istoryworld
All Events
The Cassel Foundation (founded by Sir Ernest Cassel, grandfather of the Countess Mountbatten) establishes the Cassel Hospital for functional nervous disorders at Ham Common
An election campaign in Poland, marked by violence and the use of terror, brings a Communist landslide
Peacetime conscription, known as national service, is introduced in Britain for all 18-year-old males
US scientist Edwin Land demonstrates a new device, the Polaroid camera, to the Optical Society of America
English author and alcoholic Malcolm Lowry publishes an autobiographical novel, Under the Volcano
The US Congress passes a National Security Act, setting up the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Capa, Cartier-Bresson and others found Magnum, a cooperative of leading photographers running their own picture agency
Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti begins to develop his characteristic style of tense elongated bronze sculpture
President Truman defines postwar US policy by pledging support for any nation defending itself against Communism
Francis Poulenc makes an opera of Guillaume Apollinaire's play Les Mamelles de Tirésias ('The Breasts of Tiresias')
Thor Heyerdahl sets sail across the Pacific from Peru in a balsa wood boat, the Kon-Tiki
Bertolt Brecht's play The Life of Galileo has its premiere in Los Angeles with Charles Laughton in the lead
Marlon Brando stars on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar named Desire
Hungarian-born British engineer Dennis Gabor creates the first three-dimensional image from reflected light, subsequently known as a hologram
Saxophonist 'Bird' Parker forms his own quintet in New York, often to be heard at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem
Parliament Mews is built on the site of Cromwell House, with the original high boundary walls still in place around the Mews
33-year old Aung San, prime minister of Burma, and six of his ministers are assassinated during a cabinet meeting
In granting independence to India, Britain partitions the subcontinent along sectarian lines into Pakistan and the republic of India
Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, becomes also the first governor-general
Jawaharlal Nehru becomes prime minister of the newly independent republic of India
Muslim leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah becomes the first governor-general of the new state of Pakistan
J.B. Priestley challenges audiences with An Inspector Calls, a play in which moral guilt spreads like an infection
Baseball-player Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American in a major league team
French designer Christian Dior introduces the 'New Look', a lavish feminine style of dress welcomed by all after wartime austerity
US artist Jackson Pollock's drip paintings cause a stir in New York
