1952: Encyclopedia II - 1952 - Events

1952 - Events

1952 - January

• January 8 - West Germany has 8 million refugees inside its borders.
• January 24 - Sudden heavy snowfall in Algeria.
• January 24 - Vincent Massey sworn in as first Canada-born Governor-General of Canada.

1952 - February

• February 2 - A tropical storm forms just north of Cuba moving northeast. The storm makes landfall in southern Florida the next day. It is the earliest reported landfall from a tropical storm, and the earliest formation of a tropical storm on record in the Atlantic basin.
• February 6 - Elizabeth II becomes Queen upon the death of her father George VI.
• February 6 - In the United States, a mechanical heart is used for the first time in a human patient.
• February 14 to February 25 - Winter Olympics in Oslo
• February 15 - Funeral of King George VI takes place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
• February 16 - Roman Catholic Diocese of Baker formed in Eastern Oregon.
• February 20 - Emmett L. Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.
• February 21 - Winston Churchill scraps UK compulsory national Identity Cards
• February 26 - United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that his nation has an atomic bomb.

1952 - March

• May 7-12 - Marcel Bardiauc sails through Kap Horn
• March 10 - General Fulgencio Batista takes power in Cuba - again
• March 15 to 16 - 73 inches (1,870mm) of rain falls in Cilaos, Réunion, the most rainfall ever in one day
• March 20 - The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
• March 21 - The last two executions in the Netherlands take place.
• March 21 - Dr Kwame Nkrumah elected the Prime Minister of the Gold Coast
• March 27 - Failed assassination attempt against Konrad Adenauer

1952 - April

• April 4 - In Hague tribunal, Israel demands reparations worth 3 billion dollars from Germany.
• April 18 - Bolivia National Revolution: universal vote enables indigenous and women to vote, nationalisation of mines and agrarian reform.
• April 18 - West Germany and Japan form diplomatic relations.
• April 23 - Nuclear test in Nevada desert.
• April 28 - The Treaty of San Francisco goes into effect, formally ending the occupation of Japan.
• April 28 - Treaty of Taipei (Treaty of Peace between Japan and t

1952 - May

• May 1 - East Germany threatens to form its own army.
• May 2 - First passenger jet flight route between London and Johannesburg
• May 3 - U.S. lieutenant colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict land a plane at the geographic North Pole.
• May 6 - Farouk of Egypt had himself announced as a descendant of prophet Muhammad.
• May 13 - Pandit Nehru forms his first government
• May 15 - Diplomatic relations established between the governments of Israel and Japan at the level of Legations.

1952 - June

• June 1 - Catholic church bans books of André Gide.
• June 5 - Remains of a Viking ship found near Boston, Massachusetts.
• June 14 - The keel is laid for the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
• June 15 - The Diary of Anne Frank published.
• June 21 - U.S. launches the first nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
• June 29 - Finnish Armi Kuusela wins the title of Miss Universe.
• June 30 - Marshall Aid ends.

1952 - July

• July 13 - East Germany announces formation of its people's army.
• July 19 to August 3 - The Summer Olympic Games are held in Helsinki.
• July 21 - A magnitude 7.5 earthquake (richter scale) strikes Tehachapi, California, destroying unreinforced brick buildings.
• July 23 - General Mohammed Naguib leads The Free Officers (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser - the real power behind the coup) in the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt.
• July 25 - Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.
• July 26 - Military coup in Egypt ousts King Farouk.

1952 - August

• August 10 - Establishment of the European Coal and Steel community.
• August 11 - Jordanian army forces king Talal to resign due to mental illness - his successor is his son Hussein of Jordan.
• August 13 - Japan joins IMF.
• August 14 - West Germany joins IMF.
• August 14 - West Germany joins World Bank.
• August 16 - Lynmouth in North Devon England is devastated by floods, death toll of 34.
• August 26 - British passenger jet flies twice over Atlantic Ocean in the same day.
• August 27 - Reparation negotiations between West Germany and Israel end in Luxembourg - Germany will pay 3 billion Deutsche Marks.
• August 29 - Premiere of John Cage's 4' 33" in Woodstock, New York.
• August 30 - Last Finnish war reparations to Soviet Union.

1952 - September

• September 2 - Dr. C. Walton Lillehei and Dr. F. John Lewis perform first open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota.
• September 4 - September 9 - Thick smog in London, England causes 4,000 fatalities.
• September 18 - Soviet Union vetoes Japan's application for membership in the United Nations.

1952 - October

• October 8 - Negotiations of ceasefire in Korea are postponed.
• October 8 - Three-train crash in Harrow railway station in England - 110 dead.
• October 14 - United Nations begins work in the new United Nations building in New York City
• October 19 - Alain Bombard begins to sail from Canary Islands to Barbados in 65 days; he reaches them December 23
• October 20 - Martial law in Kenya due to Mau Mau uprising.

1952 - November

• November 1 - Nuclear testing: Operation Ivy - The United States successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike" ["m" for megaton], at Eniwetok island in the Bikini atoll located in the Pacific Ocean.
• November 4 - 8.25 Richter scale earthquake in Kamchatka
• November 4 - U.S. presidential election, 1952: Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson (correctly predicted by UNIVAC computer).
• November 18 - Jomo Kenyatta is arrested in Kenya for alleged connection to Mau Mau uprising
• November 20 - Prague Trials - series of Stalinist and largely anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
• November 20 - Fireball crashes in a backyard in Havelock North, New Zealand
• November 20 - First official passenger flight over the North Pole from Los Angeles to Copenhagen
• November 21 - Show trial in Czechoslovakia sentences 11 ex-communist officials to death - all of them Jews.
• November 25 - Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London; as of 2004, it continues, next door at the St. Martin's Theatre, and remains the longest continuously running production of a play in history.
• November 29 - Korean War: Newly-elected U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a political campaign promise by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict.

1952 - December

• December 1 - The New York Daily News carries a front page story announcing that Christine Jorgensen, a transsexual woman in Denmark became the recipient of the first successful sexual reassignment operation.
• December 4 - Great Smog of 1952: A "killer fog" descends on London ("Smog" for "smoke" and "fog" becomes a word).
• December 14 - First successful surgical separation of Siamese twins in Mount Sinai Hospital, Ohio.
• December 25 - Shooting incident in West Berlin - one West German soldier is killed
• December 26 - Joseph Ivor Linton, first Israeli Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan, presents his credentials to the Japanese Emperor.

1952 - Undated events

• 3300 die of polio in U.S.; 57,000 children are paralyzed
• National Security Agency founded
• Winston Churchill scraps UK compulsory national Identity Cards
• Cold War over Germany's frontiers intensify
• Sister Theresa becomes Mother Theresa and begins her charity work in Calcutta
• Charles Chaplin expelled from U.S.
• Cheez Whiz introduced
• Traffic lights in New York City
• Wernher von Braun talks about a manned flight to Mars.
• Nordic Council agrees free transport of people, goods and services throughout the Nordic Countries.
• National Prohibition Foundation incorporated.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Events", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki