HISTORICAL TIMELINE 1952

Jan 2, "Pal Joey" opened at Broadhurst Theater, NYC, for 542 performances.
  
Jan 3, "Dragnet" with Jack Webb premiered on NBC TV.
 
Jan 4, The French Army in Indochina launched Operation Nenuphar in hopes of ejecting a Viet Minh division from the Ba Tai forest.

Jan 5, PM Churchill arrived in Washington to confer with Pres. Truman.
 
Jan 7, French forces in Indochina launch Operation Violette in an effort to push Viet Minh forces away from the town of Ba Vi.
 
Jan 8, Antonia Maury, discoverer of supergiant, giant & dwarf stars, died.
 
Jan 9, Jackie Robinson became the highest paid player in Brooklyn Dodger history.

Jan 12, The Viet Minh cut the supply lines to the French forces in Hoa Bihn, Vietnam.

Jan 14, NBC’s TV show "Today" with Dave Garroway (d.1982) and Jack Lescoulie had its debut. Garroway left the show in The news announcer was James Fleming (1915-1996). The theme music was "Sentimental Journey." Hugh Downs hosted from 1962-1971. Barbara Walters hosted from 1974-1976. Tom Brokaw hosted from 1976-1981. Jane Pauley hosted from 1976-1989. Bryant Gumbel hosted from 1982-1997.
  
Jan 20, British troops occupied Ismalia, Egypt.

Feb 5, New York adopted the three-colored traffic lights.
  
Feb 6, The SF Chronicle reported that Tom Keen, manufacturer of racetrack tote boards, was blown to bits gangland style at his San Mateo home when he    pushed the starter on his Cadillac Fleetwood sedan.
   
Feb 6, Britain's King George VI died of lung cancer. His daughter, Elizabeth II, succeeded him.
 
Feb 8, Elizabeth was formally proclaimed Queen of England following the Feb 6 death of her father, King George VI. Elizabeth was crowned 

Feb 6, The SF Chronicle reported that Tom Keen, manufacturer of racetrack tote boards, was blown to bits gangland style at his San Mateo home when he pushed the starter on his Cadillac Fleetwood sedan.
Jun 2, 1953.
  
Feb 13, Alfred Einstein (71), German-US musicologist, died.
 
Feb 16, The FBI arrested 10 members of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina.
 
Feb 19, Amy Tan, novelist (The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife),           was born.
 
Feb 19, There was a French offensive at Hanoi.
 
Feb 20, "African Queen" opened at Capitol Theater in NYC.
  
Feb 21, Dick Button performed 1st figure skating triple jump in competition.
  
Feb 21, Bangladesh Martyrs Day (martyrs of Bengali Language Movement).
 
Feb 22, The U.S. signed a military aid pact with Peru.
  
Feb 22, French forces evacuated Hoa Binh in Indochina.
   
Feb 24, The French evacuated Hoa Binh in Vietnam in order to mass                for the Tonkin Delta drive.
 
Feb 25, French colonial forces evacuated Hoa Binh in Indochina.
  
Feb 26, The U.S. signed a military aid pact with Ecuador.
  
Feb 26, Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain                       had developed its own atomic bomb.
  
Feb 26, A Netherlands-Indonesian Unity conference took place.
 
Feb 29, The first pedestrian "Walk/Don't Walk" signs were installed at 44th Street and Broadway at Times Square.
 
Feb, The US Federal Reserve obtained gold buttons, coins and pipe ornaments from the US high commissioner for Germany. The Federal           Reserve acted as a custodian of gold for the Tripartite Commission.The gold was turned into negotiable gold for distribution to European countries.

Mar 1, In SF Municipal Railway workers received a wage increase                    of 9.4 cents effective July 1. This raised their hourly rate to $1.73.
  
Mar 1, Egyptian government-Ali Maher Pasja resigned.
  
Mar 1, Helgoland, in North Sea, was returned to West Germany by Britain.
  
Mar 3, "Whispering Streets" debuted on ABC Radio, remaining on the air until Thanksgiving week, 1960. The end of that show brought down the curtain on what is called "the last day of the radio soap opera" (November 25, 1960).
  
Mar 3, The U.S. Supreme Court upheld New York's Feinberg Law banning Communist teachers in the U.S.
  
Mar 3, Puerto Rico approved their 1st self written constitution.
  
Mar 4, Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis were married in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles.
   
Mar 4, North Korea accused the U.N. of using germ warfare.
 
Mar 5, Terence Rattigan's "Deep Blue Sea," premiered in London.
  
Mar 7, The U.S. signed a military aid pact with Cuba.
  
Mar 10, General Fulgencio Batista staged a coup in Cuba and overthrew the Socarras government.
   
Mar 11, Douglas Adams, British writer, (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), was born.
  
Mar 14, J. Fred Muggs, chimp on the Today show, was born.
 
Mar 18, The 1st plastic lens for cataract patients was fitted in Phila.
  
Mar 18, There was a Communist offensive in Korea.
  
Mar 20, At the Academy Awards "An American in Paris" was named best picture; Humphrey Bogart best actor for "The African Queen"; Vivien Leigh best actress, Kim Hunter best supporting actress and Karl Malden best supporting actor for "A Streetcar Named Desire"; and George Stevens best director for "A Place in the Sun."
  
Mar 21, The Moondog Coronation Ball was held at the Cleveland Arena. It was promoted by Alan Freed and was later cited as the 1st rock concert. The only band to perform was one led by Paul Williams, before  fire marshals closed the show.
  
Mar 21, Some 31 storms crossed 6 states killing 340 in South Central US.
  
Mar 21, A.J. Pieters, SS-Untersturmfuhrer, was executed.
 
Mar 21, Wilhelm Albrecht, German SD-chief, was executed.
  
Mar 22, Bob Costas, sportscaster, talk show host (Later), was born in Queens, NY.
  
Mar 24, Great demonstrations took place against apartheid in South Africa.
  
Mar 25, The U.S., Britain, and France rejected the Soviet proposal for an armed, reunified, neutral Germany.
 
Mar 26, F. Dürrenmatt's "Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi" premiered in Munich.
 
Mar 27, Elements of the U.S. Eighth Army reached the 38th parallel in Korea, the original dividing line between the two Koreas.
   
Mar 27, There was a failed assassination attempt of German Chancellor Adenauer.

Mar 29, Pres. Harry Truman removed himself from the presidential race.
 
Mar 29, SF Archbishop John J. Mitty announced that Pope Pius XII had elevated Mission Dolores to the status of a Minor Basilica, the 1st west of the Mississippi and the 4th in the US.
   
Apr 1, The Big Bang theory was proposed in Physical Review by Alpher, Bethe & Gamow.
 
Apr 3, Dutch Queen Juliana spoke to the US Congress.
 
Apr 8, President Truman, to avert a strike, ordered the Army to seize the nation’s steel mills after companies rejected Wage Stabilization Board recommendations. Truman’s attempt to take over the US steel industry was later denied by the Supreme Court and the mills were shut down by strikers for 8 weeks.
   
Apr 9, A popular uprising in Bolivia broke the grip by three families on the rich silver and tin lodes of Oruto and Potosi in the altiplano. This led to the state owned Minera de Bolivia known as Camibol. Hernan Siles Zuazo led the revolution that brought far-reaching social and economic reforms. Feudalism was replaced with universal suffrage. Every business of note was passed into the hands of the state.
    
Apr 10, The MGM movie musical "Singin' in the Rain," starring Gene Kelly, was first released.
  
Apr 12, A telephone strike was settled in Michigan but continued in Northern California for a 5th day.
  
Apr 15, President Harry Truman signed the official Japanese peace treaty.
  
Apr 15, The 1st B-52 prototype test flight was made.
   
Apr 15, Franklin National Bank issued the 1st bank credit card.
   
Apr 21, BOAC began 1st passenger service with jets from London to Rome.
 
Apr 22, An atomic test conducted at Yucca Flat, Nevada, became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television.
  
Apr 23, Oil pipeline from Kirkuk, Iraq, to Banias was completed.
  
Apr 23, Elisabeth Schumann, singer, died.
  
Apr 25, American Bowling Congress approved use of an automatic pinsetter.
   
Apr 25, President Juan Peron of Argentina won re-election.
  
Apr 26, US minesweeper "Hobson" rammed the aircraft carrier "Wasp," and 176 were killed.
  
Apr 28, War with Japan officially ended as a treaty that had been signed by the United States and 47 other countries took effect.
   
Apr 28, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower stepped down to run for President.
  
May 1, Marines took part in an atomic explosion training in Nevada.
   
May 1, Mr. Potato Head was introduced.
  
May 1, TWA introduced tourist class.
   
May 2, Christine Baranski, actress (Maryann-Cybill, Birdcage, Sweeney Todd), was born in Buffalo, NY.
  
May 2,The British Overseas Aircraft Corporation (BOAC), the national British carrier, introduced the world’s 1st commercial jet airliner service. Initial flights took passengers from London to Johannesburg in South Africa, with stops.
   

May 3, The first airplane landed at geographic North Pole. It was a ski-modified U.S. Air Force C-47, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict (d.1974) of California and Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of Oklahoma. In 2002 Charles B. Compton authored "Born to Fly: Some Life Sketches of Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict."
   
May 5, A Pulitzer prize awarded to Herman Wouk (Caine Mutiny).
 
May 6, Maria Montessori (81), Italian physician, educationist, died.
 
May 7, In Korea, Communist POW’s at Koje-do rioted against their American captors.
 
May 8, Beth Henley, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (Crimes of the Heart), was born.

May 8, Mad Magazine debuted.
 
May 8, Allied fighter-bombers staged the largest raid of the war on North Korea.
 
May 13, Minor-league pitcher Ron Necciai struck out 27 in 9-innings.
 
May 13, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became premier of India.
 
May 15, California’s Central Valley Regional Water Pollution Control Board issued resolution No. 127 barring entry of perchlorate and 8 other chemicals into local groundwater and the American River. Medical researchers soon published that perchlorate blocks the uptake of essential iodide into the thyroid. Aerojet Corp., a rocket fuel manufacturer, objected and continued untreated discharges.
 
May 15, Italo Montemezzi (76), composer, died.
 
May 16, Pierce Brosnan, actor (Remington Steele, Golden Eye), was born in County Meath, Ireland.
 
May 18, Professor WF Libby said Stonehenge dated back to 1848 BC.
 
May 18, Rossetter Gleason Cole (86), composer, died.
  
May 19, John Garfield (39), blacklisted film actor, died. His films included "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946).

May 24, The AFL Sailor’s Union ordered a 3-day walkout to tie up the Pacific Coast shipping to help in wage demands.

May 29, Louise Cooper, sci-fi author (Nemesis, Inferno, Infanta, Nocturne), was born in UK.
 
May 29, A 2nd Round Conference between Dutch Antilles and Suriname ended.
 
May 31, Walter Schellenberg, German lawyer, headed spy plot (Venlo), died of cancer.
 
May, Monsignor Eugene Fahy (1912-1996), missionary, was released by the Chinese Communists from jail in Shanghai. He recovered in a Hong Kong hospital and went on to found the Fujen University in Taipei.
 
Jun 2, Philosopher John Dewey died at age 92.

Jun 3, A rebellion by North Korean prisoners in the Koje POW camp in South Korea was put down by American troops.
 
Jun 4, Parker Stevenson, actor (The Hardy Boys Mysteries, Baywatch, Melrose Place, Falcon Crest), was born.
 
Jun 7, Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist, was born in Istanbul. In 2003 he won the IMPACV Dublin Literary Award for his book "My Name Is Red." In 2004 he authored the highly acclaimed “Snow.”
 
Jun 10, Pres. Truman tried to nationalize the steel industry.
 
Jun 14, The USS Nautilus, the first atomic submarine, was dedicated in Groton, Connecticut.
 
Jun 16, "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl" was published in the United States.
 
Jun 16, Soviet Fighters shot down a Swedish Catalina reconnaissance flight.
 
Jun 19, The celebrity-panel game show "I’ve Got A Secret" made its debut on CBS-TV with Garry Moore as host.
 
Jun 20, John Goodman (actor: Roseanne, The Flintstones, The Babe), was born.
 
Jun 23, The US Air Force bombed power plants on Yalu River, Korea.
 

Jun 24, Eddie Arcaro set a thoroughbred racing record for American jockeys by winning his 3,000th horse race.
 
Jun 30, "The Guiding Light," a popular radio program, made its debut as a television soap opera on CBS.
 
Jun, The Goon Show began on the BBC Home Service. It had started as the show "Crazy People."

Jul 1, Dan Aykroyd (comedian, actor: Driving Miss Daisy, Grosse Point Blank, Coneheads, Saturday Night Live, Dragnet, Ghostbusters, The Blues Brothers), was born.
 
Jul 2, Linda M. Godwin, PhD, astronaut (STS 37), was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
 
Jul 7, The American ocean liner SS United States, known as "the Big U," crossed the Atlantic in record 82:40, while on her maiden voyage.
 
Jul 11, The Republican National Convention, meeting in Chicago, nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower for president and Richard M. Nixon for vice president.
 
Jul 14, SS United States crossed the Atlantic in 84:12, a record westward.
 
Jul 15, Jesse Ventura, [James Janos], wrestler, actor, politician (MN Governor), was born.

Jul 16, Stewart Copeland, drummer (Police: Fall Out, Every Breath You Take, LP: The Equalizer & Other Cliffhangers), was born.

Jul 21, Robin Williams, American comedian and actor, was born in Chicago, Ill.
 
Jul 21, A 7.7 earthquake destroyed the Kern County town of Tehachapi near Bakersfield, Ca. and killed 14 people.
 
Jul 23, General Mohammed Neguib seized power in Egypt. There was a revolution in Egypt, King Farouk I abdicated. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the monarchy and established Egyptian sovereignty after 2,300 years of foreign domination. The revolution was led by the group of Free Officers headed by Gamal Abdel Nasser and included Kamal Eddin Hussein.
 
Jul 24, President Truman announced a settlement in a 53-day steel strike.

Jul 24, Pres. Truman commuted Oscar Collazo’s death sentence to life imprisonment. On the same day he signed an act enlarging the self-government of Puerto Rico.
  
Jul 24, In Iraq-Jordan a disgusted military overthrew the corrupt government of King Farouk.
  
Jul 25, Goethe Link Observatory discovered asteroid #1788 Kiess.
  
Jul 25, Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.
 
Jul 26, Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; John J. Sparkman was nominated for vice president.
 
Jul 26, Argentina’s first lady, Eva Peron, died of cancer in Buenos Aires at age 33.
  
Jul 26, King Farouk I of Egypt abdicated in the wake of a coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser.
   
Aug 1, Kemmons Wilson (d.2003) opened the first Holiday Inn just outside Memphis, Tenn.
  
Aug 2, Paul David Crews, murderer (featured in the FBI Most Wanted List), was born in SC.
  
Aug 3, Jay North, actor (Dennis the Menace, Maya), was born in North Hollywood, Calif.
 
Aug 3, The 15th Olympic Games concluded in Helsinki. US competitors won 40 gold medals.
 
Aug 4, Helicopters from the U.S. Air Force Air Rescue Service landed in Germany, completing the first transatlantic flight by helicopter in 51 hours and 55 minutes of flight time.
 
Aug 5, In LA, Ca., 14 Communist leaders were convicted of conspiring to overthrow the US government. 6 of the defendants were from SF, one was from Oakland.
 
Aug 11, In Jordan King Talal abdicated the throne to Prince Hussein due to mental illness.
 
Aug 17, Kathryn C. Thornton, PhD, astronaut, was born in Montgomery, Alabama.
 
Aug 20, Russia's Stalin met Vietnam's Chou Enlai.
 
Aug 23, Arab League security pact went into effect.
 
Aug 27, Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman), actor (Pee-wee's Big Adventure), was born in Peekskill, NY.
  
Aug 28, Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born.

Aug 28, Germans & Israelis reached an accord about recovery payments.
 
Aug 29, In the largest bombing raid of the Korean War, 1,403 planes of the Far East Air Force bombed Pyongyang, North Korea.

Sep 1, Sutro Baths in SF was purchased by developer George Whitney. He sold it to the National Parks Service in 1977.
 
Sep 2, Jimmy Connors tennis champion, was born. His wins included: Australian Open [1974], Wimbledon [1974, 1982], U.S. Open [1974, 1976, 1978, 1982, 1983].
  
Sep 2, Dr. Floyd J. Lewis 1st used a deep freeze technique in heart surgery.
   
Sep 6, Canadian television broadcasting began in Montreal.
  
Sep 6, The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a conviction against Harry Bridges as a Communist who lied to obtain US citizenship.
   
Sep 6, An engine on a de Havilland 110 plane falls into a crowd at Farnborough Air Show in England. Thirty people on the ground and the pilot are killed.
   
Sep 7, General Mohammad Naguib (1901-1984) formed an Egyptian government and became premier. Naguib served as Egypt’s 1st president. He was dismissed in Nov, 1954.
 
Sep 8, The Ernest Hemingway novel "The Old Man and the Sea" was published. Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1953.
   
Sep 11, West German Chancellor Adenauer signed a reparation pact for Jews.
  

Sep 12, Soviet Lt. Dobrovichin shot down an American B-29 bomber piloted by Capt. Ted G. Royer.
   
Sep 12, Noel Coward's "Quadrille," premiered in London.
 
Sep 13, John Melville, federal housing administrator, announced that all adults living in San Francisco Bay Area federally aided public housing will be asked to sign a loyalty affidavit under the Levering Act. Refusal would be grounds for eviction.
   

Sep 25, Christopher Reeve, NYC, actor (Superman, Somewhere in Time), was born.
 
Sep 20, Scientists confirmed that DNA holds hereditary data.
  
Sep 23, Rocky Marciano became the world heavyweight boxing champion by knocking out Jersey Joe Walcott in the 13th round, in Philadelphia PA. It was Rocky’s 43rd consecutive victory. This was the 1st closed circuit pay-TV telecast of a sports event.
   
Sep 23, Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon went on television to deliver what came to be known as the "Checkers" speech as he refuted allegations of improper campaign financing. Nixon denied that he maintained a private slush fund and all financial allegations except for the gift of a cocker spaniel dog named Checkers from a Texan who heard that his daughters wanted a puppy. Some 30 million television viewers watched as Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower‘s running mate in the upcoming presidential elections, made a plea for sympathy and vindication in light of charges he was living a lifestyle beyond the means of his $12,500 Senate salary. In 1997 plans were underway to exhume the dog and rebury it near the former president.
  
Sep 25, Christopher Reeve, actor (Superman, Somewhere in Time), was born in NYC.
   
Sep 25, The American Federation of Labor broke a 71-year precedent and endorsed Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.
  
Sep 26, George Santayana (88), US philosopher and poet (Last Puritan), died  in Italy. He was a student and professor at Harvard but left the US in 1912. His work includes: "The Life of Reason" and "Realms of Being;" a novel "The Last Puritan;" and autobiography "Persons and Places." In 2000 Irving Singer authored "George Santayana: Literary Philosopher."
   
Sep 30, The motion picture process Cinerama—which employed three cameras, three projectors and a deeply curved viewing screen—made its debut with the premiere of "This Is Cinerama" at the Broadway Theater in New York City.
  
Sep, In Lebanon alleged corruption and growing opposition to the Khuri government led to a general strike that forced his resignation. Khuri was succeeded by Camille Chamoun.
   

Oct 2, Clive Barker, writer (Hellraiser, Lord of Illusions), was born.
  
Oct 3, The situation comedy "Our Miss Brooks," formerly a radio show, premiered on CBS with Eve Arden again in the title role. Robert Rockwell played her love interest, the biology teacher
   
Oct 3, The 1st video recording on magnetic tape was made in LA, Ca.
   
Oct 3, The British detonated their 1st atomic bomb. They conducted nuclear tests on the Monte Bello Islands off Australia. In 1998 a visit to the islands was limited to one hour due to lingering radiation.
  

Oct 4, Pres. Truman arrived in SF to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson.
   
1952        Oct 7, Vladimir Putin, president of Russia (2000-), was born in Leningrad. He became aide to reformist Leningrad Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, then deputy mayor in 1994. Became President Boris Yeltsin's deputy chief of staff in 1996; in 1998 became head of Federal Security Service, KGB's main successor. Appointed prime minister in August 1999.
    (AP, 3/14/04)
1952        Oct 7, The 1st "Bandstand" broadcast in Philadelphia on WFIL-TV. Dick Clark joined in 1955 as a substitute-host. [see 1956]
   
Oct 8, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican presidential candidate, arrived in SF and drew a crowd of 100,000 for a downtown ticker tape parade.
  
Oct 11, Researchers at UC Berkeley announced the discovery of a new polio vaccine that could be manufactured in large quantities. It had not yet been tested on humans.
 

Oct 23, The Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Ukrainian-born microbiologist Selmart A. Waksman for his discovery streptomycin, the 1st antibiotic to successfully treat tuberculosis.

Oct 24, Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared, "I shall go to Korea" as he promised to end the conflict if elected.
   
Oct 26, Hattie McDaniel (67) actress (Gone With the Wind), died in Woodland Hills, Ca., of breast cancer. She was the first black actor/actress to receive an Academy Award. She was born June 10, 1895, in Wichita, Kansas.
  
Oct 29, A syndicate headed by SF oil man Ralph K. Davies bought control of American President Lines with an $18.4 million cash bid.
   
Oct 29, French forces launched Operation Lorraine against Viet Minh supply bases in Indochina.
   
Oct 30, Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but only received it in 1953. Schweitzer and his wife Hélène had moved to Gabon (French Equatorial Africa) in 1913 and opened a hospital in Lambaréné, which he later expanded with money from the Nobel Peace Prize.
   
Oct 30, Clarence Birdseye sold the 1st frozen pea package.
 
Oct 31, The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific. The prototype H-bomb was named Mike. In 2002 Greg Herken authored "Brotherhood of the Bomb: the Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller." 
  
Oct 31, The Stratford Shakespearean Festival of Canada was incorporated as a legal entity. It was organized by Tom Patterson. The 1st performance opened Jul 13, 1953.
  
Oct, Mad Magazine first came out. [see 1955]
  
Nov 1, The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb, in a test at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. The element einsteinium was discovered in the debris of the 1st hydrogen bomb test.

Nov 2, Dixie Lee Crosby (40), wife of Bing Crosby, died in Hollywood from cancer.
  
Nov 2, In Britain Derek Bentley (19) and Christopher Craig (16) tried to break into a warehouse in South London. Craig shot and killed Police Constable Sidney Miles. Bentley, who had the mental age of 11, was hanged in Jan., 1953, for his role in the murder of the police officer and Craig went to prison for 10 years. The 1991 film "Let Him Have It" was based on the story of Bentley as was the Elvis Costello song "Let Him Dangle." Bentley’s conviction was overturned in 1998.
  
Nov 3, David Ho, virologist, AIDS researcher, was born.
  
Nov 3, Egypt protested German retribution payments to Israel.
 
Nov 4, Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) was elected president the 34th president, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson in presidential elections. The Republicans took over for the first time in 20 years. A Univac computer in Philadelphia predicted the results based on early returns. Richard Nixon was vice president.
  
Nov 6, Dmitri Shostakovitch's cantata "About our Fatherland," premiered.
 
Nov 7, Felix Bloch (47) of Stanford Univ. and E.M. Purcell (40) of Harvard won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on measuring the magnetic properties of atomic particles.
  
Nov 9, Chaim Weizmann (b.1874), Russian-born bio-chemist and 1st president of Israel (1949-1952), died.
   
Nov 10, U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision barring segregation on interstate railways.
  
Nov 10, San Francisco columnist Stanton Delaplane introduced Irish coffee to America at the Buena Vista Cafe at the end of the Hyde St. cable line. He discovered the drink at Shannon Airport in Ireland, served by Joe Sheridan.
   
Nov 10, Trygve Halvdan Lie resigned as 1st secretary-general of UN.
  
Nov 13, False fingernails were 1st sold.
 
Nov 13, Harvard’s Paul Zoll was the first to use electric shock to treat cardiac arrest.
  
Nov 13, Margaret Wise Brown (d.1952), author of "Goodnight Moon," a children’s bedtime story, died suddenly in France from an embolism following surgery for an ovarian cyst. In 1992 Leonard Marcus authored her biography "Awakened by the Moon."
 
Nov 15, Newark Airport reopened after closing earlier in the year because of an increase in accidents.
 
Nov 19, Scandinavian Airlines opened a commercial route from Canada to Europe.
 
Nov 20, George Axelrod's "7 Year Itch," premiered in NYC.
  
Nov 24, Agatha Christie's "Mousetrap" opened in London.
  
Nov 25, The Mousetrap, mystery writer Agatha Christie's first play—opened in London, and is still running. Originally written as a radio play for Queen Mary, The Mousetrap premiered at the Ambassadors Theatre. The play was relocated to St. Martin's Theatre in 1974 where it continues its record-breaking run in the West End to this day. As may be surmised, the cast has changed several times.
  
Nov 25, George Meany was appointed chairman of AFL.
 
Nov 26, The 1st modern 3-D film "Bwana Devil" starred Robert Stack and premiered. It was made in 3-D by cameraman Lothrop Worth (d.2000 at 96) and inspired a series of 1950s 3-D movies.
 
Nov 29, President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower kept his campaign promise to visit Korea to assess the ongoing conflict.
   
Nov 29, In San Francisco a Pacific Heights mansion at 2030 Broadway opened as the American Academy of Asian Studies, the 1st accredited US graduate school devoted exclusively to Asian lands and people.
   
Nov 29, John T. Downey (22) and Richard G. Fecteau (25), CIA spies, were shot down over Jilin province and captured by the Chinese. The 2 men spent 20 years in a Chinese prison. 2 pilots, Robert Snoddy and Norman Schwartz, died and in 2002 plans were made to find their remains.
 
Nov 30, Mandy Patinkin, actor and singer (Yentl, Alien Nation, Chicago Hope), was born in Chicago.
 
Nov, Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA operative, was approached by the British Foreign Office about organizing the overthrow of Iran’s Prime Minister Mossadegh, who had presided over the nationalization of British-owned oil operations.
   
Dec 2, 1st human birth televised to public was on KOA-TV Denver, Colo.
  
Dec 4, The Grumman XS2F-1 made its first flight.
  
Dec 4, Killer fogs began in London, England. "Smog" became a word.
 
Dec 5-8, A  4-day London smog killed 4,703 people. Oxides of sulfur and other irritants from coal smoke were blamed. [see Dec 4]
   
Dec 8, French troops shot on demonstrators at Casablanca, Morocco, and 50 people were killed.
 
Dec 11, Stanford scientist demonstrated the new $1,750,000 linear electron accelerator. Its 200-foot barrel fired electrons at 99.99% the speed of light.
   
Dec 11, The outbound Norwegian ship Fernstream was sliced open by the inbound SS Hawaiian Rancher under heavy fog inside the Golden Gate. The Fernstream sank in 30 minutes but all passengers escaped.
   
Dec 14, Eighty-four Korean Communist prisoners interned on Pongam Island were killed during a riot after attempting to escape.
 
Dec 15, The Sands Hotel casino opened in Las Vegas with 200 rooms. A 500 room tower was added in 1965. It lasted to 11/26/1996 when it was torn down for a new $1.5 bil 6,000 room mega-resort by Sheldon Adelson.
  
Dec 17, Yugoslavia broke relations with the Vatican.
 
Dec 24, The Public Health Service reported that US births approached 4 million for the year, setting a new record.
  
Dec 29, The 1st transistorized hearing aid was offered for sale at Elmsford, NY.
 
Dec 30, Tuskegee Institute reported 1952 as the 1st yr in the last 71 with no US lynchings.
   
Dec 31, Hank Williams died at age 29 in the back seat of a Cadillac full of pills and booz on his way to a gig.
  
Francis Bacon made his painting "Study for the Head of a Screaming Pope."

John Biggers made his lithograph "Harriet Tubman and Her Underground Railroad." It was an example of Mexican muralists influence on Black American artists.
 
Richard Diebenkorn made his "Untitled (Urbana)," an ink and gauche on paper. It reflected the influence of cartoonist George Herriman.

Leonor Fini (1908-1996), Argentine-born artist, painted her portrait: "Comtesse de Noaille."
 
Franz Kline painted his "Untitled II," a tiny ink drawing in which Kline inscribed some chunky lines on a page from a Brooklyn telephone book, crossing Chinese calligraphy with letterpress flotsam.
 
Willem de Kooning, leading light of the New York School, painted "Excavation," maelstroms of weaving and careening lines and roiling forms. [2nd source says 1950] He also did "Seated woman" in this year.

Rene Magritte painted his work "Personal Values." It was sold to the SF MOMA in 1998 for $6.5 million. The title was recommended by his friend, Paul Nouge, surrealist, biochemist and founder of the Belgian Communist Party. Magritte also did "La chambre d’ ecote" (The Listening Room).

Matisse made his great cutout "Blue Nude."
 
Jackson Pollock painted his "Number 1." In 1995 it was in the collection of former CBS chief Frank Statton and was estimated at $4-6 mil. in value but did not sell. [see 1949 No. 1] He painted "Blue Poles Number 11," which later went to the National Gallery of Australia.
 
Samuel Beckett published his play "Waiting for Godot." It was 1st produced in Paris in 1953.
 
Arthur Laurent wrote his play "The Time of the Cuckoo."

Paul Bowles (b.1910) published his novel: "Let It Come Down."
 
Whitaker Chambers authored "Witness," a chronicle of his role in the Alger Hiss case. In it he declared that the essence of communism lay in its vision of mankind emancipated from God.
 
Barnaby Conrad (30) authored the bestseller "Matador," about the life of Manolete, Spain's greatest bullfighter.
  
Jacques Cousteau wrote "The Silent World." It was made into a film that gave Cousteau the first of 3 Academy Awards.

Philip K. Dick (d.1982) wrote his short story "Paycheck." It was optioned for a movie in 1999.

Maria Flores wrote "The Woman With the Whip," a biography of Eva Peron.
  
Che Guevara chronicled his motorcycle trip around South America on a Norton 500. His memoir was published as "The Motorcycle Diaries."
 
Prof. Charles M. Hardin (1908-1997) wrote "The Politics of Agriculture."
 
Black author Chester Himes (d.1984) published his book "Cast the First Stone," a somber tale of prison life. He had written it in 1937 under the title "Yesterday Will Make You Cry."
  
George Racey Jordan, USAF (Ret.) with Richard L. Stokes authored "Major Jordan’s Diaries." It was an account of Jordan’s experiences in the US-Russia Lend-Lease program from 1942. The 2nd reference is a list of the lend-lease items provided to the Soviet Union beginning in Oct 1941.
 
Norman Vincent Peale wrote "The Power of Positive Thinking."
 
Egor P. Popov (d.2001 at 88), Ukrainian born Prof. of Civil Engineering, published his classic "Mechanics of Materials" at UC Berkeley.

The first "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM) was published. It defined nervous breakdowns as "psychophysiologic nervous system reactions."
 
Samuel Eilenberg (d.1998 at 84), mathematician and art collector, co-authored "Foundations of Algebraic Topology" with Norman Steenrod of Princeton Univ. The graduate text "General Topology" was written by John Kelley (d.1999 at 82) of UC Berkeley.
  
The French work "Le Pretre Jean" (Prester John) was written.
 
British writer Mary Norton wrote "The Borrowers," illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush. It was published in 1953 and made into a movie in 1998.
  
Ralph Ellison (d.1994) wrote his classic novel "Invisible Man."
 
Wolf Mankowitz published his first novel "Make me an Offer." It was based on his experiences in the porcelain trade.
  
Terence Rattigan published his play "The Deep Blue Sea."
  
In Germany Mrs. Aicher-Scholl (e.1998 at 81) published "White Rose," a description of the White Rose nonviolent student resistance to the Third Reich.
   
John Steinbeck wrote his novel "East of Eden."
   
Telford Taylor published "Sword and Swastika." He helped write the rules for Nuremberg Trials.
  
Herman Wouk wrote his novel "Cain Mutiny." It became a film in 1954.
  
Eugene Ionesco wrote "The Chairs." It was a dadaist parable of two fantasists preparing to deliver an important message.
  
Frederick Knott, English writer, wrote his thriller "Dial ‘M’ for Murder. It was made into a film with Grace Kelly by Alfred Hitchcock.
 
Gunsmoke, the "adult western," began as a radio drama. It spawned a television series (1955) that lasted 20 years. Starring William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon (a role played by James Arness on TV), the show broke with established radio traditions (such as extended use of sound effects) and character stereotypes (in great part to many cliché-busting scripts by John Mestin). It garnered a huge audience for its network, CBS (sources disagree, but some estimate as much as 30% of the radio-listening public tuned into the show, a rating impossible to reach in today’s multimedia world). The popular radio drama launched the 20-year TV series, a record as yet unrivalled by any other primetime drama.
 
The market introduced 3-D movies.
   
Sheri Lewis (19) was a winner on the Arthur Godfrey television talent scout show. Within 5 years she introduced her puppet Lamb Chop on the Captain Kangaroo Show and began her own show in 1957.
  
The TV show American Bandstand premiered as a local show in Philadelphia.
   
"The Ernie Kovacs Show" began under CBS and ran to 1953.
   
The TV show Ding Dong School was developed by George Heinemann (1918-1996)

TV advertised its first toy, Mr. Potato Head.
   
The TV show "My Little Margie" starred Gale Storm and Hillary Brooke, It ran until 1955.
  
"The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" began its TV run. It had started as a radio series in 1944. The TV show ran to 1966.
  
John Cage wrote his score "Water Music," written instructions with no fixed order. His piece 4'33" was one in which the performer created none of the sound.
   
Singer Al Martino has his first hit with "Here in My Heart."
   
Hank Williams (d.1952) had a hit with "Your Cheatin’ Heart."
  
Gerry Mulligan began playing a new type of jazz on the west coast. He used just two horns, a bass and drum for a quartet with no piano player. Chet Baker played a wispy trumpet against Mulligan's spry baritone sax. Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone soon replaced Baker and then Art Farmer came in on trumpet. They opened at the Haig club in LA and sparked the "West Coast jazz" style of cool jazz.
  
Jazz greats Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie were captured on a rare film clip.
   
B.B. King (b.1925) made No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B charts with his song "Three O’Clock Blues." His autobiography, co-written with David Ritz, came out in 1996: "Blues All Around Me."
   
Martinu composed his "Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola and Orchestra."
   
Orrin Keepnews and Record Changer publisher Bill Grauer founded the Riverside jazz label in New York City to re-issue jazz albums from the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s.
 
Le Corbusier’s first great urban construction was completed in Marseilles, France. Eighteen hundred inhabitants were housed in a "vertical community" of eighteen floors.
   
1952 The double-span highway bridge, nearly a mile long, linked Yorktown to Gloucester Point, Virginia.
   
1952 George Jorgensen flew to Stockholm to undergo a male-to-female sex change and returned to the US as Christina Jorgensen. A biopic film was made in 1970 titled "The Christina Jorgensen Story."
  
1952 Ore-Ida Potatoes Inc. introduced "Tater Tots." The company was in-part founded by William E. Berelson (d.1997 at 90) in 1951. It was sold to H.J. Heinz Co. in 1965.
  
1952 Pez candy was introduced to the US. It originated in Austria in 1927 as a breath mint for cigarette smokers.
   
1952 The organization Promoting Enduring Peace was founded in Woodmont, Conn. It sponsored friendship tours to the Soviet Union, China, Nicaragua, Cuba and Costa Rica.
 
1952 A scandal arose when the Pacific Coast Conference of Universities was found to be paying athletes to play on college teams. In 2000 Glenn Seaborg and Ray Colvig authored "Roses From Ashes," an account of the scandal.
  
1952 Future revolutionary Che Guevara took a 4,000-mile moped trip alone through northern Argentina and in the next two years traveled throughout South America on a 500cc motorcycle nicknamed "La Poderosa" (The Powerful One). On these trips he directly observed the lives of workers and peasants and ultimately changed the direction of his life. Che Guevara was born on June 14, 1928 to an aristocratic family in Argentina. He was captured and executed by the Bolivian army on October 8, 1967.
 
1952 Paul Robeson was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union. He had to wait 6 years for permission to leave the US to accept the honor.
   
1952 Francois Mauriac (b.1885), French novelist, won the Nobel Prize in literature.
   
1952 Pres. Truman extended the award of the Purple Heart retroactively to include veterans of WW I. F.D. Roosevelt had opened the Army award to all branches of the US Military at the onset of WW II.
  
1952 Republican Dwight Eisenhower won the New Hampshire primary over Robert Taft 50.2 to 38.6%. Democrat Estes Kefauver won over Harry Truman 54.6 to 43.9%.
   
1952 Gen. Omar Bradley told outgoing Pres. Truman that a criminal investigation of the international oil cartels threatens national security. Truman dropped his attack on Standard Oil of New Jersey, Gulf, The Texas Company, Socony-Mobil, Standard Oil of Calif., and their foreign colleges, Anglo-Iranian Oil, and Royal Dutch-Shell. The justice department dropped it's grand jury probe in April and filed a civil complaint accusing the companies of conspiracy to monopolize the industry.
  
1952 The official book on World War II honors was closed.
  
1952 Eisenhower defeated Robert Taft, U.S. Senator from Ohio, for the GOP presidential nomination.
   
1952 Eleanor Lansing Dulles (1895-1996) was appointed to run the State Department’s Berlin desk. Her brother John Foster Dulles was named Secretary of State and her other brother, Allen Welsh Dulles, got the top job in the CIA. Eleanor published her memoirs in 1980.
  
1952 Federal regulations established that personal details from the national census be kept confidential for 72 years.
  
1952 The McCarran-Walter Act erected a wall of suspicion around America’s borders.
 
1952 The American Bar Association began to be involved in the evaluation of screening prospective federal judges.
  
1952 he Colorado Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, 16 miles northwest of Denver, began producing plutonium bombs and bomb parts.
   
1952 Connecticut Representative Abraham Ribicoff lost his bid for the US Senate to Prescott S. Bush, the father of later Pres. George Bush.
  
1952 John F. Kennedy upset veteran Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., whose father, Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr., had served as a senator from 1893-1924.
  
1952 Elia Kazan gave HUAC the names of actors in his communist cell block at the Group Theater in the 1930s.
   
1952 The FBI gave Sen. Styles Bridges a confidential hearing that revealed that Armand Hammer, businessman, helped recruit spies for the Soviets and helped place them in US government positions.
  
1952 Capt. John Robertson Dunham, an Air Force spy pilot, was shot down over Russia.
  
1952 Larry Wu-Tai Chin, a CIA translator, began spying for China. He was convicted while retired in 1986 and within days killed himself.
  
1952 Discrimination on the basis of race was stricken from federal statutes.
  
1952 The Immigration and Nationality Act defined a qualified H-1 recipient as "an alien having residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning… and who is coming temporarily to the US…"
  
1952 Maj. Gen'l. Robert Grow, the military attaché in Moscow, was tried on charges of dereliction of duty and was suspended for 6 months. He was the 1st Army General to face court-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
   
1952 US gangster Mickey Cohen was arrested for tax evasion.
   
1952 Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel, but he declined.
  
1952 The US Internal Revenue Service was reorganized.
  
1952 Penny postcards went up in price.
   
1952 In Kentucky the 750-acre Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant began operation. For 23 years the government attempted to recycle used nuclear reactor fuel. The K-25 sister plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, also showed high death rates. In 1983 an autopsy of worker Joseph Harding revealed high concentrations of radiation, but the results were not made public until 1999. In 1999 plant employees charged that radiation exposure was a long running problem and that plutonium contamination had occurred from the mid 50s to the mid 70s. Union Carbide ran the plant for 32 years for the Dept of Energy, followed by Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin. Estimated cleanup costs in 1999 were $240 billion over 75 years.
   
1952 The Virgin Islands National Park was established on 5,000 acres turned over to the US government by Laurance Rockefeller.
  
1952 Barry Goldwater upset Arizona Democratic Senator Ernest McFarland by a 6,000 vote margin and won his first term in the Senate.
   
1952 Becton Dickinson introduced the Multifit, its first glass syringe with interchangeable needles.
  
1952 In Mattoon, Ill., Gene Hoots bought the Frigid Queen ice cream shop from his uncle. He expanded the business with hamburgers in 1954 and coined the named Burger King with a registered state trademark. He later lost a suit against the Florida Burger King chain whose federal trademark was ruled to hold priority. However the courts ruled that the franchise could not open within 20 miles of the Mattoon restaurant.
   
1952 Ford overtook Chrysler as the No. 2 automaker.
  
1952 Kellogg’s "Tony the Tiger" was created by advertising executive Don Tennant (d.2001 at 79).
  
1952 "Colonel Sanders" started Kentucky Fried Chicken with a 7-day-a-week Sunday dinner concept.
  
1952 Tappan introduced home microwave ovens for $1295.
  
1952 The Tobacco Blending Company of Louisville, Ky., made cigarette packs with the faces of Eisenhower and Stevenson. The company changed its name to World Tabac in 1963 and went out of business in 1993.
  
1952 Dyas Power Bothe Jr. (1911-1996), founded US Leasing Company. The company supplied pallets to agricultural companies. He is hailed as the father of the modern leasing business.
  
1952 In California Ernest O. Lawrence (1901-1958) founded what would later be known as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
   
1952 Sam Phillips (d.2003) founded Sun Records in Memphis, Ten. Phillips produced Elvis Presley's 1st record in 1954.
   
1952 John J. Rigas founded Adelphia Communications in Coudersport, Pa., with a dream and a $300 check for a local cable franchise.
   
1952 The US Leather Co. was dissolved. It had been the nation’s largest shoemaker in the first decades.
  
1952 Cuthbert C. Hurd (d. 5/22/96 at 85), computer scientist for IBM, led the development of the IBM 701 at a cost of $3 million. With his partner James Birkenstock, Cuthbert recommended that the company design and build a general purpose computer.
  
1952 David Bohm devised a quantum physics model in which each electron is guided by an invisible "pilot wave." His work is described in the 1997 book "Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm" by F. David Peat. Evidence for Bohm’s theory is described by David Wick in the 1977 book "The Infamous Boundary: Seven Decades of Heresy in Quantum Physics."
   
1952 Harry Markowitz won the Nobel Prize in 1990 for his 1952 theory on risk reduction that was later applied to portfolio management.
   
1952 Bell labs developed the 1st speech recognizer.
 
1952 Dr. Marshall D. Gates prepared a totally synthetic morphine.
  
1952 Chlorophyll was introduced.
 
1952 A rare type of genetic pancreatitis was diagnosed for the first time. In 1996 it was later found to be caused by a specific gene.
  
1952 The cave of Cougnac in south-central France was discovered. It had three paintings of the ancient Megaloceros giganteus (Irish elk).
   
1952 Harold Le Clair Ickes (b.1874), US lawyer, statesman and writer, died. T.H. Watkins later authored: "Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes."

   1952 Evita Peron (b.1919), the first lady of Argentina, died of cancer at age 33. Her biography: "Eva Peron" was written by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz. "Santa Evita" was a (1996) novel by Tomas Eloy Martinez based on the fate of her corpse. Eva wrote a little book "Mi Mensaje" (My Message, or In My Own Words) that was unfinished and lost until 1987 and published in English under the title "In My Own Words." "My Mission In Life" was ghostwritten under Eva’s name by Manuel Penella de Silva.
   
1952 Renato Simoni, Italian drama critic, died and left his entire library of 40,000 volumes to the La Scala museum.
  
1952 In Albania the Alba Films complex was built to produce Communist propaganda.
   
1952 In Australia Rupert Murdoch (21) inherited 2 fledgling newspapers in Adelaide. By 2003 his empire generated $17 billion a year in revenues.
   
1952 In Bolivia many of the largest haciendas were broken up as part of agrarian reforms, thousands of indigenous worked on the plantations in near slavery.
  
1952 The MNR Party was the driving force behind a revolution that launched agrarian reforms, the universal right to vote, and the nationalization of Bolivia’s mines. The MNR was also accused of assassinations and torture.
  
1952 The British government abolished ID cards.
 
1952 In Bulgaria Vincentius Bossilkov, the Bishop of Nikopolis, was convicted at a Stalinist-era show trial for refusing to accept a law aimed at removing the local Catholic Church from Vatican jurisdiction. He was tried, tortured, shot and buried in a common grave. He was beatified in 1998.
  
1952 In France the viral disease myxomatosis killed off about half the rabbits in the country.
 
1952 Germany banned the neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party, a successor to the Nazi Party.
  
1952 An Italian law made the praise of fascism a crime.
   
1952 Japan regained independence.
   
1952 Osamu Tezuka, Japanese cartoonist, dreamed up Astro Boy and put his b-day at April 7, 2003. His features soon defined the Japanese style called anime. In 1963 Astro Boy was imported to the US and 10-min. episodes ran until 1967.
 
1952 The Mau Mau start chopping away in Kenya. The Mau Mau movement was in part due to the white domination of the rich plateau region. The Mau Mau separatist group used a toxic plant to poison 33 steers in an act of rebellion.
 
1952 In Mexico Amalia Hernandez founded the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico.
  
1952 The sarcophagus of Lord Pakal was found in the ruins at Palenque, Mexico, by Alberto Ruz L’Huiller.
  
1952 Petroleum engineers drilled in Mexico’s Yucatan and found unexpected igneous rock. It was later thought to have come from a comet that hit about 65 million years ago. Sinkholes scattered around the edge of the resulting 112 mile diameter crater were later believed to result from rocks sinking in the center and causing fractures along the perimeter.
   
1952 In Poland a new constitution was adopted.
   
1952 Poland began to allow foreign cultures to organize their own schools.
   
1952 In Russia a trail was held for 15 leading Jewish writers, intellectuals and scientists, who were associated with the Anti-Fascist Committee. In 2001 Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir P. Naumov edited the transcripts and published "Stalin’s Secret Pogrom."
   
1952 In Yemen American explorer Wendell Phillips began excavating Marib’s Moon Temple of Sheba. He was forced away after 4 months when locals suspected that he was after gold.
  
1952-1955 I Love Lucy is the top ranking network show on television with a ranking of 67.3, 58.8, and 49.3% over three seasons.

1952-1987 William Shawn edited the New Yorker Magazine. He had a 40-year affair with writer Lillian Ross, who in 1998 published "Here But Not Here," an account of their relationship. In 1998 Ved Mehta published: "Remembering Mr. Shawn’s New Yorker."
  
1952-1996 Jan Kerouac, novelist daughter of Jack Kerouac. Her books included "Baby Driver" (1981) and "Trainsong" (1988).