istoryworld
USA timeline
The World Bank and IMF are conceived at an international conference in the USA, at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire
12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor co-stars with a horse in the film National Velvet
Boston writer Robert Lowell publishes his first book of poems, Land of Unlikeness
Aaron Copland's ballet Appalachian Spring has choreography by Martha Graham
Delegates from 39 nations meet at Dumbarton Oaks, near Washington DC, to plan the future United Nations
President Roosevelt, although seriously ill, is elected for a fourth term with Harry S. Truman as his vice-president
US dramatist Tennessee Williams has his first success with The Glass Menagerie
Russian-born novelist Vladimir Nabokov becomes a US citizen
President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies and is succeeded by his vice-president, Harry S. Truman
US scientists succeed in exploding an atom bomb at Alamogordo, a test site in the New Mexican desert
Wernher von Braun and his team of scientists are taken to the USA to develop the German V-2 rocket into an intercontinental ballistic missile
Richard Wright publishes Black Boy, an account of his early life in Mississippi and then Chicago
Eudora Welty sets her novel Delta Wedding in a contemporary southern plantation
Howard Hawks directs Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep
A new style of American painting, involving artists such as Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock, is given the name Abstract Expressionism
US pediatrician Benjamin Spock recommends a permissive approach in his Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, set in a down-and-out bar of the kind he had known in his youth, is performed in New York
The marriage of George Balanchine and Maria Tallchief unites two major stars of the US ballet scene
Robert Lowell's second collection, Lord Weary's Castle, contains 'The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket' and 'Mr Edwards and the Spider'
ENIAC is the world's first general-purpose electronic calculator
Ezra Pound, charged with treason for his wartime broadcasts, begins twelve years in a US hospital for the criminally insane
US poet Elizabeth Bishop publishes her first collection of poems, North and South
John D. Rockefeller Jr. gives land along the East River in New York for a permanent United Nations headquarters
US scientist Edwin Land demonstrates a new device, the Polaroid camera, to the Optical Society of America
The US Congress passes a National Security Act, setting up the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
