1950
January
01 - Radio Beijing announces that Tibet will shortly be "liberated".
03 - Wafd Party wins Egyptian elections.
04 - Britain asks the US for a...
1951
January
01 - Chinese and North Korean forces advance across the 38th Parallel and through UN lines.
01 - First episode of The Archers is broadcast nationally...
1952
January
05 - Winston Churchill arrives in Washington for talks with Truman.
07 - General Dwight D Eisenhower says he will run for US President.
12 - The prototype Vickers Valiant, Britain's...
1953
January
01 - The Maldive Islands become a republic.
01 - Arthur 'Bomber' Harris is knighted in the New Year Honours list.
01 - Hank Williams dies.
02...
1954
January
01 - Flashing indicator lights become legal on motor vehicles in Britain.
10 - A BOAC Comet jet airliner on its way from Singapore to...
1955
January
01 - The US gives $216 million in aid to South Vietnam.
01 - The 1955 Cotton Bowl Classic American football game is won by...
1956
January
01 - Sudan becomes an independent Republic.
03 - USSR gives technical aid to China.
03 - Movie star Mel Gibson is born in New York.
05...
1957
January
01 - Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler) born.
04 - A London man upset with the shape of his nose is jailed for ten years for...
1958
January
01 - Albanian fighters shoot down a British freight plane that allegedly strayed into Albanian airspace.
01 - The European Economic Community (the "common market")...
1959
January
01 - The dictator of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista, is overthrown by Fidel Castro's guerrillas and flees to the Dominican Republic.
02 - Fidel Castro proclaims...
The 1950s
The Second World War was over. In Britain, the National Health Service was newly created (1948) and the coal industry and the railways were...