Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, 30, whose motto is, "France can bear the truth." In 10 years they will turn the journal of leftist, anti-colonialist opinion into a highly successful news magazine modeled on Time and Newsweek.
Playboy magazine begins publication in December with a nude calendar photograph of Marilyn Monroe, who when asked what she had on for the picture tells reporters, "The radio." Chicago publisher Hugh Hefner, 27, has started his frankly sexist magazine with an initial investment of $10,000. He features nude photography and ribald cartoons (seePenthouse, 1969).
The Higonnet-Moyroud photographic type-composing machine introduced by Photon, Inc. is far more advanced than the 1949 Fotosetter. Produced under license from the Graphic Arts Research Foundation, it is operated from a standard typewriter keyboard at full electric typewriter speed and delivers film negatives instead of metal type.
Nonfiction: "The Hedgehog and the Fox" by Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who elaborates on a thought by the 7th century B.C. Greek poet Archilocus of Paros and divides the world into those who have one big idea ("hedgehogs," e.g., Plato, Dante) and those who have many smaller ones ("foxes," e.g., Aristotle, Shakespeare); The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana by Michigan-born Michigan State College history of civilization professor Russell (Amos) Kirk, 34, challenges "liberal" ideas. He and others will use the word conservative to mean a mixture of religiosity, white supremacy, homophobia, and an ideological opposition to almost every kind of government "interference" with private property but staunch support of government interference in women's reproductive rights (see communications [National Review], 1955); The Age of Suspicion by New York-born New York Post executive editor James A. (Arthur) Wechsler, 37, who has attacked Sen. Joseph McCarthy's tactics (a member of the Young Communist League in the 1930s, Wechsler has become adamantly anti-communist but cannot stomach McCarthy); The Worldly Philosophers by New York economist and historian of economic thought Robert Heilbroner, 34; The Making of the Middle Ages by Oxford historian Richard W. (William) Southern, 41; Philosophical Investigations (Philosophische Untersuchungen) by the late Lugwig Wittgenstein, who did not wish his final work to be published until after his death; Scientific Explanation: A Study of Theory, Probability, and Law in Science by Cambridge University philosopher R. B. (Richard Bevan) Braithwaite, 53; Writing Degree Zero (Le Degré zéro d'ecriture) by French philosopher Roland Barthes, 38; The Temper of Western Thought by Crane Brinton; The Captive Mind (Zniewolony umysl) (essays) by poet Czeslaw Milosz, who condemns the Polish intellectual community for its easy acceptance of communism; The Reason Why by Irish author Cecil Blanche Woodham-Smith (née Fitz Gerald), 56, is about the charge of the Light Brigade 100 years ago; A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton; The Silent World by Jacques Cousteau is a first-hand account of the development and promise of scuba diving; The Overloaded Ark by Indian-born English naturalist-author Gerald (Malcolm) Durrell, 28, younger brother of novelist Lawrence.
Psychologist-author Walter B. Pitkin dies at Palo Alto, Calif., January 25 at age 74; philosopher C. E. M. Joad at London April 9 at age 61; historian Douglas Southall Freeman at Richmond, Va., June 13 at age 67.
Fiction: The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow; Invisible Man by Oklahoma City-born novelist Ralph (Waldo) Ellison, 39, is about black identity; Go Tell It on the Mountain by New York-born novelist James (Arthur) Baldwin, 29, who has gone to Paris to escape U.S. prejudice against blacks and homosexuals; For Esme—With Love and Squalor (nine stories) by J. D. Salinger, whose story "Teddy" appears in the New Yorker January 31; Acquainted with the Night (Undsagte kein einziges Wort) by Heinrich Böll, who points for the first time to the moral vacuum that underlies the "economic miracle" of postwar Western Germany; The Erasers (Les Gommes) by French novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, 31, who rejects conventional character and plot; Thundering Union (Kiga domei) by Kobo Abe; The Garden to the Sea by Philip Toynbee; A Kid for Two Farthings by Wolf Mankowitz; Someone Like You (stories) by Welsh-born British writer Roald Dahl, 37; Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton; The Lying Days and The Voice of the Serpent by South African novelist Nadine Gordimer, 29; The Dark Child (L'Enfant noir) by French Guinea-born novelist Camara Laye, 25; The Space Merchants by New York science-fiction novelists Frederik Pohl, 33, and C. (Cyril) M. Kornbluth, 30; Battle Cry by Baltimore-born Marine Corps veteran Leon (Marcus) Uris, 29; Junkie by St. Louis-born novelist William Lee (William Seward Burroughs), 39, a grandson of the adding machine inventor. A 1936 Harvard graduate who was drafted in 1942 but got out of the army after 3 months, he has been a heroin addict since 1944, killed his wife 2 years ago in a drunken effort to shoot an apple off her head, will sell his typewriter next year for funds to support his habit, and will remain an addict until 1957, writing in longhand while he sleeps with men, women, and children; Who Calls the Tune (in America, Eyes of Green) by English novelist Nina (Mary) Bawden (née Mabey), 28; The Crown Princess and Other Stories and Hackenfeller's Ape by London-born novelist Brigid (Antonia) Brophy, 24, who is openly bisexual; The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann; 7½ Cents (in Britain, A Gross of Pyjamas) by Richard Bissell (see Broadway musical, 1954); Children Are Bored on Sunday by Jean Stafford; Hondo by self-educated North Dakota-born novelist Louis (Dearborn) L'Amour, 45; Cress Delahanty by Jessamyn West; The Schirmer Inheritance by Eric Ambler; Casino Royale by London actor-novelist Ian (Lancaster) Fleming, now 45, whose hero James Bond is a Secret Service agent allowed to kill in line of duty (007) (Fleming's Special Operations head "M" is supposedly based on Col. Maurice Buckmaster, and "Miss Moneypenny" on Buckmaster's assistant Vera Atkins).
Nobel novelist-poet Ivan Bunin dies at Paris November 8 at age 83.
Poetry: The Waking by Theodore Roethke; Poems, 1940-1953 by Karl Shapiro; Turandot and Other Poems by Rochester, N.Y.-born New York advertising copywriter-poet John Ashbery, 26; Poems by Cincinnati-born New York poet Kenneth Koch, 27, who receives his Ph.D. from Columbia; The Kind of Act and The Immoral Proposition by Arlington, Mass.-born poet Robert (White) Creeley, 27; Suite Marine by Robert Guy Choquette; Poems by English poet Elizabeth (Joan) Jennings, 27, whose work expresses social protest; Man: A Broad Garden (Clovek zahrak sira) by Czech poet Milan Kundera, 24.
Poet-playwright Dylan Thomas collapses in his Chelsea Hotel room at New York and dies of acute alcoholism at St. Vincent's Hospital November 9 at age 39.
Juvenile: The Sojourner by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.
Author Hilaire Belloc dies at Guildford, Surrey, July 16 at age 82, having once written, "When I am dead, I hope it may be said, 'His sins were scarlet, but his books were read'"; Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at her beach house near St. Augustine, Fla., December 14 at age 57.
Painting: Study after Velàzquez: Pope Innocent X by Francis Bacon; Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock; Woman and Bicycle by Willem de Kooning; Automobile Tire Print by Texas-born New York artist Robert Rauschenberg, 27, who has studied under Josef Albers at North Carolina's Black Mountain College. Composer John Cage has driven his Model-A Ford over a long strip of paper unrolled by Rauschenberg outside his Fulton Street studio; Big Red by California abstract expressionist Samuel Lewis "Sam" Francis, 30, who has lived at Paris since 1950 and will remain there until 1957; Age of Anxiety by Ben Shahn; Four Square by Franz Kline; Washington Crossing the Delaware Larry Rivers is based on the 1851 work by Emanuel Leutze; Open Wall by Helen Frankenthaler; Laurence at the Piano by Winnetka, Ill.,-born painter Fairfield Porter, 46, who was admitted to Harvard at age 16, studied art history there, determined to become a painter, and studied at New York's Art Students' League from 1928 to 1930 but has only recently gained recognition and moved to Southampton, N.Y.; City Vertical (collage) by Lee Krasner; The Shadow by Pablo Picasso; Apples by Georges Braque. Raoul Dufy dies at Forcalquier, France, March 23 at age 75; Everett Shin at New York May 1 at age 79; John Marin at Addison, Me., October 1 at age 82; Francis Picabia at his native Paris November 30 at age 74.
Sculpture: King and Queen by Henry Moore.
Theater: Waiting for Godot (En attendant Godot) by Anglo-Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, 46, 1/5 at the Théatre de Babylone, Paris (written in French, it will be open at London in August 1955); The Crucible by Arthur Miller 1/22 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with Arthur Kennedy, Jennie Egan, Walter Hampden, Jean Adair in an account of the 1692 Salem witch trials intended as a parallel to the persecution of alleged communist sympathizers in the United States, 197 perfs.; The Fifth Season by New York-born playwright Sylvia Regan (née Hoffenberg), 43, 1/23 at New York's Cort Theater, with Warsaw-born actor Menasha Skulnik, 62, Richard Whorf, Dick Kallman, 654 perfs.; Picnic by William Inge 2/19 at New York's Music Box Theater, with Ralph Meeker, Paul Newman, New Mexico-born actress Kim Stanley, 28, Norwood, Ohio-born ingénue Janice Rule, 21, Grand Rapids, Mich.-born Elizabeth Wilson, 31, Eileen Heckart, Peggy Conklin, 477 perfs.; My Three Angels by Sam Spewack and Bella Spewack (who have adapted a French play) 3/11 at New York's Morosco Theater, with Walter Slezak, Jerome Cowan, Spokane-born ingénu Darren McGavin, 30, 344 perfs.; Professor Taranne (Le professeur Taranne) by Arthur Adamov 3/18 at the Théâtre des Noctambules, Paris; The Direction of the March (La seres de la marche) by Arthur Adamov 3/18 at the Théâtre de la Comédie, Lyons; Camino Real by Tennessee Williams 3/19 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with Eli Wallach, Frank Silvera, Oakland, Calif.-born actress Jo Van Fleet, 33, Martin Balsam, Barbara Baxley, Hurd Hatfield, Michael Griggs, 60 perfs.; Medea (Medée) by Jean Anouilh 3/26 at the Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris; All Against All (Tous contre tous) by Arthur Adamov 4/14 at the Théâtre de l'oeuvre, Paris; Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas 5/3 at Harvard's Fogg Museum; Don Juan, or The Love of Geometry (Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie) by Max Frisch 5/5 at Berlin's Schillertheater; Tea and Sympathy by New York-born playwright Robert (Woodruff) Anderson, 36, 9/30 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Deborah Kerr, John Kerr, 712 perfs.; The Teahouse of the August Moon by John Patrick 10/15 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with New Jersey-born actor John Forsythe (originally John Freund), 35, David Wayne, 1,027 perfs.; The Trip to Bountiful by Horton Foote 11/3 at Henry Miller's Theater, New York, with Lillian Gish, Jo Van Fleet, Eva Marie Saint, Gene Lyons, 39 perfs.; Kind Sir by Norman Krasna 11/4 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Charles Boyer, Mary Martin, Frank Conroy, Margalo Gillmore, Dorothy Stickney, 166 perfs.; The Sleeping Prince by Terence Rattigan 11/5 at London's Phoenix Theatre, with Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Martita Hunt, 274 perfs.; The Solid Gold Cadillac by Chicago-born playwright Howard (Miles) Teichmann, 38, and George S. Kaufman 11/5 at New York's Morosco Theater (to Music Box Theater 5/10/1954), with Josephine Hull, Loring Smith, comedian Fred Allen (as narrator), 526 perfs.; Sabrina Fair by Samuel Taylor 11/11 at New York's National Theater, with Margaret Sullavan, Joseph Cotten, Cathleen Nesbitt, Scott McKay, John Cromwell, 315 perfs.; Daybreak (Madrugada) by Antonio Buero Vallejo 12/9 at Madrid's Teatro Alcázar; The Angel Comes to Babylon by Friedrich Dürrenmatt 12/22 at Munich's Kammerspiele; In the Summer House by novelist Jane Bowles 12/29 at New York's Playhouse Theater, with Judith Anderson, Elizabeth Ross, Don Mayo, Mildred Dunnock, Jean Stapleton, 55 perfs. (Bowles and her husband, Paul, have lived in Tangier since 1952); The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker by New York-born playwright Liam O'Brien, 57, 12/30 at New York's Coronet Theater, with Burgess Meredith, Martha Scott, Glenn Anders, Una Merkel, 221 perfs.
Ontario's Stratford Festival (initially the Shakespearean Festival) founded by journalist Harry Thomas "Tom" Patterson, 34, will grow to be the larest repertory theater in North America. Patterson gains support from director Tyrone Guthrie,Richard III starring Alec Guinness opens July 13, and although Stratford has lost its locomotive servicing industry, theater-based tourism will restore its prosperity.
The New York Shakespeare Festival is founded by Brooklyn-born theatrical impresario Joseph Papp (originally Yosl Papirofsky), 32, who will stage plays in Central Park's Delacorte Theater beginning in 1962 with The Merchant of Venice.
London-born director Joan (Maud) Littlewood, 39, takes over the dilapidated Theatre Royal in Stratford East.
Actress Jean Adair dies at New York May 11 at age 79, forcing the producers of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible to find a replacement; playwright Ugo Betti dies at Rome June 9 at age 61; actress Maude Adams at Tannersville, N.Y. July 17 at age 80; actress Leonore Harris at New York September 27 at age 74; playwright Eugene O'Neill of pneumonia at Boston November 27 at age 65 (he has scarcely spoken to his daughter Oona since her marriage in June 1943 to Charlie Chaplin, a man only 6 months O'Neill's junior); theater owner Lee Shubert dies at New York December 25 at age 78.
Television: The Life of Riley 1/2 on NBC with William Bendix, Marjorie Reynolds (to 8/22/1958); You Are There 2/1 on CBS with host Walter Cronkite (to 10/13/1957); Romper Room in February on a Baltimore TV station with an actress as hostess of a daily morning preschooler show of games and lessons that is an immediate success (in its first week a toddler says on air, "I have to go potty! And I'm doing it right now."). It is taken over in April by teacher Nancy Claser (née Goldman), 38, whose producer husband drafts her for the position when the actress falls ill. "Miss Nancy" will write and create many segments, training the Miss Louises, Miss Marys, Miss Mollys, and other Miss Nancys who by the late 1950s will be serving as hosts of franchised versions in some 160 U.S. cities (to 9/1994); The Big Payoff (quiz show) 3/30 on CBS (to 10/16/1959); Marty by New York playwright Sidney "Paddy" Chayefsky, 30, 5/24 on NBC's Philco Playhouse, with Westhampton, N.Y.-born actor Rod Steiger, 28, Nancy Marchand; The Big Deal by Chayefsky 7/19 on NBC's Philco Playhouse with Anne Jackson, David Opatoshu; Name That Tune (quiz show) 7/6 on CBS (it will later move to NBC; to 10/19/1959); Captain Midnight 9/4 on non-network stations with Richard Webb in the title role, Sid Melton as Ichabod "Ikky" Mudd, Olan Soule as Aristotle "Tut" Jones in a TV version of the radio show (to 1/21/56); Lassie 9/12 on CBS with Tommy Rettig as Timmy, Jan Clayton (later with Jon Provost, Cloris Leachman, June Lockart) in a series written by Sumner Arthur Long (to 9/12/1971); A Letter to Loretta 9/12 on NBC with Hollywood star Young, now 40, who will rename her program The Loretta Young Show next year (to 1961); Cheyenne 9/20 on ABC with Illinois-born actor Clint Walker, 27, Jack Elam (to 8/30/1963); Make Room for Daddy 9/29 on ABC with Michigan-born actor Danny Thomas (Amos Jacobs), 39, Baltimore-born actor Hans Conreid (Frank Foster), 38 (to 9/14/1964); Father Knows Best 10/4 on CBS with Robert Young as Jim Anderson, Jane Wyatt as his wife, Margaret (to 2/3/1967, 191 episodes); The Bachelor Party by Paddy Chayefsky 10/11 on NBC's Philco Playhouse, with Eddie Albert, Kathleen Maguire; The Bob Hope Show 10/12 on NBC with comedian Hope, now 50, and guests (to 5/22/1956); The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin 10/15 on ABC with Lee Aaker, James L. Brown (to 8/28/1959); Walt Disney 10/27 on ABC with animated cartoon pioneer Disney as host. The show features Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter 12/15 starring Fort Worth-born actor Fess Parker, 29, Illinois-born actor Christian Rudolf "Buddy" Ebsen, 46 (to 10/17/61).
Films: Henry Koster's The Robe with Welsh-born Shakespearean actor Richard Burton (Richard Jenkins), 27, Jean Simmons, and Victor Mature is the first film to be produced in CinemaScope, a process invented in the late 1920s by French physicist Henri Chrétien, now 74, that "squeezes" a wide picture onto a standard 35-millimeter film and then employs a special projection lens to restore the clarity of the image and expand it onto a wide screen. Designed to counter the inroads that television is making on movie theater receipts, CinemaScope employs screens much wider than those used for conventional films and has a stereophonic soundtrack; Arch Oboler's Bwana Devil with Robert Stack is the first three-dimensional film and represents another effort to compete with television (audiences need Polaroid viewers to see the 3-D film).
More notable films: Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity with Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra; Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni with Alberto Sordi, Franco Interlenghi, Franco Fabrizi; Charles Walters's Lili with Leslie Caron, New Jersey-born actor Mel Ferrer, 35; Kenji Mizoguchi's Princess Yang Kwei Fei with Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori; Ingmar Bergman's Sawdust and Tinsel with Harriet Andersson, Ake Gronberg; George Stevens's Shane with Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Brandon de Wilde; Billy Wilder's Stalag 17 with William Holden, Don Taylor, Vienna-born director Otto Preminger, now 45; Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story with Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama. Also: Gerald Mayer's Bright Road with Cleveland-born actress Dorothy Dandridge, 30, as a southern schoolteacher, New York-born calypso singer-actor Harry Belafonte, 25; George Seaton's The Country Girl with Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, William Holden; Charles Frend's The Cruel Sea with Jack Hawkins; Irving Rapper's Forever Female with Ginger Rogers, William Holden, Paul Douglas, Pat Crowley; Sidney Gilliat's The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan with Robert Morley, Shakespearean actor Maurice Evans, 52, Martyn Green; Arne Sucksdorff's The Great Adventure with Anders Norberg; Ida Lupino's The Hitchhiker; Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar with Marlon Brando, James Mason, John Gielgud; Philip Leacock's The Little Kidnappers with Jon Whitely, Vincent Winter; Kinyuo Tanaka's Love Letter (Koibumi); Jacques Tati's Mr. Hulot's Holiday (Les Vacances de M. Hulot) with Tati; John Ford's Mogambo with Clark Gable, Ava Gardner; Anthony Mann's The Naked Spur with James Stewart, Merced, Calif.-born actress Janet Leigh (originally Jeanette Morrison), 26, Minneapolis-born actor Ralph Meeker (originally Ralph Rathgerber), 32, Chicago-born actor Robert Ryan, 42; William Wyler's Roman Holiday with Belgian-born actress Audrey Hepburn (originally Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston), 24, Gregory Peck; Herbert Biberman's Salt of the Earth with Juan Chacon, Rosaura Revueltas, Indiana-born actor Will Geer, 51, in a profeminist drama about New Mexico mineworkers (Revueltas is blacklisted along with director Biberman, Will Geer, the producer, and screenwriter Paul Jarrico, 38, as paranoia about "Reds" continues to fester. Hollywood studios threaten to boycott theaters that show the film, its backers lose money, and U.S. producers avoid subjects that might offend right-wing elements); Ken Annakin's The Sword and the Rose with Richard Todd, 34, Glynis Johns, 29, as Mary Tudor; Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu with Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori.
Explorer and film maker Osa Johnson dies of a heart attack at New York January 7 at age 58; motion picture pioneer Cecil Hepworth at London February 9 at age 79; screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz of uremic poisoning at Hollywood March 5 at age 55; silent film actor William Farnum of cancer at Hollywood June 5 at age 76; Roland Young at his New York home June 5 at age 65; Sir Godfrey Tearle at London June 8 at age 68; director Vsevolod Pudovkin July 1 (date of report) at age 60; director Irving Reis of cancer at Hollywood July 3 at age 47; Lewis Stone of a heart attack at Hollywood September 12 at age 73 while chasing vandals off his lawn; Nigel Bruce of a heart attack at Santa Monica October 8 at age 58.
Hollywood musical: Vincente Minnelli's The BandWagon with Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Jack Buchanan, Nanette Fabray, Oscar Levant, music by Arthur Schwartz, lyrics by Howard Dietz, songs that include "That's Entertainment," "Triplets," "By Myself," "Shine on Your Shoes."
Broadway musicals: Hazel Flagg 2/11 at the Mark Hellinger Theater, with Helen Gallagher, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Hilliard, songs that include "Every Street's a Boulevard in Old New York," 190 perfs.; Wonderful Town 2/25 at the Winter Garden Theater, with Rosalind Russell, Dody Goodman, Pennsylvania-born actress Edie Adams (originally Edith Enke), 25, music by Leonard Bernstein, book by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields based on their 1940 stage play My Sister Eileen, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, songs that include "Ohio," "A Quiet Girl," "Conga!" 559 perfs.; Can Can 5/7 at the Shubert Theater, with California-born dancer Gwen (originally Gwyneth Evelyn) Verdon, 28, book by Abe Burrows, music and lyrics by Cole Porter, songs that include "I Love Paris," "C'est Magnifique," "It's All Right with Me," 892 perfs.; Me and Juliet 5/28 at the Majestic Theater, with Isabel Bigley, Joan McCracken, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, songs that include "No Other Love," 358 perfs.; Comedy in Music 10/2 at the John Golden Theater, with Copenhagen-born piano virtuoso-humorist Victor Borge (originally Borge Rosenbaum), 44, in a one-man show, 849 perfs. (originally booked for 2 weeks, it will run for nearly 3 years); Kismet 12/3 at the Ziegfeld Theater, with Alfred Drake, Chicago-born actor Richard Kiley, 31, music based on the works of Aleksandr Borodin, lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, songs that include "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," "Stranger in Paradise," "This Is My Beloved," 538 perfs.; John Murray Anderson's Almanac 12/10 at the Imperial Theater, with Harry Belafonte, Polly Bergen, Billy DeWolfe, Hermione Gingold, Orson Bean, Tina Louise, Kay Medford, music and lyrics by Jerry Adler and Jerry Ross, 229 perfs.
Irene Bordoni dies of cancer at New York March 19 at age 59.
Opera: The Harpies 5/25 at New York, with music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein (who wrote it in 1931); Gloriana 6/8 at London's Covent Garden, with Joan Cross as Elizabeth I, Peter Pears as Essex, music by Benjamin Britten, libretto by William Plomer; Kathleen Ferrier has made her final public appearance in February, fell ill after singing in only two of the four scheduled performances of Gluck's Orpheo, and dies October 8 at age 41; West Virginia-born soprano Phyllis (Smith) Curtin, 30, makes her debut with the New York City Opera with which she will sing for the next 10 years in all the major Mozartian heroine roles, Violetta, Salome, and Cressida (in William Walton's 1954 opera Troilus and Cressida) while singing also at Frankfurt, Vienna, Milan, and Buenos Aires; baritone Theodor Uppmann makes his Metropolitan Opera debut 11/27 singing the role of Pelléas in the 1902 Debussy opera Pelléas et Melisande.
Baritone Tito Ruffo dies at Florence July 5 at age 76; bass-baritone Friedrich Schorr at Farmington, Conn., August 14 at age 64; contralto Kathleen Ferrier of cancer at London October 8 at age 41; composer Emmerich Kálmán at Paris October 30 at age 71, having written 22 operettas.
Ballet: Fanfare 6/2 at London's Covent Garden, with music by Benjamin Britten, choreography by Jerome Robbins. Melissa Hayden begins 20 years as principal dancer of the New York City Ballet, with which she has danced since 1949.
First performances: Suite Hebraique by Ernest Bloch 1/1 at Chicago; Symphony No. 7 (Sinfonia Antarctica) by Ralph Vaughan Williams 1/14 at Manchester; Kontra-Punkte by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, 24, 5/26 at West German Radio's Electronic Studio in Cologne; Sinfonia breve and Concerto No. 2 in G minor for Strings by Bloch 4/11 in a BBC Symphony concert broadcast; Te Deum and Orb and Sceptre march by Sir William Walton 6/2 at London for the coronation of Elizabeth II; Symphony No. 5 by Darius Milhaud 10/16 in a radio concert broadcast from Turin; Atomic Bomb symphonic fantasy by Japanese composer Masao Oki, 52, 11/6 at Tokyo; Symphony No. 10 by Dmitri Shostakovich 12/17 at Leningrad.
Composer Sergei Prokofiev dies of a heart ailment at Moscow March 4 at age 61; pianist William Kappell in an airplane crash near San Francisco October 29 at age 31 en route home from a concert tour in Australia; Berkshire Music Festival patroness Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge at Cambridge, Mass., November 4 at age 90; composer-conductor Albert Coates at Milnerton, South Africa, December 11 at age 71.
Cantata: Une Cantata de Noël by Arthur Honegger 12/12 at Basel.
Popular songs: "I'm Walking Behind You" by English songwriter Billy Reid; "I Believe" by Erwin Drake, Irvin Graham, Jimmy Shirl, and Al Stillman, whose religious song will have sales of 20 million records; "Rags to Riches" by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross (Jerold Rosenberg), 27; "Ruby" by Heinz Roemheld, lyrics by Mitchell Parish (for the film Ruby Gentry); "O Mein Papa" by Paul Burkhard (for the Swiss film Fireworks), English lyrics by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons; "Eternally" ("The Terry Theme") by Charles Chaplin (for his film Limelight), lyrics by Geoffrey Parsons; "You, You, You" by Lotar Olias, lyrics by Robert Mellin; "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo" by Bronislau Kaper, lyrics by Helen Deutsch (for the film Lili); "That's Amore" by Harry Warren, lyrics by Jack Brooks (for the film The Caddy); "The Last Drunkenness" ("La Ultima Curda") by tango composer Anibal "Pichuco" Troilo, lyric by C'tulo Catillo; "That Doggie in the Window" by Bob Merrill; "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" by composer George Corey, lyrics by California songwriter Douglas Cross, 33, whose work will not gain popularity until Tony Bennett records it in 1962.
Charlie Parker records "Round Midnight" with Miles Davis January 30 (Alton, Ill.-born jazz trumpeter-composer Miles Dewey Davis 3rd, now 26, left the Juilliard School of Music in 1945 to join Parker's bebop band); Parker appears at Toronto May 15 with Max Roach, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Mingus (the concert is recorded for an album entitled The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever).
Folklorist Alan Lomax "discovers" Scottish folk singer Jeannie Robertson, now 45, at her native Aberdeen. She has been virtually unknown outside northeastern Scotland but hereafter will make recordings that will have a great impact on reviving the folk music tradition.
Cairo singer Umm Kulthum Ibrahim records songs that celebrate her country's new republican government and its leader Muhammad Naguib.
Mexican mariachi singer Lola Beltrán (Maria Lucia Beltrán Alcayaga), 22, moves with her mother to Mexico City, takes a secretarial job at a local radio station, performs on one of its weekly talent shows, and within a year is starring in her own show to begin a career of more than 40 years in which she will make "Cucorrucucu paloma" her signature song.
Rhythm & blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton, 26, records "Hound Dog," written for her by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller; rhythm & blues singer LaVern (originally Delores LaVern) Baker, 24, records "Soul on Fire"/"How Can You Leave a Man Like This" and launches herself on a notable career; Paris-born French-German guitarist-singer Caterina Valenti, 22, records "Malagueña" by Cuban composer Ernest Lecuona and has her first hit; Alabama-born folk singer-guitarist Odetta (Holmes Felious Gordon), 22, travels to San Francisco and makes her first recordings; Teresa Brewer records "Ricochet"; Oklahoma-born country singer-bass player Jean Shepard, 19, records "Dear John Letter" with singer Ferlin Husky and has her first hit (one of 10 children, the five-foot one-inch blonde started singing with her own band at age 14); Eartha Kitt records "C'est Si Bon" and "Santa Baby"; Patti Page records "How Much Is That Doggie In the Window"; Rosemary Clooney sings Irving Berlin's 1942 song "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby (in the eponymous film); Mississippi-born blues guitarist Albert King, 30, records "Bad Luck Blue" for the Parrot label to begin a notable career after years of working as an Arkansas cotton picker and bulldozer operator.
Country music singer-composer Hank Williams dies of a heart attack in the back seat of his Cadillac while on tour near Oak Hill, W. Va., January 1 at age 29, having cut more than 40 hit records, including 11 that went to number one on the country chart (an estimated 20,000 people turn out for his funeral at Montgomery, Ala.); songwriter Peter De Rose dies at New York April 23 at age 57; jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt of a brain hemorrhage (stroke) at Samois-sur-Seine May 16 at age 43; Tin Pan Alley composer Fred E. Ahlert at his native New York October 20 at age 61.
Newton Center, Mass.-born Boston ice dancer Tenley (Emma) Albright, 17, completes a 6-year comeback from poliomyelitis by winning the world figure-skating championship February 15 at Davos, Switzerland.
Former Olympic runner Jim Lightbody dies at Charleston, S.C., March 2 at age 74; former world heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries at Burbank, Calif., March 3 at age 77; athlete Jim Thorpe at Lomita, Calif., March 28 at age 64.
Dark Star wins the Kentucky Derby to give Native Dancer his only defeat in 22 races. Owned by horseman Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, now 40, and ridden by jockey Eric Guerin, the Dancer is bumped at the first turn, makes a gallant stretch run, but is beaten by a head as the Cain Hoy Stable's horse brings home the roses.
New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary, 33, and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay, 39, reach the summit of Mount Everest (Chomolungma) on the Nepal-Tibet border in the Himalayas May 29 in the first successful ascent of the world's highest (29,035 feet) peak (see Mallory, 1924). Sponsored by the 123-year-old Royal Geographical Society, the expedition has been headed by Col. (Henry Cecil) John Hunt, 43, of the British Army, who—along with Hillary—is rewarded with a knighthood.
Tennis legend William "Big Bill" Tilden dies in bed of a heart attack at Hollywood, Calif., June 5 at age 60. Banned from clubs in recent years for his overt homosexuality, he has a net worth of $88.11.
Elias Victor "Vic" Seixas Jr., 29, (U.S.) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Maureen Connolly in women's singles; Marion Anthony "Tony" Trabert, 22, (U.S.) wins in men's tennis at Forest Hills, Connolly in women's singles (Connolly wins the "grand slam," taking the Australian, French, English, and U.S. women's singles championships).
Ben Hogan wins the U.S. Open and Masters golf tournaments, breaks the Masters record by five strokes, and wins his first British Open.
Swimmer Florence Chadwick sets a new English Channel speed record of 14 hours, 42 minutes September 4 and sets another record October 7 by swimming the Bosphorus from Europe to Asia and back again.
The Boston Braves become the Milwaukee Braves as major league baseball begins a geographical realignment spurred in part by the fact that the airplane has reduced travel time (see Aaron, 1954; Atlanta, 1966).
The New York Yankees win the World Series, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers 4 games to 3 and gaining the championship for an unprecedented fifth consecutive time.
Hungary's national "Golden Team" beats England in football (soccer) at Wembley Stadium November 25. The 6-to-3 victory by what the British press call the "Magical Magyars" revolutionizes the English game with teamwork and a new system of placing the center forward (Nandor Hidegkuti, 31) in a deep position behind the inside forwards. Hidegkuti stuns the English team by scoring just minutes into the game and scores two additional goals.
Matchbox Cars are introduced by the English firm Lesney Products & Co., whose die-cast toys (initially the Muir Hill Site Dumper, Road Roller, Massey Harris Tractor, and Cement Mixer) are accurately detailed and small enough to be carried about in yellow match boxes. Rodney and Leslie Smith have founded the company, it will launch "Models of Yesteryear" in 1956 but go into receivership in 1982; the cars will remain popular into the 21st century (see Mattel's Hot Wheels, 1968).
New York and Newport, R.I., society queen Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt (née Grace Wilson) dies at her 28-room 1048 Fifth Avenue home January 7 at age 82; William Sackville, 12th duke of Bedford, dies of a gunshot wound while out hunting October 3 at age 64. He has made provisions to escape estate duties but they have not yet taken effect; his son John Robert Russell, 35, has taken his family to live in South Africa, learns that he has inherited the title, flies home, and finds that he has also inherited a £4 million tax bill left by his father and grandfather. Trustees sell off part of the 16,000-acre property that has been the family seat since early in the 17th century, but the new duke persuades them not to sell the almost derelict Woburn Abbey and the 800-piece set of Sèvres porcelain given to the 4th duke by France's Louis XV. Bedford will restore Woburn Abbey, defraying the cost by turning its 3,000-acre grounds into an amusement park, souvenir shop, and safari park to the horror of other British aristocrats. Bedford and his (second) wife will open the place to tourists in 1955 (the first will arrive by two cars and a bicycle), and allow paying guests to have dinner with him and his family; by the end of the century the place will be receiving more than 1.5 million visitors per year.
Couturier Robert Piguet dies at Lausanne February 22 at age 51, having closed his Paris fashion house 2 years ago.
British designer Laura Ashley (née Mountney), 28, designs scarves on her kitchen table to begin what will become a worldwide business (see 1967).
Washington Times-Herald photographer Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, 24, is married at Newport, R.I., September 12 to Sen. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (D. Mass.), now 36 .
L&M cigarettes, introduced by Liggett & Myers, have "Alpha-Cellulose" filter tips and are advertised as "just what the doctor ordered." Tareyton filter-tipped cigarettes are introduced by American Tobacco, but U.S. per-capita cigarette consumption will decline 8.8 percent in the next 2 years.
The body of 20-year-old Italian model Wilma Montesi is found near the beach at Ostia in April, sparking an investigation that will lead to sensational allegations of drug use and sex orgies in Roman society. The mystery of her death will remain unsolved, even after years of trials and acquittals that will expose corruption in high places.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals reverses the conviction of a man found guilty of rape, saying he should have been permitted to present testimony of a prior relationship with his victim "regardless of how false the testimony may have been."
Tokyo's Okura Hotel opens across from the U.S. Embassy in the Toranomon district, giving the city a new level of luxury accommodations. Its spacious lobby will provide a popular meeting place for East and West alike.
Air conditioning window units grow in number to 1,045,000 in the United States, up from 74,000 in 1948 (see 1946). Federal office workers at Washington, D.C., have heretofore been sent home when temperatures topped 90° F., and air conditioning will be blamed (or credited) with increasing the bureaucratic population in the nation's capitol. It will also create population booms in the so-called Sun Belt of southern states.
Architect R. M. Schindler dies at Los Angeles August 22 at age 65; Erich Mendelsohn at San Francisco September 15 at age 66.
Winter storms in January raise the North Sea to its highest levels in 5 centuries, wreaking havoc when Dutch dikes and seawalls burst February 1. The ocean pours in, drowning 1,800, leaving 100,000 homeless, and flooding large areas. The waters destroy more than 4,000 buildings, the Dutch will spend vast amounts to erect a system of coastal barriers, and London will build effective flood gates on the Thames estuary.
French rabbits infected with myxomatosis are released in Britain. The disease will wipe out most of the country's wild rabbits (see 1952).
The deadliest U.S. tornado since 1947 hits Waco, Texas, May 11, killing 114 people; another one hits Flint, Mich., June 8, leaving 115 dead. Roughly 1,000 tornadoes hit the United