1950s

January 01 - Radio Beijing announces that Tibet will shortly be "liberated". 03 - Wafd Party wins Egyptian elections. 04 - Britain asks the US for a stockpile of atomic bombs. 05 - President Truman rules out military aid...

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 on the BBC Light Programme. 01 - Bill Byford (Saxon) born. 04 -...

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 only long-range jet for carrying the atomic bomb, crashes. 13 - The Iranian...

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 - The RAFs first supersonic fighters, 400 US-designed Sabres, arrive at...

January 01 - Flashing indicator lights become legal on motor vehicles in Britain. 10 - A BOAC Comet jet airliner on its way from Singapore to London comes down into the Mediterranean about 20 minutes after taking...

January 01 - The US gives $216 million in aid to South Vietnam. 01 - The 1955 Cotton Bowl Classic American football game is won by the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. 02 - President José Antonio Remón Cantera...

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 - Prince Rainier III of Monaco announces his engagement to actress...

January 01 - Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler) born. 04 - A London man upset with the shape of his nose is jailed for ten years for threatening a plastic surgeon with a gun. 07 - Chinese Premier Chou...

January 01 - Albanian fighters shoot down a British freight plane that allegedly strayed into Albanian airspace. 01 - The European Economic Community (the "common market") comes into being. The UK is not included. 01 - West German...

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 a new government in Cuba. 02 - The USSR launches lunar rocket...

The Second World War was over. In Britain, the National Health Service was newly created (1948) and the coal industry and the railways were nationalised. Advances in medicine, extensive immunisation programmes and improvements in housing and...