istoryworld
All Events
Cambodia wins independence from the colonial power, France
Secret-police chief Lavrenti Beria is executed by the new Soviet regime
Merce Cunningham forms his own company of dancers, initially at Black Mountain College in North Carolina
Molecular biologists Francis Crick and James Watson announce their discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA
Churchill moves Harold Macmillan to a new department, as minister of defence
Baseball star Joe Dimaggio marries Marilyn Monroe, but the marriage lasts only a year
Dylan Thomas's 'play for voices', Under Milk Wood, is broadcast on BBC radio, with Richard Burton as narrator
Senator McCarthy's Communist witch-hunt is broadcast live for several weeks on US television
Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa directs The Seven Samurai
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb', is investigated for Communist sympathies and his security clearance is withdrawn
The term Domino Theory is coined to reflect President Eisenhower's view of how states might fall to Communism
A painting by Graham Sutherland, commissioned for Winston Churchill's 80th birthday, does not meet with the full approval of the sitter or his wife
Bill Haley & His Comets record Rock Around the Clock, providing an early classic of US rock and roll
The German firm NSU builds the first working example of the rotary engine invented in 1924 by Felix Wankel
Hungarian photographer Robert Capa is killed by a land mine in Vietnam
Alfredo Stroessner seizes power in Paraguay, introducing three decades of repressive dictatorship
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends with the surrender to the Vietminh of 12,000 French troops
The French abandon Vietnam, leaving the country divided at the seventeenth parallel
Politician and author Winston Churchill completes his six-volume history The Second World War
The US Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in US schools is illegal
Oxford medical student Roger Bannister runs the first four-minute mile, at the Iffley Road track
George Cukor directs Judy Garland and James Mason in A Star Is Born
An invasion of Guatemala from Honduras, with CIA support, brings to power a right-wing military junta
Anglo-Irish novelist Iris Murdoch publishes her first novel, Under the Net
Barn Elms burns down, and its grounds are converted to school playing fields
