This Year in History:
1949
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On January 5, 1949, President Harry S. Truman announces, in his State of the Union address, that every American has a right to expect from our government a fair deal. In a reference to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, Truman announced his plans for domestic policy reforms including national health insurance, public housing, civil rights […]
The first Emmy Awards ceremony is held on January 25, 1949 at the Hollywood Athletic Club. The awards recognize excellence in television (which in the 1940s was a novel medium). Hollywood’s first television academy had been founded three years earlier by Sid Cassyd, a former film editor for Frank Capra who later worked as a […]
In response to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s proposal that President Harry S. Truman travel to Russia for a conference, Secretary of State Dean Acheson brusquely rejects the idea as a “political maneuver.” This rather curious exchange was further evidence of the diplomatic sparring between the United States and the Soviet Union that was so characteristic […]
Cardinal József Mindszenty, the highest Catholic official in Hungary, is convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Communist People’s Court. Outraged observers in Western Europe and the United States condemned both the trial and Mindszenty’s conviction as “perversions” and “lynchings.” Mindszenty was no stranger to political persecution. During World War II, Hungary’s fascist government […]
In a precursor to the establishment of a separate, Soviet-dominated East Germany, the People’s Council of the Soviet Zone of Occupation approves a new constitution. This action, together with the U.S. policy of pursuing an independent pathway in regards to West Germany, contributed to the permanent division of Germany. The postwar status of Germany had […]
Actor Robert Mitchum is released from a Los Angeles County prison farm after spending the final week of his two-month sentence for marijuana possession there. In the fall of 1948, Mitchum, the star of classics such as Cape Fear and Night of the Hunter, was smoking a joint at a small party in the Laurel […]
The United States and 11 other nations establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact aimed at containing possible Soviet aggression against Western Europe. NATO stood as the main U.S.-led military alliance against the Soviet Union throughout the duration of the Cold War. Relations between the United States and the Soviet Union […]
On April 7, 1949, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific opens at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway in New York City. The romantic musical about World War II, which touches on controversial racial themes, goes on to run for almost five years, becoming one of the most popular musicals of the 1950s. The show […]
On May 2, 1949, New York playwright Arthur Miller wins a Pulitzer Prize in Drama for “Death of a Salesman,” the most famous work of his career. Miller describes the story as “the tragedy of a man who gave his life, or sold it” while pursuing the elusive American Dream. The play, which premiered on […]
The body of Leon Besnard is exhumed in Loudun, France, by authorities searching for evidence of poison. For years, local residents had been suspicious of his wife Marie, as they watched nearly her entire family die untimely and mysterious deaths. Law enforcement officials finally began investigating Marie after the death of her mother earlier in […]
On May 12, 1949, an early crisis of the Cold War comes to an end when the Soviet Union lifts its 11-month blockade against West Berlin. The blockade had been broken by a massive U.S.-British airlift of vital supplies to West Berlin’s two million citizens. At the end of World War II, Germany was divided […]
The Federal Republic of Germany (popularly known as West Germany) is formally established as a separate and independent nation. This action marked the effective end to any discussion of reuniting East and West Germany. In the period after World War II, Germany was divided into four occupation zones, with the British, French, Americans, and Soviets […]
On May 27, 1949, unemployed 22-year-old model-actress Marilyn Monroe receives $50 for posing nude for a Los Angeles photographer against a red velvet backdrop. The picture will go on to become the most famous calendar photo in history and the principal attraction in the first issue of Playboy magazine. It will also risk destroying Monroe’s […]
George Orwell’s novel of a dystopian future, 1984, is published on June 8, 1949. The novel’s all-seeing leader, known as “Big Brother,” becomes a universal symbol for intrusive government and oppressive bureaucracy. George Orwell was the nom de plume of Eric Blair, who was born in India. The son of a British civil servant, Orwell […]
Hollywood figures, including film stars Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni, and Edward G. Robinson, are named in a FBI report as Communist Party members. Such reports helped to fuel the anticommunist hysteria in the United States during the late-1940s and 1950s. The FBI report relied largely on accusations made by “confidential informants,” supplemented with […]
On June 11, 1949, country singer Hank Williams Sr., takes to the microphone of the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcast for the first time. That debut remains one of the most famous in the history of the legendary live country-music performance program. He electrified a live audience at Ryman Auditorium that called Williams out for […]
On July 27, 1949, the world’s first jet-propelled airliner, the British De Havilland Comet, makes its maiden test-flight in England. The jet engine would ultimately revolutionize the airline industry, shrinking air travel time in half by enabling planes to climb faster and fly higher. The Comet was the creation of English aircraft designer and aviation […]
On August 3, 1949, after a damaging three-year battle to win both players and fans, the rival Basketball Association of America (BAA) and National Basketball League (NBL) merge to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). The BAA incorporated in 1946, challenging the hegemony of the nine-year old NBL. The BAA established itself in bigger cities […]
At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name “First Lightning.” In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings, bridges, and other civilian structures in the vicinity of the bomb. They also placed animals in cages nearby so that […]
At the opening of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Peking, Mao Zedong announces that the new Chinese government will be “under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” The September 1949 conference in Peking was both a celebration of the communist victory in the long civil war against Nationalist Chinese forces and […]
