A Look Back to 1950

Take a look at notable events that took place in the year 1950.

In January of 1950, Jackie Robinson signed the highest paying contract in Dodger history…at just $35,000
Jan 31 - US President Harry Truman publicly announces support for the development of a hydrogen bomb

Feb 1 - Green Bay Packers founder, player and coach Curly Lambeau resigns after 31 seasons and 6 NFL titles to his credit
Feb 7 - United States formally recognizes the State of Vietnam as the legitimate government of Vietnam
Feb 9 - Senator Joe McCarthy charges State Department infested with 205 communists
Feb 12 - Albert Einstein warns against the hydrogen bomb
Feb 15 - Walt Disney's animated film "Cinderella" premieres in Boston. Massachusetts
Feb 16 - Longest-running prime-time game show, "What's My Line" begins on CBS

Mar 1 - Chiang Kai-shek resumes the presidency of the Republic of China on Taiwan
Mar 6 - Silly Putty goes on sale in the US
Mar 13 - General Motors Corporation reports record net earnings of $656,434,232
Mar 23 - 22nd Academy Awards: "All The King's Men", Broderick Crawford and Olivia De Havilland win
Mar 30 - Bell Telephone Laboratories announces invention of the phototransistor in Murray Hill, New Jersey

Apr 9 - Bob Hope's first TV appearance
Apr 24 - Jordan formally annexes the West Bank
Apr 25 - Chuck Cooper becomes the first African American to be drafted into the NBA (for Boston Celtics)

May 1 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II for the musical "South Pacific"
May 13 - Diner's Club issues its first credit cards
May 13 - First ever race of the Formula 1 World Drivers Championship is run at Silverstone, England and won by Giuseppe Farina of Italy in an Alfa Romeo
May 21 - Vietnamese troops of Ho Chi-Minh attack Cambodia
May 25 - Brooklyn Battery Tunnel opens in NYC

Jun 5 - US Supreme Court undermines legal foundations of segregation
Jun 17 - First kidney transplant (Chicago)
Jun 21 - Joe DiMaggio gets his 2,000th hit, a 7th-inning single off Chick Pieretti, in a 8-2 victory over Cleveland
Jun 23 - Swiss parliament refuses voting rights for women
Jun 25 - North Korea invades South Korea, beginning the Korean War
Jun 27 - North Korean troops reach Seoul, causing the UN to ask member states to aid South Korea. Harry Truman orders the US Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict.
Jun 27 - US sends 35 military advisers to South Vietnam

Jul 5 - US forces enter combat in the Korean War for the first time, in the Battle of Osan
Jul 19 - French/Vietnamese offensive against Viet Minh
Jul 19 - NY Yankees sign their first black players, Elston Howard and Frank Baines
Jul 24 - V-2/WAC Corporal rocket launch; first launch from Cape Canaveral

Aug 8 - Florence Chadwick swims the English Channel in a record time of 13 hours and 23 minutes [1]
August 11 - Steve Wozniak born
Aug 11 - Ethel Rosenberg testifies before grand jury on allegations of spying for the Soviet Union
Aug 13 - US President Harry Truman gives military aid to Vietnamese regime of Bảo Đại
Aug 22 - Althea Gibson becomes first black competitor in a US national tennis competition
Aug 22 - First patent for controlling vehicle speed (cruise control) granted to American inventor Ralph Teetor [1]
Aug 25 - "Rashomon", Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, starring Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyō, is released (Honorary Academy Award 1952)
Aug 25 - Sugar Ray Robinson Knocks out Jose Basora to win middleweight boxing title
Aug 25 - US President Harry Truman orders army to take control of railroad to avert a strike
Aug 27 - First transmission of a TV programme from continental Europe shown on BBC

Sep 11 - Dick Tracy TV show sparks uproar concerning violence
Sep 14 - Western allies rearm West Germany
Sep 15 - East German premier Grotewohl pleads for German reunification
Sep 17 - San Francisco 49ers (formerly AAFC) play first NFL game, lose 21-17
Sep 19 - Great Three (England, US, and France) acknowledge Bonn Government as the only German government
Sep 22 - Omar Bradley promoted to rank of 5-star general in the United States Army
Sep 23 - Nobel peace prize awarded to Ralph Bunche for mediation in Israel - First African American winner
Sep 26 - UN troops in Korean War recapture South Korean capital of Seoul
Sep 27 - Heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles defeats Joe Louis in 15 in Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York
Sep 29 - Telephone Answering Machine created by Bell Laboratories
Sep 29 - Yanks clinch second consecutive pennant under Casey Stengel
Sep 30 - Radio's "Grand Ole Opry" is broadcast on TV for first time

Oct 2 - First strip of Charlie Brown, "Li'l Folks", later "Peanuts", by Charles M. Schulz published in seven nationwide papers
Oct 11 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission issues the first license to broadcast television in color, to CBS
Oct 12 - The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show debuts on CBS television, airs until 1958
Oct 16 - The first edition of C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is released in London
Oct 21 - Chinese forces occupy Tibet
Oct 26 - Mother Teresa founds Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India

Nov 1 - Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempt to assassinate US President Harry Truman at Blair House in Washington D.C.; attack thwarted by White House Police, including Officer Leslie Coffelt who was killed in the line of duty [1]
Nov 10 - Nobel Prize for literature awarded to William Faulkner "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel"
Nov 16 - Egyptian King Faruk demands departure of all British troops
Nov 16 - US President Harry Truman proclaims emergency crisis caused by communist threat
Nov 19 - US General Eisenhower becomes supreme commander of NATO-Europe
Nov 24 - UN troops begin an assault intending to end Korean War by Christmas
Nov 26 - China enters Korean conflict, sends troops across Yalu River
Nov 30 - US President Harry Truman threatens China with atom bomb

Dec 2 - "I Robot" collection of sci-fi short stories by Isaac Asimov published by Gnome Press in the US
Dec 13 - James Dean begins his career with an appearance in a Pepsi commercial
Dec 16 - Child star Shirley Temple announces her retirement from films at age 22
Dec 16 - US President Harry Truman proclaims state of emergency against "Communist imperialism"
Dec 19 - Chinese invasion of Tibet forces the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to flee Lhasa for Yadong on the Tibetan-India border [1]
Dec 20 - "Harvey" starring James Stewart premieres in New York
Dec 30 - "Tennessee Waltz" sung by Patti Page hits #1 on the Billboard Pop Chart (stays for 9 weeks)
Dec 30 - Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia become Independent states within the French Union
Harry Truman was president of US
Joseph Stalin was Soviet General Secretary
Mao Zedong was Chairman of Communist Party China

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