Timeline 1954
Return to home
1954 Jan 1, Duff
Cooper (b.1890), British cabinet minister and envoy, died. In 1953 he
au-thored his autobiography “Old Men Forget.” In 2005 John Julius
Norwich edited “The Duff Coo-per Diaries.”
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWduff.htm)(Econ,
10/1/05, p.80)
1954 Jan 2, The "Caine Mutiny" by
Herman Wouk premiered in NYC.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1954 Jan 3, Albert Einstein wrote
a letter to the philosopher Eric Gutkind describing belief in God as
"childish superstition" and saying Jews were not the chosen people. In
2008 the letter was put up for auction and sold for $404,000.
(AFP, 5/13/08)(AP, 5/16/08)
1954 Jan 4, Elvis Presley recorded
a 10 minute demo in Nashville.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1954 Jan 5, Walter Edward Scott
(b.1872), Death Valley con man, died. He was supported for much of his
life by millionaire Albert Johnson (d.1948).
(ON, 3/04, p.8)(
http://mojavedesert.net/walter-scott/)
1954 Jan 8, President Dwight
Eisenhower proposed stripping convicted Communists of their U.S.
citizenship.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1954 Jan 9, Former Hawaii Gov.
Ingram Steinbeck said this is no time to admit the territory of Hawaii
to the Union, because left wing labor unions had an economic
stranglehold on the is-lands.
(SFC, 1/9/04, p.E2)
1954 Jan 11, Oscar Straus (83),
Austrian composer (The Chocolate Soldier), died.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1954 Jan 12, Howard Stern,
"Radio's Bad Boy," was born in Roosevelt, NY.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1954 Jan 12, Austria's worst
avalanche killed 200. 9hrs later a 2nd one killed 115.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1954 Jan 14, NY Yankee Joe
DiMaggio married actress Marilyn Monroe in SF City Hall. They were
divorced in Oct.
(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A13)(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A21)(MC, 1/14/02)
1954 Jan 16, "South Pacific"
closed at Majestic Theater, NYC, after 1928 performances.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1954 Jan 16, Mexico closed its
borders to all farm laborers heading for the US following a breakdown
in negotiations with the US over renewal of an annual agreement on
labor flow.
(SFC, 1/16/04, p.E5)
1954 Jan 20, "The Caine Mutiny
Court-Martial," a play by Herman Wouk based on part of his 1951 novel
"The Caine Mutiny," opened on Broadway.
(AP, 1/20/04)
1954 Jan 20, Over 22,000
anti-Communist prisoners were turned over to the UN forces in Ko-rea.
(HN, 1/20/99)
1954 Jan 20, The CIA built a
tunnel from west Berlin to East Berlin to tap Soviet and East German
communications.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A3)
1954 Jan 21, The first atomic
submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Conn. However, the
Nautilus did not make its first nuclear-powered run until nearly a year
later.
(AP, 1/21/08)
1954 Jan 29, Oprah Winfrey,
actress, TV host (Color Purple, Oprah), was born in Mississippi.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1954 Jan 31, Edwin H. Armstrong
(b.1890), US radio inventor of frequency modulation (FM), committed
suicide.
(www.britannica.com)(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1954 Jan, Leonard Moskowitz
(1917-2008), whose father was the founder of Rochester Big & Tall,
was kidnapped in San Francisco. He was freed when the kidnappers, who
had demanded $500,000, were captured 3 days after the kidnapping.
(SFC, 7/3/08, p.B5)
1954 Feb 1, A television classic
was born this day on CBS-TV, as the serial, "The Secret Storm", was
shown for the first day of what would become a 20-year run on the
network.
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1954 Feb 1, Abbe Pierre
(1912-2007) told French listeners on Radio Luxembourg that a woman had
frozen to death on the boulevard Sebastopol, clutching an eviction
notice issued the day before. His appeal sparked an enormous response.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.87)
1954 Feb 2, President Eisenhower
reported the 1952 detonation of 1st Hydrogen bomb.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1954 Feb 3, Millions greeted Queen
Elizabeth in Sydney on her first royal trip to Australia.
(HN, 2/3/99)
1954 Feb 5, A US Air Force C-47
enroute from Fairbanks to Anchorage crashed on Kesugi Ridge near Byers
Lake in Alaska. 10 people were killed and 6 survived.
(www.ak-prepared.com/vetaffairs/byerslake.htm)
1954 Feb 8, Caryl Whittier
Chessman (34), on death row at San Quentin for kidnapping and attempted
rape, had his 1st book accepted for publication: "Cell 2455, Death
Row." He was executed May 2, 1960.
(SFC, 2/6/04, p.E12)
1954 Feb 10, Eisenhower warned
against US intervention in Vietnam.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1954 Feb 14, Sen. John Kennedy
appeared on "Meet the Press."
(MC, 2/14/02)
1954 Feb 15, Matt Groening,
cartoonist (The Simpsons), was born.
(HN, 2/15/01)
1954 Feb 15, The 1st bevatron went
into operation in Berkeley, California.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1954 Feb 18, East and West Berlin
dropped thousands of propaganda leaflets on each other after the end of
a month long truce.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1954 Feb 20, Patty Hearst, famous
kidnap hostage (Tanya), was born in SF.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1954 Feb 20, The Ford Foundation
gave a $25 million grant to the Fund for Advancement of Education.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1954 Feb 22, U.S. was to install
60 Thor nuclear missiles in Britain.
(HN, 2/22/99)
1954 Feb 23, The first mass
inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began in
Pittsburgh. Jonas Salk created the Salk vaccine against polio. It used
a killed virus to induce immunization. Poliomyelitis is a viral attack
of the central nervous system and can cause pa-ralysis and death by
asphyxiation. [see Apr 26] In 2005 David M. Oshinsky authored
“Polio: An American Story – The Crusade That Mobilized the Nation
Against the 20th Century’s Most Feared Disease.”
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A10)(HN, 2/23/98)(AP,
2/23/98)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.79)
1954 Feb 23, In Egypt Pres. Naguib
resigned. The popular outcry was so great that Naguib was reinstated as
president. Nasser, however, took the position of prime minister,
previously held by Naguib, and remained president of the Revolutionary
Command Council (RCC).
(http://countrystudies.us/egypt/32.htm)
1954 Feb 26, Michigan
Representative Ruth Thompson (R) introduced legislation to ban mail-ing
"obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy" phonograph (rock and roll records.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1954 Feb 26, 1st typesetting
machine (photo engraving) used at Quincy, MA.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1954 Feb 26, William R. Inge (93),
English theologist, philosopher, died.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1954 Mar 1, The US Senate
confirmed the Earl Warren for Chief Justice of the US. He had been
serving as the Interim chief Justice since Oct 5, 1953.
(www.supremecourthistory.org/history/supremecourthistory_history_chief_014warren.htm)
1954 Mar 1, The Bravo hydrogen
bomb test exploded across Bikini atoll (Marshall Islands) with the
force of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs. A Nuclear Claims Tribunal, established
in 1986, later awarded Bikini and Enewetak 500 million dollars but only
a fraction of the amount was received. A Nov 30, 2004, deadline limited
further suits.
(AP,
10/17/04)(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX51.html)
1954 Mar 1, The No. 5 Fukuryu-maru
was trolling for tuna off the Bikini atoll in the Pacific dur-ing the
Bravo hydrogen bomb test. 11 crew members died in the half-century
since the expo-sure, at least six of them from liver cancer. Between
1946 and 1958, the United States con-ducted 66 nuclear tests at Bikini
as part of "Operation Crossroads."
(AP, 2/28/04)
1954 Mar 1, Ted Williams fractured
a collarbone in 1st game of spring training after flying 39 combat
missions without injury in Korean War.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1954 Mar 1, Puerto Rican
nationalists opened fire from the gallery of the U.S. House of
Rep-resentatives, wounding five congressmen. In 1998 the granddaughter
of one of the nationalists published a family memoir.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)(AP, 3/1/98)(NPR, 2/28/98)
1954 Mar 1, Rebellion during visit
of President Naguib in Khartoum Sudan, 30 die.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1954 Mar 4, JE Wilkins was
appointed 1st Black US sub-cabinet member.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1954 Mar 5, "Girl in Pink Tights"
opened at Mark Hellinger in NYC for 115 performances.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1954 Mar 6, The TV show "See It
Now" broadcast its "Report on Senator McCarthy," and ex-amined the
senator and his red-baiting tactics. [see Mar 9]
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A24)
1954 Mar 8, The U.S. signed a
mutual defense pact with Japan, offering them $100 million in aid
within the next three months.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)(HN, 3/8/98)
1954 Mar 9, CBS newsman Edward R.
Murrow critically reviewed Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy’s
anti-Communism campaign on "See It Now." [see Mar 6]
(AP, 3/9/98)
1954 Mar 10, Pres. Eisenhower
called Sen. Joseph McCarthy a peril to the Republican Party.
(HN, 3/10/98)
1954 Mar 11, The U.S. Army charged
that Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy and his sub-committee's chief
counsel, Roy Cohn, had exerted pressure to obtain favored treatment for
Pvt. G. David Schine, a former consultant to the subcommittee. The
confrontation culminated in the famous Senate Army-McCarthy hearings.
(AP, 3/11/04)
1954 Mar 13, Viet Minh General
Giap opened an assault on French forces at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam. In
2010 Ted Morgan (aka Sanche Armand Gabriel de Gramont) authored “Valley
of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the
Vietnam War.”
(HN, 3/14/98)(Econ, 4/3/04, p.86)(Econ, 2/20/10,
p.80)
1954 Mar
15, The "CBS Morning Show" premiered with Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)
and Jack Paar (1918-2004).
(NYT, 3/14/54,
p.x15)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0046627/episodes)
1954 Mar 18, Howard Hughes paid
$23.5 million for the RKO motion picture company.
(SFC, 4/18/98, p.C3)
1954 Mar 19, The 1st rocket-driven
sled on rails was tested in Alamogordo, NM.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1954 Mar 20, "King and I" closed
at St. James Theater in NYC after 1246 performances.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1954 Mar 21, Paul Selenyi
(b.1884), Hungarian physicist, died in Budapest. He was the first to
record images with an electrostatic marking process. This was the
foundation for Chester Carl-son’s Xerox copiers.
(www.thehungarypage.com/sciencemathandtech.htm)
1954 Mar 22, The 1st shopping mall
opened in Southfield, Mich.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1954 Mar 22, The London gold
market reopened for the first time since 1939.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1954 Mar 24, Britain opened trade
talks with Hungary.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1954 Mar 25, RCA manufactured its
first color TV set and began mass production. The 1953 RCA design for
color TV was adopted as the national standard. The 12" screen TV was
priced at $1000. Westinghouse had introduced a color model a few weeks
earlier, but only 1 set was sold in the 1st month.
(HN, 3/24/98)(WSJ, 11/4/99, p.B6)(MC, 3/25/02)(SFC,
3/18/04, p.E1)
1954 Mar 25, At the Academy
Awards, "From Here to Eternity" won eight Oscars, including best
picture, best director (Fred Zinnemann), best supporting actor (Frank
Sinatra) and best supporting actress (Donna Reed). Audrey Hepburn won
best actress for "Roman Holiday" and William Holden best actor for
"Stalag 17."
(AP, 3/25/04)
1954 Mar 26, The U.S. set off the
second H-bomb blast in four weeks in the Marshall Islands at Bikini
Island. The 15-megaton device was 750 times more powerful than the
atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The blast contaminated the
neighboring island of Rongelap and nearly 100 people on the island and
other downwind atolls.
(HN, 3/25/98)(SFC, 12/7/99, p.A10)(SS, 3/26/02)
1954 Mar 28, In the 8th Tony
Awards: Teahouse of the August Moon and Kismet won
(MC, 3/28/02)
1954 Mar 29, Karen Anne Quinlan,
famous comatose patient (right to die case), was born in NJ.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1954 Mar 30, Canada’s first subway
line opened in Toronto.
(CFA, ‘96, p.42)(HN, 3/30/98)
1954 Mar 31, Moscow offered to
join NATO on the condition that the West join the Soviet European
security treaty.
(HN, 3/31/98)
1954 Mar 31, The siege of Dien
Bien Phu, the last French outpost in Vietnam, began after the Viet Minh
realized it could not be taken by direct assault.
(HN, 3/31/99)
1954 Mar, US CIA official Donald
N. Wilber wrote a history of the CIA sponsored 1953 coup in Iran.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.A18)
1954 Mar, Dorothy Gay Howard (18)
of Phoenix, Arizona, was reported missing. Her nude and battered body
was found on April 8 along a creek in Boulder, Colorado. She was buried
as Jane Doe until her identity was established by DNA testing in 2009.
(www.dailycamera.com/ci_13658937?source=most_viewed)
1954 Apr 1, U.S. Air Force Academy
was founded in Colorado. President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill
authorizing the establishment of an Air Force Academy, similar to West
Point and Annapolis. On July 11, 1955, the first class was sworn in at
Lowry Air Force Base. The acad-emy moved to a permanent site near
Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1958.
(HN, 4/1/98)(HNQ, 2/22/99)(MC, 4/1/02)
1954 Apr 3, Aristides de Sousa
Mendes (b.1885), former Portuguese consul general in Bordeaux, France,
died in poverty. He is credited with defying his government’s ordes and
saving 10,000 European Jews and some 20,000 other nationals by issuing
transit visas to “undesirables” fleeing the Nazis during WW II.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristides_de_Sousa_Mendes)(SFC, 2/19/09,
p.B5)
1954 Apr 6, Four weeks after being
attacked on the air by Edward R. Murrow, Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy,
R-Wis., delivered a filmed response on CBS' "See It Now" in which he
charged that Murrow had, in the past, "engaged in propaganda for
Communist causes."
(AP, 4/6/04)
1954 Apr 7, Jackie Chan, martial
art actor (Rumble in the Bronx), was born.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1954 Apr 7, Pres. Eisenhower spoke
at a press conference about why we needed to protect Vietnam and
mentioned his fear of a "domino-effect" in Indochina.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2630)
1954 Apr 7, The West German
government refused to recognize DDR (East Germany).
(MC, 4/7/02)
1954 Apr 9, Dennis Quaid, actor
(Big Easy, Dreamscape, Right Stuff), was born in Houston, TX.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1954 Apr 12, Bill Haley & the
Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock" at NYC's Pythian Temple. It was
written by Max C. Freedman and Jimmy de Knight. Haley's "Rock Around
the Clock," was originally released as the B side of “Thirteen Women.”
Haley died in 1981.
(www.rockabillyhall.com/RockClockTribute.html)(WSJ,
4/8/04, p.D8)
1954 Apr 12, Joe Turner released
"Shake, Rattle & Roll."
(MC, 4/12/02)
1954 Apr 12, AEC hearings began on
Robert Oppenheimer. Lewis Strauss, head of the AEC, had accused
Oppenheimer on Dec 21, 1953, of disloyalty and presented a list of the
charges against him. Oppenheimer refused to resign, demanded a hearing,
and hired a lawyer.
(http://tinyurl.com/8e8lf)
1954 Apr 18, The US held a
nationwide test of its disaster radio system known as Conelrad. In SF a
simulated 10-megaton bomb, exploding over Hunters Point, was estimated
to kill 500,000 Bay Area citizens.
(SSFC, 4/12/09, DB p.43)
1954 Apr 18, Colonel Nasser seized
power in Egypt.
(HN, 4/18/98)
1954 Apr 21, USAF flew a French
battalion to Vietnam.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1954 Apr 21, Gyorgy Malenkov
became premier of USSR.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1954 Apr 22, The publicly
televised US Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began.
(AP, 4/22/08)
1954 Apr 23, The Army-McCarthy
hearings began. [see Apr 22]
(HN, 4/23/01)
1954 Apr 23, Hank Aaron of the
Milwaukee Braves hit the first of his record 755 major-league home runs
against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Braves won, 7-5.
(AP, 4/23/97)
1954 Apr 25, Bell Labs in NYC
announced the 1st solar battery.
(SFC, 2/16/04, p.E1)
1954 Apr 26, Nationwide test of
Salk anti-polio vaccine began. [see Feb 23]
(MC, 4/26/02)
1954 Apr 29, Jerry Seinfeld,
actor, was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, DB p.36)
1954 Apr 29, India and Communist
China entered an 8-year pact for peaceful coexistence.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)
1954 Apr 30, Jane Campion, New
Zealand film director (The Piano, A Portrait of a Lady), was born.
(HN, 4/30/01)
1954 Apr 30, KQED, SF-based public
television, began broadcasting.
(SFC, 4/28/04, p.E1)
1954 Apr, In Pakistan the
government issued the Munir Report, an eloquent expression of the
state’s position on religion. This was made in response to Muslim
leaders in the Punjab who agitated in 1953 to have a rival group
declassified as Muslims.
(WSJ, 4/4/08,
p.W5)(http://aaiil.info/misconceptions/fatwas/munir.htm)
1954 May 1, Ray York rode
Determine to victory in the Kentucky Derby.
(SFC, 9/4/09,
p.D6)(www.kentuckyderby.com/2009/history/statistics/1951-1975)
1954 May 1, Legos, founded by
Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, became a registered trademark
in Denmark.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bllego.htm)
1954 May 2, Walt Disney and
associates announced plans to build a $9 million Disneyland on a
160-acre tract, once part of the Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana, in
Orange County.
(SFC, 4/30/04, p.F5)
1954 May 3, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Charles A. Lindbergh and John Patrick.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1954 May 5, There was a military
coup by General Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay. Thomas Romero Pereira
came to power in a military coup that lasted for three days. He is best
known for giving up power three months later to Alfredo Stroessner who
then became the dictator of Paraguay for 35 years.
(SFC, 5/11/98,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_Romero_Pereira)
1954 May 6, Medical student Roger
Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford,
England, finishing in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. In 2004 Neal Bascomb
authored "The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal and Less Than Four
Minutes to Achieve It."
(TMC, 1994, p.1954)(AP, 5/6/97)(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.A1)
1954 May 7, A San Francisco jury
decided that Harold Jackson and Joseph Lear should be executed for the
January kidnapping of Leonard Moskovitz. Their sentences were later
changed to life in prison and both men died in San Quentin.
(SFC, 5/7/04, p.F2)(SFC, 7/3/08, p.B5)
1954 May 7, US, Great Britain and
France rejected Russian membership in NATO.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1954 May 7, The Battle of Dien
Bien Phu in Vietnam ended after 55 days with Vietnamese insurgents
overrunning French forces and the US began to get involved. Vietnamese
insurgents expelled the French but the country was divided into a
communist north and a pro-US south. In the 8 years of the French
Indochina War some 52,000 French soldiers were killed. Vietnam was soon
partitioned between a regime in Hanoi led by Ho Chi Minh and an
anti-communist regime in Saigon under Ngo Dinh Diem. Howard Simpson
later wrote: "Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot." In 2004
Martin Windrow authored “The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French
Defeat in Vietnam.”
(TL, 1988, p.114)(SFC, 12/27/96, p.A24)(SFC,
2/22/96, p.B3)(AP, 5/7/97)(SFC, 5/24/99, p.C4)(Econ, 11/27/04, p.86)
1954 May 13, The musical play "The
Pajama Game" opened on Broadway for 1063 perform-ances.
(AP, 5/13/97)
1954 May 13, Robin Roberts gave up
a HR then retired the next 27 men in a row.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1954 May 13, President Eisenhower
signed into law the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Act.
(AP, 5/13/97)
1954 May 13, Labour Party won
British municipal elections.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1954 May 14, The US military
unveiled a Nike guided missile at the SF Presidio. Plans were to ring
13 critical areas in the US with such missiles.
(SFC, 5/14/04, p.F5)
1954 May 17, The US Supreme Court
unanimously ruled for school integration in the land-mark initiative of
Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. It helped abolish de facto and
de jure segregation that persisted throughout the US. The Supreme Court
ruled that racial segre-gation in public schools is unconstitutional.
The 12-page historic opinion was written by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
The case was Brown vs. Board of Education and the result overturned the
1896 decision of Plessy vs. Ferguson that proclaimed a doctrine of
separate but equal. The Plessy vs. Ferguson decision had allowed that
as long as accommodation existed, segregation did not constitute
discrimination, establishing the doctrine of "separate but equal." In
the Brown case, which involved elementary education, the Court ruled
unanimously that segregation in public education was a denial of the
equal protection of the laws.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-6)(SFEC, 6/8/97, BR
p.8)(www.nationalcenter.org/brown.html)
1954 May 17, Blacks hailed the
Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision. Whites in the Deep
South called the day "Black Monday." A movement called Citizens’
Councils, led by Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Tom P. Brady, grew to
encompass virtually the state's entire white business class. Council
members published a book entitled “Black Monday” which out-lined their
simple beliefs: African Americans were inferior to whites and the races
must remain separate. "If in one mighty voice we do not protest this
travesty on justice, we might as well sur-render," Brady wrote.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/peopleevents/e_councils.html)(MT, summer
2003, p.19)
1954 May 18, European Convention
on Human Rights went into effect.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1954 May 19, Postmaster General
Summerfield approved a CIA mail-opening project.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1954 May 19, American composer
Charles Ives died in New York.
(AP, 5/19/04)
1954 May 20, Generalissimo Chiang
Kai-shek became president of Nationalist China.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1954 May 25, Robert Capa (40), war
photographer for Life Mag., was accidentally killed in Vietnam when he
stepped on a land mine. Capa authored a memoir in 1947: "Slightly Out
of Focus." A collection of his work was published in 1997: "Robert
Capa, Photographs," with an in-troduction by Richard Whelan. Capa was
born Endre Friedman in Budapest. In 2003 Alex Ker-shaw authored "Blood
and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa."
(SFEM, 1/12/97, BR p.9)(SFEM,12/21/97, p.7)(WSJ,
4/20/98, p.A20)
1954 May 27, The security board of
the Atomic Energy Commission affirmed Robert Oppen-heimer's loyalty but
denied him security clearance. The AEC canceled his contract.
(SSFC, 7/31/05, p.F2)(http://tinyurl.com/8e8lf)
1954 May 28, George E. Mahlberg,
Astrophysicist, Mt Palomar, Mt Wilson CA (1974-78), was born.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1954 May 28, Achille Longo (54),
composer, died.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1954 May 29, Pope Pius XII, born
as Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Pacelli (1876-1958), canonized Pope Pius X,
born as Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto (1835-1914). It was the first
canonization of a Pope since 1712.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_canonized_by_Pope_Pius_XII)
1954 May, The US Coast Guard began
around the clock patrols outside the San Francisco’s Golden Gate to
guard against ships that might smuggle nuclear bombs into SF Bay. The
patrols were made public in Feb 2, 1955.
(SFC, 1/28/05, p.F7)
1954 Jun 2, Senator Joseph
McCarthy charged that there are communists working in the CIA and
atomic weapons plants.
(HN, 6/2/98)
1954 Jun 4, French Premier Joseph
Laniel and Vietnamese Premier Buu Loc initialed treaties in Paris
according "complete independence" to Vietnam.
(AP, 6/4/97)
1954 Jun 7, Louise Erdrich,
American author, was born.
(HN, 6/7/01)
1954 Jun 7, The 1st microbiology
laboratory was dedicated in New Brunswick, NJ.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1954 Jun 7, Alan Turing (b.1912),
English mathematician, died of suicide. Turing, a homosex-ual, was
convicted in 1952 of gross indecency and forced to take estrogen
injections. In 2006 David Leavitt authored ”The Man Who Knew Too Much:
Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer. In 2009 British PM
Gordon Brown apologized for the "inhumane" treatment of Alan Turing.
(www.turing.org.uk/turing/)Econ, 7/8/06, p.79)(AP,
9/11/09)
1954 Jun 9, Army counsel Joseph N.
Welch confronted Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy during the Senate-Army
Hearings over McCarthy’s attack on a member of Welch’s law firm,
Frederick G. Fisher. Said Welch: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At
long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
(AP, 6/9/97)(HN 6/9/98)
1954 Jun 12, Bill Haley's "Rock
Around the Clock," was originally released.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1954 Jun 14, Americans took part
in the first nation-wide civil defense test against atomic at-tack.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1954 Jun 14, President Eisenhower
signed an order adding the words "under God" to the Pledge of
Allegiance. On Feb 7 Eisenhower had attended a service where Rev.
George M. Do-cherty (d.2008 at 97), a Scotland-born pastor of the New
York Avenue Presbyterian Church, in Washington, DC, repeated his 1952
sermon saying the pledge should acknowledge God.
(AP, 6/14/97)(SFC, 6/29/98, p.A4)(AP, 11/30/08)
1954 Jun 16, Ngo Dinh Diem was
elected president of Vietnam.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1954 Jun 17, The Army-McCarthy
hearings ended. In 1964 a film of the hearings was made by Daniel
Talbot and Emile de Antonio and titled "Point of Order."
(SFC, 2/15/99, p.E2)
1954 Jun 18, Albert Patterson was
assassinated in Phenix, Ala. He had recently been elected as attorney
general on a platform to crack down on vice. His murder led the
governor to call in the National Guard to replace local law enforcement
and cleanup the vice. Patterson’s son John filled the attorney general
position and soon became the subject of the movie “The Phenix City
Story.” He was elected governor in 1958.
(USAT, 6/29/04, p.7A)
1954 Jun 18, Pierre Mendes-France
(1907-1982) became Premier of France. His political sig-nature was a
glass of milk. After the war, some French leaders were concerned that
French people were drinking too much wine and starting to drink at too
early an age. When Mendes-France would appear in public, there
invariably was a glass of milk on the lectern, which he made a point of
sipping some time during the presentation
(http://thisdayinjewishhistory.blogspot.com/2007/06/this-day-june-18-in-jewish-history.html)
1954 Jun 19, Kathleen Turner
(actress: Body Heat, Peggy Sue Got Married, Romancing the Stone, voice
of Jessica Rabbit in Roger Rabbit), was born.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1954 Jun 19, The Tasmanian Devil,
a Cartoon Character, made its debut in ‘Devil May Hare’ by Warner Bros.
(DT, 6/19/97)
1954 Jun 20, Ilan Ramon, Israeli
pilot and astronaut, was born in Tel Aviv. He was among the 7
astronauts killed in the US Columbia space shuttle tragedy Feb 1, 2003.
(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.A8)
1954 Jun 27, CIA-sponsored rebels
overthrew the elected government of Guatemala. A US supported force of
Guatemalan mercenaries invaded from Honduras. Pres. Arbenz was toppled
and replaced by 30 years of military rule. He spent much of his exile
in Cuba. Arbenz died in 1971 in Mexico City. It was disclosed in 1997
to have been motivated by US economic interests with 58 Guatemalan
politicians put on a list of potential targets for political killing.
In 1982 "Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in
Guatemala" by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, was published by
Doubleday.
(NG, 6/1988, p.783)(NG, 10/1988, member’s
forum)(SFC, 5/24/97, p.A1)(HNQ, 1/30/99)(WSJ, 3/3/99, p.A18)(SC,
6/27/02)
1954 Jun 27, The 1st atomic power
station opened near Moscow at Obninsk, Russia.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1954 Jun 28, US Sen. John F.
Kennedy wrote a letter to Gunilla von Post, a Swedish woman he had met
on the French Riviera in August 1953, and suggested sailing with her
for 2 weeks around the Mediterranean. Kennedy was 36 when he met Post
(21). In 1997 Post authored a book, “Love, Jack,” that detailed her
long-distance affair with Kennedy. In 2010 an auction house put 11
letters and 3 telegrams of their correspondence up for sale.
(SFC, 2/17/10, p.A9)
1954 Jun 28, French troops began
to pull out of Vietnam’s Tonkin Province.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1954 Jun, India and China devised
and embraced “five principles of peaceful coexistence.”
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.36)
1954 Jul 2, Wendy Schaal, actress
(It's a Living, Julie-Fantasy Is), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1954 Jul 3, In Salem Mass.,
champion female athlete Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956)
won the US Women's Open. She had just come back from a battle with
cancer, yet won the event by 12 strokes.
(www.uswomensopen.com/2004/press/whatta-gal.html)y
1954 Jul 3, Food rationing ended
in Great Britain almost 9 years after the end of World War II.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1954 Jul 4, WMSL (WYUR, now WAFF)
TV channel 48 in Huntsville, AL (ABC) began.
(Maggio)
1954 Jul 4, West Germany beat
Hungary 3-2 to win the 5th World Cup soccer match in Bern, Switz.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_World_Cup)
1954 Jul 4, Marilyn Sheppard (31
and pregnant) was killed at her home near Cleveland and her husband,
Dr. Sam Sheppard (d.1970), was later accused, tried and jailed for the
murder. Sam was released from jail in 1964. His story inspired the TV
series "The Fugitive" and a film in 1993. DNA evidence in 1997
indicated a third person was involved. Cleveland’s chief prosecu-tor
ruled in 1998 that the DNA samples were too old. A civil trial in
Cleveland in 2000 rejected the claim of Sam Reese Sheppard that his
father was innocent. [see Dec 21]
(SFC, 2/5/97, p.A6)(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A3)(SFC, 3/6/98,
p.A3)(SFC, 4/13/00, p.A2)
1954 Jul 5, Elvis Presley’s first
commercial recording session took place at Sun Records in Memphis,
Tenn.; the song he recorded was "That’s All Right (Mama)."
(AP, 7/5/97)
1954 Jul 5, The B-52A bomber made
its maiden flight.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1954 Jul 7, Elvis Presley made his
radio debut as Memphis, Tennessee, station WHBQ played his first
recording for Sun Records, "That’s All Right (Mama)."
(AP, 7/7/00)
1954 Jul 8, The raft Lehi with 5
amateur sailors was towed out of SF Bay to attempt a 2,200 drifting
voyage to Hawaii. Mormon elder DeVere Baker (38) led the expedition.
The freightor Metapan rescued the crew on July 14.
(SFC, 7/9/04, p.F5)
1954 Jul 8, Carlos Castillo Armas
of Guatemala became president. He was assassinated in 1957.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)
1954 Jul 10, Pres. Eisenhower
signed Public Law 480, the Agricultural Trade Development and
Assistance Act of 1954, which later became known as the “Food for
Peace” program.
(http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r103:H10MY4-223:)(WSJ, 10/26/05,
p.A1)
1954 Jul 12, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower proposed a highway modernization program, with costs to be
shared by federal and state governments.
(HN, 7/12/98)
1954 Jul 13, In Geneva, the United
States, Great Britain and France reached an accord on Indochina,
dividing Vietnam into two countries, North and South, along the 17th
parallel.
(HN, 7/13/99)
1954 Jul 13, Frida Kahlo (b.1907),
artist, died in Mexico City. Her final painting was an incom-plete
portrait of Joseph Stalin. Hayden Herrera authored her biography in
1983. Raquel Tibol later authored "Frido Kahlo: An Open Life."
(SFC, 4/22/01, p.D3)(WSJ, 7/6/01,
p.W11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo)
1954 Jul 15, The Boeing “Dash 80,”
a prototype of the 707, made its first test flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1954 Jul 17, The 1st major league
baseball game was played where a majority of a team was black (Dodgers).
(MC, 7/17/02)
1954 Jul 17, Gen. Joseph Swing,
appointed by Pres. Eisenhower to head the INS, began "Operation
Wetback." Because political resistance was lower in California and
Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept
northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions
a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two
states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country.
(CSM, 7/6/06)
1954 Jul 18, Coded messages were
delivered to Israeli agents via Israel Radio to blow up a number
of buildings in Egypt in order to delay Britain’s departure from the
Suez Canal. They planned to blame the acts on Muslim radicals but the
plan was uncovered. This came to be known as the Lavan Affair after
Pinhas Lavan, leader of Unit 13, refused to accept responsibility on
the grounds that the operation was conducted without his knowledge. The
events are docu-mented in "Ben Gurion’s Spy" (1996) by Shabtai Teveth.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A5c)
1954 Jul 20, An armistice for
Indo-China was signed and Vietnam separated into North & South.
[see Jul 21]
(MC, 7/20/02)
1954 Jul 20, West German secret
service head Otto John defected to German DR.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1954 Jul 21, France surrendered
North Vietnam to the Communists at Geneva. The French signed an
armistice, the Geneva Accords, with the Viet Minh that ended the war
but divided Vietnam into two countries. This led to almost a million
anti-Communists in the north to flee to the south.
(AP, 7/21/97)(HN, 7/21/98)(OGA, 11/24/98)(SFEC,
4/23/00, p.A19)
1954 Jul 25, Walter Payton,
Chicago Bear football running back, was born in Columbia, Miss.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Payton)
1954 Jul 25, Lynn Frederick,
actress (Schizophrenia), was born in Middlesex, England.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1954 Jul 28, Hugo Chavez, later
president of Venezuela, was born in Sabaneta, Venezuela.
(SSFC, 8/26/07,
p.M2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez)
1954 Jul 31, Italians Lino
Lacedelli (1925-2009) and Achille Compagnoni (1915-2009) first scaled
Pakistan’s K-2, the world's second-highest mountain. In 2004 Lacedelli
authored “K2: The Price of Conquest.”
(AP, 7/27/04)(SSFC, 11/29/09, p.C8)
1954 Aug 1, The Geneva Accords
divided Vietnam into two countries at the 17th parallel. U.S.
complicity in the overthrow of South Vietnam's president made it
impossible to stay uninvolved in the war. The Geneva Accords called for
elections by July, 1956, and put a limit on the pres-ence of foreign
advisors. US military advisors were limited to 685. While the Geneva
Agree-ments ended the war and established the 17th parallel as a
temporary military demarcation be-tween the Vietminh-administered North
and the Bao Dai government in the South, the reunifica-tion elections
were never held and within a few years there was a large-scale infusion
of foreign assistance in men and arms. The signatories were France, the
Vietminh, China, Great Britain, Cambodia, Laos and the Soviet Union.
The United States and the government of Bao Dai in the South did not
sign the agreement.
(WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-23)(HN, 8/1/98)(HNQ, 2/23/00)
1954 Aug 3, The 1st VTOL (Vertical
Take-off & Land) aircraft was flown.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1954 Aug 3, Sidonie Gabrielle
Colette (b.1873), French actress, librettist, novelist (Claudine) and
critic, died. Her novels included "Le Ble en herbe" (The Ripening Seed)
and "Julie de Carneilhan (1941). In 1999 Judith Thurman authored
"Secrets of the Flesh," a biography of Colette.
(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A24)(SC, 8/3/02)
1954 Aug 4, A uranium rush began
in Saskatchewan, Canada.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1954 Aug 9, Turkey, Greece and
Yugoslavia signed a 20-year treaty of military and political
cooperation.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)
1954 Aug 11, A formal peace took
hold in Indochina, ending more than seven years of fight-ing between
the French and Communist Vietminh.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1954 Aug 12, Sam J. Jones, actor
(Chris-Code Red, The Highway Man), was born in Chi-cago, Ill.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1954 Aug 12, Pat Metheny, jazz
guitarist (As Wichita Falls), was born.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1954 Aug 15, Alfredo Stroessner
(b.1912) named himself president of Paraguay. This ended a 27-year
chaotic period in which 22 presidents came and went.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1954 Aug 16, Sports Illustrated
was first published by Time Inc.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1954 Aug 18, Assistant Secretary
of Labor James E. Wilkins became the first black to attend a meeting of
a president’s Cabinet as he sat in for Labor Secretary James P.
Mitchell.
(AP, 8/18/97)
1954 Aug 19, Ralph J. Bunche was
named undersecretary of UN.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1954 Aug 23, The small community
of Charleston, Arkansas, became the first in the South to end
segregation in its schools. This was in response to the May 17 US
Supreme Court ruling on Brown vs. Board of Education.
(Econ, 9/22/07,
p.44)(http://ideas.aetn.org/productions/virtualtours/lrcentral/10)
1954 Aug 24, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower signed the Communist Control Act, virtually outlawing the
Communist Party in the United States.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)(AP, 8/24/07)
1954 Aug 24, In Brazil Pres.
Getulio Vargas killed himself in the midst of a scandal.
(WSJ, 4/6/06,
p.D8)(http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=428)
1954 Aug 29, The SF International
Airport’s (SFO) Terminal 2 opened with a ceremony led by Mayor
Robinson. Mills Field became SF Airport.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, Z1 p.4)(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.F8)
1954 Aug 31, Hurricane Carol hit
the northeastern United States, resulting in nearly 70 deaths and
millions of dollars in damage.
(AP, 8/31/97)
1954 Sep 3, The US Espionage &
Sabotage Act of 1954 signed.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1954 Sep 3, China began artillery
bombing on Quemoy & Amoy.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1954 Sep 4, The 1st passage of
McClure Strait, fabled Northwest Passage, completed.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1954 Sep 6, Carly Fiorina, later
CEO of Hewlett Packard (199-2005), was born.
(WSJ, 2/10/05, p.)
1954 Sep 6, A US plane was shot
down above Siberia.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1954 Sep 7-8, Integration of
public schools began in Washington DC and Maryland.
(HN,
9/7/98)(www.courtinfo.ca.gov/presscenter/timeline.htm)
1954 Sep 8, SEATO (Southeast Asia
Treaty Organization), a sister organization to NATO, was created under
the Manila Pact by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, to
stop communist spread in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos).
The United States, Aus-tralia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, the
Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand signed the mutual defense treaty.
SEATO dissolved in 1977.
(HNQ, 4/2/01)(http://tinyurl.com/hpawj)
1954 Sep 10, A 12 second
earthquake killed 1,460 in Orleansville, Algeria.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1954 Sep 10, Peter Anders, German
opera singer, died.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1954 Sep 11, The Miss America
pageant made its network TV debut on ABC; Miss California, Lee Ann
Meriwether of San Francisco, was crowned the winner.
(AP, 9/11/97)(SFC, 11/16/99, p.G9)
1954 Sep 12, Lassie premiered on
CBS-TV.
(AP, 9/12/04)
1954 Sep 11, Category 3 Hurricane
Edna made landfall at Martha’s Vineyard. This 2nd storm of 1954 hit NYC
with $50 million damage and caused 21 deaths in the region.
(www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/history.shtml#carol)
1954 Sep 17, Rocky Marciano
retained possession of the world heavyweight boxing title. He knocked
out Ezzard Charles in the 8th round of their championship bout.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1954 Sep 20, The live TV drama
"Twelve Angry Men" was presented as an episode of CBS' "Studio One"
anthology series.
(AP, 9/21/04)
1954 Sep 20, The 1st FORTRAN
computer program was executed.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1954 Sep 20, Roger Bannister was
awarded Britain’s Silver Pears Trophy for cracking the 4-minute mile.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1954 Sep 21, The 1st nuclear
submarine, USS Nautilus, commissioned. [see Sep 30]
(MC, 9/21/01)
1954 Sep 23, East German police
arrested 400 citizens as U.S. spies.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1954 Sep 25, Francois "Doc"
Duvalier won the Haitian presidential election.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1954 Sep 26, Ronald Reagan made
his 1st appearance as host of the "General Electric Theater," and
continued on for 8 years.
(SSFC, 6/6/04, A14)
1954 Sep 26, A typhoon hit Japan.
5 ferryboats sank killing about 1,600. The Japanese ferry boat Toya
Maru sank in the Strait of Tsugaru and 1172 died.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1954 Sep 27, "Tonight!" hosted by
Steve Allen, made its debut on NBC-TV.
(AP,
9/27/97)(www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show-experience/timeline/)
1954 Sep 28, Patrick McCarran
(b.1876), Nevada US Senator since 1932, died in Hawthorne, Nevada. In
2004 Michael J. Ybarra authored “Washington Gone Crazy: Senator Pat
McCarran and the Great American Communist Hunt.”
(www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/mccarran.htm)
1954 Sep 29, The movie musical "A
Star Is Born," starring Judy Garland and James Mason, had its world
premiere at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.
(AP, 9/29/04)
1954 Sep 29, The New York Giants
beat the Cleveland Indians in the 1st game of this year’s World Series.
NY went on to win 4 games in a row. Willie Mays made a spectacular
catch and throw in the 8th inning. In 1955 Arnold Hano authored “A Day
in the Bleachers,” a classic ac-count of this game.
(www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr1954ws.shtml)(SSFC,
9/17/06, p.D1)
1954 Sep 30, "Boy Friend" opened
at the Royale Theater NYC for 483 performances.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1954 Sep 30, The first
atomic-powered vessel, the submarine Nautilus, was commissioned by the
Navy in Groton, Connecticut. It was launched Jan 21. [see Sep 21]
(AP, 9/30/97)(AP, 1/21/98)(HN, 9/30/98)
1954 Sep 30, NATO nations agreed
to arm and admit West Germany.
(HN, 9/30/98)
1954 Oct 2, Elvis Presley sang his
upbeat version of the Bill Monroe tune "Blue Moon of Ken-tucky" at the
Grand Ole Opry.
(WSJ, 9/16/96, p.A14)
1954 Oct 3, Al Sharpton, 2004
Democrat presidential candidate, was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.D2)
1954 Oct 4, Marilyn Monroe and Joe
DiMaggio separated after 9 months of marriage.
(SFC, 10/1/04, p.F5)
1954 Oct 5, Italy and Yugoslavia
ended their dispute over Trieste. Zone A was given to Italy, Zone B to
Yugoslavia.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)
1954 Oct 7, Marian Anderson became
the first black singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
(AP, 10/7/97)
1954 Oct 7, Marilyn Monroe
divorced Joe DiMaggio. They had just married Jan 14 in SF City Hall.
(WSJ, 11/6/97, p.A20)(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A13)
1954 Oct 10, Ho Chi Minh entered
Hanoi in Vietnam after French troops withdraw.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1954 Oct 13, R.P. Smith's and M.
Shulman's "Tender Trap," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1954 Oct 14, American Samoa
Government's vessel Manu'atele sighted William Willis's raft The Seven
Little Sisters, and towed it into Pago Pago Harbor. William Willis
(1893-1968) sailed a raft from Peru to Samoa. In 2006 T.R. Pearson
authored “Seaworthy: Adrift With William Willis in the Golden Age of
Rafting.”
(WSJ, 6/24/06,
p.P12)(www.asg-gov.net/026HISTORICALCAL_OCTOBER.htm)
1954 Oct 14, An Israeli act of
revenge in Qibiya, Jordan, killed 53.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1954 Oct 15, Hurricane Hazel
struck US and Canada and 348 people died. 81 people were killed in
Ontario where damages were estimated at $24 million.
(AP, 10/16/04)
1954 Oct 18, Hurricane Hazel, the
3rd of 1954, became the most severe to hit US. [see Oct 15]
(MC, 10/18/01)
1954 Oct 19, Egypt and Britain
concluded a pact on the Suez Canal, ending 72 years of Brit-ish
military occupation. Britain agreed to withdraw its 80,000-man force
within 20 months, and Egypt agreed to maintain freedom of canal
navigation.
(HN, 10/19/98)
1954 Oct 21, Dorothy Parker's
Arnaud d'Usseau's "Ladies of the Corridor," premiered.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1954 Oct 22, As a result of the
Geneva accords granting Communist control over North Viet-nam, U.S.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized a crash program to train the
South Viet-namese Army. (about this time) President Dwight D.
Eisenhower was the first to publicly state the Domino Theory while
discussing the need to defend South Vietnam from North Vietnamese
Communists. The analogy of a row of dominos, arranged so that when one
falls it causes the rest to fall one after the other, was used to
express the notion that when one country in a region becomes Communist,
neighboring nations will then begin to fall under Communist rule. This
was an operative theory that guided U.S. policy in Southeast Asia
during the 1950s and ‘60s.
(HN, 10/22/98)(HNQ, 12/31/99)
1954 Oct 22, West Germany joined
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The coun-try had no
standing army.
(AP, 10/22/97)(SFC, 4/22/98, p.A8)
1954 Oct 23, In Paris, an
agreement was signed providing for West German sovereignty and
permitting West Germany to rearm and enter NATO and the Western
European Union. Britain, England, France and USSR agreed to end
occupation of Germany. [see Oct 22]
(HN, 10/23/98)(MC, 10/23/01)
1954 Oct 25, President Eisenhower
conducted the first televised Cabinet meeting.
(HN, 10/25/98)
1954 Oct 26, Chevrolet introduced
the V-8 engine.
(HN, 10/26/98)
1954 Oct 26, In Egypt a member of
the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to kill PM Nasser.
(http://countrystudies.us/egypt/32.htm)
1954 Oct 27, Walt Disney's first
television program, titled "Disneyland" after his yet-to-be completed
theme park, premiered on ABC. "Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter" was
possibly the first miniseries.
(AP,
10/27/97)(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046593/)(SFEC, 5/24/98, DB p.38)
1954 Oct 27, Pres. Eisenhower
offered aid to S. Vietnam Pres. Ngo Dinh Diem.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1954 Oct 28, Ernest Hemingway
received news that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in litera-ture. Poor
health prevented him from going to Stockholm to receive it.
(TMC, 1994, p.1954)(AH, 10/04, p.15)
1954 Oct 29, In Egypt Colonel
Nasser disbanded the Moslem Brothership.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1954 Oct 30, Linus Pauling won the
Nobel prize in chemistry.
(SFC, 10/8/01, p.A17)(MC, 10/30/01)
1954 Oct 30, US Armed Forces ended
segregation of races.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1954 Oct 31, Harry Lunderberg’s
AFL Sailors refused to report to work to unload freighters at a number
of West Coast ports.
(SFC, 10/29/04, p.F11)
1954 Oct 31, The Algerian
Revolution against the French began. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 10/31/01)
1954 Nov 1, The US Senate
admonished Joseph McCarthy for his slander campaign.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1954 Nov 1, Algerian nationalists
began their successful eight-year rebellion against French rule. [see
Oct 31]
(AP, 11/1/06)
1954 Nov 1, General Fulgencio
Batista was elected president of Cuba.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1954 Nov 2, Strom Thurmond
(1902-2003) of South Carolina became the 1st US senator elected by
write-in vote.
(http://constitutioncenter.org/timeline/html/cw10_12231.html)
1954 Nov 2, Andrei Y. Vishinsky
(b. 1883) died. Jacob A. Malik succeeded him as the chief Soviet
delegate to the UN and as First Deputy Foreign Minister of the USSR.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)
1954 Nov 3, The film "Godzilla,
King of the Monsters" was released. It was produced by Ja-pan’s Toho
Co., headed by Tomoyuki Tanaka (d.1997). Godzilla went on to star in 22
films.
(SFC, 4/3/97, p.C2)(MC, 11/3/01)
1954 Nov 3, Henri E.B. Matisse
(b.1869), French painter and sculptor (Dance II), died. In 1998 Hilary
Spurling published "The Unknown Matisse," a work that covered the years
1869-1908. A end volume was planned. In 1999 John Russell published
"Matisse: Father and Son" and John O'Brian published "Ruthless
Hedonism: The American Reception of Matisse." In 2005 Hilary Spurling
authored “Matisse the Master: A Life of Henry Matisse, Volume Two.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A5)(WSJ, 10/27/98, p.A20)(SFEC,
8/8/99, BR p.6)(Econ, 3/12/05, p.79)
1954 Nov 4, The Broadway show
"Fanny" opened at the Majestic Theater for 888 perform-ances. It was
produced by David Merrick (d.2000 at 88).
(SFC, 4/27/00, p.A25)(MC, 11/4/01)
1954 Nov 7, A US spy plane was
shot down North of Japan.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1954 Nov 10, The US Marine Corps
Memorial, depicting the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima in
1945, was dedicated by President Eisenhower in Arlington, Va.
(AP, 11/10/08)
1954 Nov 10, Lt. Col. John Strapp
traveled 632 MPH in a rocket sled.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1954 Nov 12, Ellis Island closed
after processing more than 20 million immigrants since open-ing in New
York Harbor in 1892.
(AP, 11/12/97)
1954 Nov 14, Egyptian Pres. Naguib
was fired and a state of emergency declared. Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel
Nasser (1918-1970), chairman of the RCC, took command.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rulers_of_Modern_Egypt)
1954 Nov 15, 1st regularly
scheduled commercial flights over North Pole began.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1954 Nov 15, Lionel Barrymore
(76), [Blythe], actor (Dr Kildare, Key Largo), died.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1954 Nov 22, Humane Society formed.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1954 Nov 24, France sent 20,000
soldiers to Algeria.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1954 Nov 25, Police in Concord,
Ca., captured John Waitkunas (38) following a 7-year na-tional manhunt.
He admitted cashing $150,000 worth of forged checks across the nation.
(SFC, 11/26/04, p.F4)
1954 Nov 26, Velupillai
Prabhakaran (d.2009), founder of the Tamil New Tigers (TNT later
renamed to LTTE), was born in Velvettithurai Sri Lanka.
(www.dailynews.lk/2009/05/19/fea02.asp)
1954 Nov 26, Jonas Zemaitis
(b.1909), a founder of the Lithuanian independence movement and
presidium head, was shot to death in Moscow.
(LHC, 3/15/03)
1954 Nov 27, Alger Hiss, convicted
of being a Soviet spy, was freed after 44 months in prison.
(HN, 11/27/98)
1954 Nov 28, Enrico Fermi (53),
Italian-US physicist (Nobel 1938), died. Fermi led the team of
international scientists to produce the first nuclear chain reaction,
giving birth to the atomic bomb.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1954 Nov 30, A meteorite struck
Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges of Alabama as she was sleeping on a couch. The
space rock was a sulfide meteorite weighing 8.5 pounds and measuring
seven inches in length. Mrs. Hodges was not permanently injured but
suffered a nasty bruise along her hip and leg. This was the 1st
modern report of a Meteorite striking a human.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1954 Nov 30, Wilhelm Furtwangler
(68), German conductor and composer, died. He was Hit-ler’s favorite
conductor but was never a card carrying Nazi.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.C6)(MC, 11/30/01)
1954
Dec 2, The US Senate voted 67-22 to censure Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy,
R-Wis., for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and
disrepute." This followed the McCarthy investigation of the Army. Roy
Cohn was McCarthy’s aide and Joseph Welch was the attorney for the
army. Army general counsel John G. Adams (d.2003) later authored
"Without Precedent: The story of the Death of McCarthyism." In 1999
Arthur Herman published "Joseph McCarthy," a reexamination of
McCarthy's accusations.
(NYT, 12/3/54, p.1)(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 12/2/97)(WSJ, 12/6/99,
p.A32)(SFC, 6/28/03, p.A1)
1954 Dec 3, Samuel Barber's
"Prayers of Kierkegaard," premiered.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1954 Dec 3, William Walton's opera
"Troilus & Cressida," premiered in London.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1954 Dec 8, Maxwell Anderson's
"Bad Seed," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1954 Dec 10, In Japan PM Shigeru
Yoshida (1868-1967), post-reconstruction statesman and 2-time prime
minister, was unseated by Ichiro Hatoyama.
(Econ, 7/18/09,
p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Yoshida)
1954 Dec 20, James Hilton (54),
English author (Lost Horizon), died.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1954 Dec 21, Dr. Sam Sheppard, an
osteopathic surgeon, was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife,
Marilyn, and was sentenced to life in prison. Sheppard spent 10 years
in prison before the Supreme Court overturned the verdict; he was
acquitted at retrial in 1966 and died four years later. [see Jul 4]
(AP, 12/21/04)
1954 Dec 23, Dr. Joseph Murray led
a team of surgeons at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston in the 1st
successful organ transplant. Ronald Herrick donated a kidney to his
twin brother, Richard. In 1990 Dr. Murray was warded a Nobel Prize for
his work.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A14)(SFC, 12/3/01, p.A17)(SSFC,
12/19/04, Par p.7)
1954 Dec 26, "The Shadow," aired
for last time on radio.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1954 Dec 27, Gian Carlo Menotti's
opera "Saint of Bleecker Street" premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1954 Dec 27, UC scientist Daniel
I. Arnon reported that, after 6 years of research, he had succeeded in
isolating chloroplasts in a test tube.
(SFC, 12/24/04, p.F2)
1954 Dec 29, The Dow Jones cleared
the 400 barrier for the first time. It took 25 years for the Dow to
return to pre-crash levels.
(WSJ, 5/20/96, p.C-1)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1954 A World War II memorial to US
Marines was dedicated next to Arlington National Ceme-tery. It was
based on the Iwo Jima flag raising by 6 Marines, which was captured by
AP photog-rapher Joseph Rosenthal. The photo inspired the sculpture by
Felix de Weldon (d.2003).
(AP, 2/23/98)(SFC, 9/21/00, p.C6)(SFC, 6/14/03,
p.A21)
1954 Georgia O’Keeffe painted "My
Last Door."
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.B1)
c1954 Carleton Putnam (d.1998),
dropped his position as chairman of Delta Airlines and wrote the
biography: "Theodore Roosevelt", that covered the first 28 years of
Roosevelt’s life.
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.A20)
1954 The 1997 film Going "All the
Way" with Lesley Ann Warren was based on the 1970 novel by Dan
Wakefield set in 1954.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, Par p.C14)(SFEM, 9/14/97, p.18)
1954 Celebrities Ron Howard,
Denzel Washington, Christie Brinkley, Dennis Quaid and Cath-erine Bach
were born this year.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Z1 p.5)
1954 Alberto Giacometti made his
sculpture "Diego in a Cloak."
(SFEM, 11/24/96, p.8)
1954 Elizabeth Catlett made her
linotype "Bread for All." It was an example of Mexican mural-ists
influence on Black American artists.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.B1)
1954 Jasper Johns began his
painting "Flag," completed in 1955.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.F1)
1954 Barnett Newman painted his
"The Word II." In 1995 it was sold by Christie’s for $3 mil.
(WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)
1954 Robert Rauschenberg painted
"Collection."
(SFC, 8/20/98, p.E1)
1954 Jason Schoener (1919-1997)
showed his WW II landscape paintings of Eniwatok Atoll in the Marshall
Islands at Gumps in SF.
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A19)
1954 Nicolas de Stael painted his
"Beach at Calais."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)
1954 John Wilson made his painting
"The worker." It was an example of Mexican muralists influence on Black
American artists.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.B1)
1954 Harriette Arnow authored “The
Dollmaker.” The novel documented the move by Gertie Nevel from
self-sufficient poverty in Kentucky to urban poverty in Detroit. It was
made into a movie in 1984.
(Econ, 12/19/09,
p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dollmaker)
1954 Simone de Beauvoir authored
"The Mandarins," a thinly veiled account of her relation-ship with
Nelson Algren and Jean-Paul Sartre. In 2000 the play "Nelson &
Simone" was created by John Susman and staged in Chicago.
(WSJ, 12/5/00, p.A24)
1954 "Half Magic" by Edward Eager
was published. It was illustrated by N.M. Bodecker.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1954 L. Brent Bozell and William
F. Buckley Jr. wrote "McCarthy and His Enemies," a guarded defense of
Senator Joe McCarthy.
(WSJ, 7/22/99, p.A24)
1954 Peter Drucker (b.1909-2005)
authored his seminal work "The Practice of Management." In 1943 he had
began a 2 year study of GM from the inside.
(WSJ, 11/19/99, p.A20)(Econ, 11/19/05, p.72)
1954 Aldous Huxley authored "The
Doors of Perception," a book about hallucinogenic drugs. Jim Morrison
later named his band "The Doors" after this book.
(SSFC, 4/11/04, Par p.2)
1954 Iris Murdoch published her
first novel "Under the Net."
(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A20)
1954 Romanian poet Marin Sorescu
published his "Alone Among Poets."
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.A24)
1954 Le Corbusier, French
architect, published his "The Modular."
(V.D.-H.K.p.363)
1954 Gordon Allport, psychologist,
supported the position that we can under-stand discrimina-tion through
social scientific inquiry. This belief was developed in his book: "The
Nature of Prejudice." In 1996 Prof. Elizabeth Young-Bruehl wrote a work
"The Anatomy of Prejudices" that analyzes why Allport’s view has been
inadequate.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.BR-9)
1954 Cecil Beaton authored “The
Glass of Fashion,” a history of style.
(WSJ, 9/15/07, p.W10)
1954 Harrison Brown wrote "The
Challenge of Man’s Future" in which he noted the world’s population to
be 2.6 billion.
(NOHY, 3/1990, p.222)
1954 Ernest Griffith wrote his
textbook "The American System of Government."
(SFC, 2/10/97, p.A20)
1954 Werner Haftmann (d.1999 at
87), German art historian, published "Painting of the 20th Century."
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.D8)
1954 Kingsley Amis authored “Lucky
Jim,” his comic novel of academic life.
(WSJ, 2/16/08, p.W10)
1954 Alger Hiss was released from
prison and wrote "In the Court of Public Opinion." His ac-cuser
Whittaker Chambers (d.1961) his account "Witness" in 1952. In 1978
Allen Weinstein wrote an account of the Hiss-Chambers case. In 1997 Sam
Tannenhaus wrote a biography of Chambers. In 1999 Hilton Kramer wrote
"The Twilight of the Intellectuals," a portrayal of the in-fluence of
the political left on the cultural life of Cold War America.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/20/99, A20)
1954 Louis L’Amour wrote his
western novel "Lance Kilkenny."
(USAT, 6/10/98, p.1D)
1954 Alan Le May (1899-1964)
authored his novel “The Searchers” (1954). The story was based on Brit
Johnson, a black Texas ranch foreman, who was killed by Kiowa raiders
in 1871.
(AH, 6/07,
p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Searchers_%28film%29)
1954 Robert Lindner published "The
50-Minute Hour," a landmark book on the inner workings of psychotherapy.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, BR p.8)
1954 Leslie Lipson, UC Berkeley
prof. of political science, authored "Great Issues of Politics."
(SFC, 8/15/00, p.A23)
1954 Cora Partridge (d.1999 at 82)
wrote her first book "Skeleton Cave" about a boy who finds Indian
relics near his home. She wrote 15 children's novels and in 1977
"Vermont, the State with the Storybook Past."
(SFC, 3/2/99, p.A20)
1954 Arnold Toynbee published the
last 4 volumes of his "Study of History."
(WSJ, 1/8/97, p.A16)
1954 Norbert Wiener, MIT
mathematician, wrote Invention: "The Care and Feeding of Ideas." It was
published in 1995 by MIT Press (800-356-0343). "Wiener gave the world
the theory and practice of Cybernetics..."
(Wired, 8/95, p.146)
1954 Eleanor Butler Cameron wrote
the children’s book: "The Wonderful Flight to the Mush-room Planet."
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A19)
1954 Kenneth Dodson (d.1999 at 91)
published his WW II novel "Away All Boats."
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.C7)
1954 Jean Giono wrote his novel:
"The Horseman on the Roof." In 1996 it was made into a film directed by
Jean-Paul Rappeneau and set in plague-stricken Provence in 1832.
(WSJ, 5/17/96,p.A-12)
1954 William Golding published his
"Lord of the Flies." It is about a group of schoolboys who get marooned
on an island and quickly degenerate to a state of savagery.
(WSJ, 10/5/95, p.A-12)
1954 Aldous Huxley authored "The
Doors of Perception," a book about hallucinogenic drugs. Jim Morrison
later named his band "The Doors" after this book.
(SSFC, 4/11/04, Par p.2)
1954 Arthur Loesser authored “Men,
Women and Pianos.”
(WSJ, 7/15/06, p.P8)
1954 W.W. "Pudge" Heffelfinger
wrote his autobiography "This Was Football." He was the 1st
All-American selected by Walter Camp, and the 1st to receive a
professional contract.
(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.D10)
1954 Randall Jarrell authored
"Pictures From an Institution," a hilarious portrait of campus life.
(NW, 8/20/01, p.56)
1954 James Michener (d.1997 at 90)
wrote his novel "Sayanora."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1954 Sam Moskowitz (d.1997 at 76)
published his first book: "Immortal Storm," a collection of magazine
articles that the development of the science-fiction fan movement.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A22)
1954 Bud Schulberg wrote the
classic "On the Waterfront," a novel of labor and corruption in New
York City.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.E5)
1954 John Steinbeck wrote his
novel "Sweet Thursday."
(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.35)
1954 JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)
introduced a new mythological world in "The Lord of the Rings."
(TL, 1988, p.114)(WSJ,2/11/97, p.A18)
1954 Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967)
published her own literary memoir, a book that mixed remi-niscences and
recipes under the title “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_B._Toklas)
1954 Rayner Unwin (d.2000 at 74),
publisher of the Tolkien books, authored a biography of poet John Clare.
(SSFC, 12/10/00, p.C17)
1954 Gore Vidal published his
satirical fantasy "Messiah."
(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A12)
1954 Modern Library published
"Selected Stories" by Eudora Welty.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, BR p.12)
1954 "Under Milk Wood," a play for
voices by Dylan Thomas, was broadcast in its final ver-sion by the BBC.
(TL, 1988, p.114)
1954 The Rodgers and Hammerstein
Broadway musical "Oklahoma" was made into a film. It was directed by
Fred Zinnemann.
(WSJ, 2/5/96, p.A-16)(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A19)
1954 The Richard Nash play
"Rainmaker" became a Broadway hit.
(USAT, 11/12/99, p.1E)
1954 The Broadway play "Witness
for the Prosecution" was directed by Robert Lewis.
(SFC,11/25/97, p.A22)
1954 The children’s radio show
"Let’s Pretend" with Sybil Trent (d.2000 at 73) ended after running for
2 decades.
(SFC, 6/8/00, p.C7)
1954 Samuel Z. Arkoff (d.2001 at
83) and James H. Nicholson established American Interna-tional Pictures
(AIP). They soon began producing films for the teen market such as "I
Was a Teenage Werewolf."
(SFC, 9/18/01, p.B2)
1954 Director Sam Fuller trekked
to the rainforest with a 16mm Bolex, 75 boxes of cigars and 2 cases of
vodka hoping to make a film. Producer Darryl Zanuck called it off. The
1995 docu-mentary film "Tigrero" was made by Finnish filmmaker Mika
Kaurismaki. It covered Fuller’s trek into the Brazilian rainforest.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.C12)
1954 Kemp R. Niver (1912-1996),
cinematographer and film historian, received an Oscar for his
restoration of 3,600 movies made between 1894 and 1912. He converted
frame-by-frame paper photographs back into film using his own designed
Renovare Process over a period of 15 years. During this time he wrote
11 books that included a cross-reference for the early movies and the
book: "The First Twenty Years: A Segment of Film History."
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A24)
1954 Audrey Hepburn received an
Oscar for "Roman Holiday" (1953) and a Tony for her role in the
Broadway play "Ondine."
(SFC, 11/8/96, p.C6)
1954 Hal Roach, Jr. produced a
30-minute "Bozo the Clown" television pilot for Capitol Re-cords
starring Gil Lamb as Bozo. This film can be viewed at the Museum of
Television and Ra-dio in New York and Beverly Hills, California.
(www.mtr.org)
1954 "Four Star Playhouse" was a
TV dramatic series that starred Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, Dick Powell
and David Niven. It was edited by Coles Trapnell (d.1999 at 88). The
show closed in 1956.
(SFC, 2/5/99, p.D4)
1954 The TV Omnibus series showed
the first under water films by Jacques Cousteau.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A7)
1954 "Your Show of Shows" and
"Caesar’s Hour" were hit TV programs. Their comedy writers included
Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon.
"Your Show of Shows" with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca ended.
(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A11)(SSFC, 6/3/01, p.A29)
1954 "The Tonight Show" with Steve
Allen began on TV.
(SFEC, 5/24/98, DB p.38)
1954 Louis Armstrong recorded
"Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy" on Columbia.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.D9)
1954 Ray Charles (1930-2004)
recorded “I’ve Got a Woman.” It was based on the hymn “My Jesus is All
the World to Me.”
(USAT, 6/11/04, p.7A)(Econ, 6/19/04, p.84)
1954 The Collins Kids of Oklahoma,
Lawrencine (b.1942) and Lawrence (b.1944), began performing as a
musical act on national TV.
(www.rockabillyhall.com/YouTubeCollinsKids.html)
1954 Misty, written by pianist
Errol Garner, was released on his Verve album “Contrasts.” Wyatt “Bull”
Ruther (1923-1999) played the bass lines.
(SFC, 2/25/08, p.E13)
1954 Bart Howard (1916-2004), born
in Iowa as Howard Joseph Gustafson, wrote the hit song "Fly Me To the
Moon." His initial title was "In Other Words."
(SFC, 2/28/04, p.A16)
1954 The Mambo became the hottest
dance since the Lindy Hop in 1936.
(TMC, 1994, p.1954)
1954 Web Pierce made a country hit
with "Slowly." The tune boosted the pedal steel guitar to prominence.
(WSJ, 7/13/01, p.W10)
1954 Cole Porter's lyric "Some get
a kick from cocaine" was changed to "Some get perfume from Spain" in
order to get radio airplay.
(SFC, 1/21/04, p.D2)
1954 Elvis Presley was climbing
the music charts in the US.
(WSJ, 5/20/96, p.C-1)
1954 The Medallions recorded "The
Letter." The song contained the phrase "the pompatus of love."
1954 The first Newport Jazz
Festival was organized by George Wein and held on the lawn of the
Lorrilard estate in Newport, R.I.
(SFC, 6/30/96, B9)
1954 The Robins signed with Leiber
and Stoller and recorded such hits as "Riot in Cell Block 9," "Framed"
and "Smokey Joe’s Café."
(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A21)
1954 The Lyric Opera Chorus of
Chicago was founded.
(WSJ, 9/23/96, p.A18)
1954 In Louisville, Ky., the
Satterwhite Wing was added to the Speed Museum. Preston Pope
Satterwhite had donated an entire 17th century English paneled room,
some 500 pieces of art along with cash to house it all.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A20)
1954 The Fontainebleu Hotel in
Miami Beach, designed by Morris Lapidus (1902-2001), was completed.
(SFC, 1/20/01, p.A24)(WSJ, 12/26/07, p.D6)
1954 Haldor E. Rosvold (d.1997 at
81), neuroscientist, founded a unit to study animal behav-ior at the
National Institute of Mental Health. He studied mental processes like
short-term mem-ory and discovered the first of several complex networks
in the brain. He was one of the first to reveal a functional connection
between the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.)
1954 Martin Luther King became
pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
(SFEM, 2/2/97, p.8)
1954 The Korbel property in
Guerneville, California, was acquired by the Heck family who be-gan
producing sparkling wines.
(SFC, 4/9/96, zz1 p.3)
1954 The town of Mauch Chunk
(Indian for Sleeping Bear) was renamed Jim Thorpe after the athlete, in
an effort to revitalize the town and bring in the Pro Football Hall of
Fame. The hall of Fame went to Canton, Ohio, but Thorpe’s mausoleum was
erected there.
(HT, 4/97, p.18)
1954 At the Texas State Fair Harry
Winston premiered the flawless 62.05 carat Winston dia-mond. It had
just been cut from a 154.5-carot rough stone.
(SFEM, 1/26/97, p.48)
1954 The Church of Scientology was
begun by L. Ron Hubbard (d.1986), science fiction writer, in Los
Angeles.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)(SFC, 10/22/96, p.A12)
1954 In San Francisco a new
9-story downtown garage, designed by architect George A. Ap-plegarth,
was built at 325 Mason.
(SSFC, 6/28/09, p.C2)
1954 The Unarius, the Universal
Articulate Interdimensional Understanding of Science, or-ganization was
founded by Ernest and Ruth Norman. In 1997 the group claimed to have
5,000 members worldwide. The group expected to make contact with
extraterrestrials in 2001.
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A3)
1954 "Winston tastes good, like a
cigarette should," began to be advertised.
(WSJ, 11/4/97, p.B1)
1954 The WSJ described the new
fish sticks as "boneless oblongs roughly four inches long."
(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.B1)
1954 The National Basketball
Association (NBA) introduced the 24-second clock.
(SFEC, 4/6/97, Z1 p.5)
1954 Lefty O’Doul led the San
Diego Padres to a baseball pennant victory.
(SFEC, 3/30/97, BR. p.6)
1954 Max Born won the Nobel Prize
in Physics for his contributions to quantum theory.
(WSJ, 12/8/00, p.W11)
1954 Thomas Weller (1915-2008),
John Enders (1897-1985) and Frederick Robbins (1916-2003) won the Nobel
Prize in Medicine for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis
viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1954/)(LSA,
Spring, 2009, p.56)
1954 The Hague Convention of this
year forbade the taking of war booty. The Hague cultural Property
Convention recognized the protection of cultural, religious and
historical monuments including national parks.
(WSJ, 5/29/96, p.A6)(SFC, 8/11/00, p.A15)
1954 The Caracas Convention
established ground rules for political sanctuary in Latin Amer-ica.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A13)
1954 American CIA director Allen
Dulles hired Richard M. Bissell Jr. to take charge of the U-2 spy plane
program. He later directed the Bay of Pigs invasion. He tells his own
story in "Reflec-tions of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs
published in 1996."
(WSJ, 5/8/96, p.A-12)
1954 US Congress passed the
Revised Organic Act, a document that established the govern-ing
structure of the Virgin Islands. Residents cannot vote on national
elections and their gover-nor is appointed by the president.
(NG, Jan, 1968, C. Mitchell, p. 95)
1954 Charles Diggs (d.1998 at 75)
was elected to the House of Representatives from the 13th district
(around Detroit) and stayed in congress for 25 years. In 1978 he was
convicted of 29 counts of operating a payroll kickback scheme and was
censured by the House. He was the first chairman of the Congressional
Black Caucus and served from 1969-1971 and 1973-1978.
(SFC, 8/27/98, p.C4)
1954 A Federal Highway Act was
passed.
(SFC,10/22/97, p.E5)
1954 The US Treasury began keeping
daily records on Treasury Bills.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.86)
1954 The Atomic Energy Act made
the leaking of confidential information punishable by a $1000 fine.
(SFC, 7/6/98, p.A11)
1954 US missile silos were built
in the Marin, Ca., headlands. They were decommissioned in 1974. In 1975
the area became home to the non-profit Marine Mammal Center.
(SFC, 9/2/08, p.E1)
1954 The FBI "Security Index,"
begun in 1940, peaked with the names of 26,174 people.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F3)
1954 The 600-square-mile Garrison
Dam in North Dakota, authorized by Congress in 1949, was completed. It
covered the ancestral lands of Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Indians.
(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.M5)
1954 US Congress voted to withdraw
support to Wisconsin Indians guaranteed in 1854. The Menomonee (people
of the wild rice) Chiefs Oshkosh and Keshena met with federal Indian
agents in Keshena Falls, Wisconsin, in 1854 and agreed to retain only
275,000 acres from their original 9 1/2 million acres. As part of the
settlement the chiefs and their followers were prom-ised eternal
government protection.
(NG, Aug., 1974, p.235)
1954 The US Supreme Court in
Berman v Parker approved a slum clearance plan of the gov-ernment of
Washington DC over the objections of a local department store owner.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.32)
1954 The US Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) restriction led to the prohibition against pastors
endorsing candidates at the risk of losing their churches’ tax exempt
status.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.A12)
1954 Stan Getz, tenor sax player,
was arrested for trying to rob a drugstore in Seattle and served a
6-month sentence.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.E5)
1954 Abraham Ribicoff was elected
Governor of Connecticut and served two terms (1955-61).
(SFC, 2/23/98,
p.A5)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKribicoff.htm)
1954 The tobacco industry faced
its 1st liability lawsuit by a lung cancer victim. The suit was dropped
after 13 years.
(WSJ, 7/17/00, p.A8)
1954 US labor union membership
reached an all time high of 35% of the work force.
(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.B1)
1954 The Alaska town of North Pole
began Operation Santa, a volunteer program to respond to children’s
letters sent to Santa Claus. The US Postal Service dropped the program
in 2009.
(SFC, 11/20/09, p.A9)
1954 Hyman P. Minsky (1919-1996),
professor of economics, received his doctorate from Harvard. He went on
to develop ideas on how lending patterns and mood swings can push the
economy into speculative booms and declines. He showed how high cash
flow in prosperous times can cause lending to get beyond control that
can lead to a pullback and contracting econ-omy.
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.A20)
1954 Boothe Leasing was founded by
Dyas Power Boothe Jr. He launched the company with a $10 million loan
from the Ford Foundation. The firm leased trucks, dredging equipment,
and automobile manufacturing equipment. By 1961 the company was leasing
airplanes to TWA.
(SFC, 9/12/96, p.A26)
1954 GM transferred production of
the Corvette to St. Louis and 3,000 were produced in this year.
(WSJ, 7/12/02, p.W12)
1954 B.F. Goodrich developed the
tubeless tire. It was introduced by Packard. [see 1948]
(F, 10/7/96, p.70)
1954 The last Indian motorcycle
was manufactured in the US. The last Indian motorcycle was manufactured
in 1953. (2 of 3 for 1953)
(SFC, 6/10/96, p.D3)(SFEC, 1/3/99, BR p.4)(WSJ,
4/16/99, p.W14)
1954 William Jovanovich
(1920-2001) was elected president of Harcourt, Brace and Co. The firm
had 125 employees and sales of some $8 million. At his retirement in
1990 Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich Inc. had 12,000 employees and sales of
$1.7 billion.
(SFC, 12/6/01, p.A24)
1954 Leonard and Bernice Lavin
(1925-2007) purchased a West Coast cosmetics company from Blaine Culver
for nearly half a million dollars. They moved the operation to Chicago,
re-named the company Alberto-Culver and dumped all the products except
VO5. In 1965 the company went public on the NYSE.
(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.A8)
1954 Brownie Wise (1913-1992),
lead sales woman for Tupperware, became the first woman to appear on
the cover of Business Week magazine.
(http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d7509.htm)(WSJ, 7/30/08, p.A13)
1954 A subscription to the WSJ
cost $20 a year.
(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.B1)
1954 Lennar Corp., a residential
home builder, was founded.
(WSJ, 7/27/01, p.A1)
1954 In Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
brothers Martin and Matthew Bucksbaum started what later be-came
General Growth Properties Inc. by building a shopping center to house
one of their fam-ily’s grocery stores in Cedar Rapids. General Growth
Properties went public in 1972. In 2008 the company stock fell below $1
as it struggled under $27 billion in debt. In 2009 the company filed
for bankruptcy.
(WSJ, 12/9/08, p.A12)(SFC, 4/17/09, p.C2)
1954 Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson
Motor combined to form the American Motors Co.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl.)
1954 The Nash Metropolitan went on
sale for $1,445. The small car got up to 40 miles per gallon. American
Motors discontinued production of the British-built car in 1961. Total
sales reached nearly 95,000.
(SFC, 12/19/06, p.B1)
1954 The Studebaker Co. merged
with Packard Motor Car Co.
(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A12)
1954 Sherwood Johnson (d.1998 at
73) opened the first pizza parlor in Sacramento. It grew into the
int’l. chain known as Shakey’s.
(SFC, 11/4/98, p.C7)
1954 James Whitman McLamore
(1926-1996) and Dave Edgarton opened Insta Burger King in Miami, the
forerunner to the international Burger King chain.
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A20)
1954 John Templeton (1912-2008)
set up his Templeton Growth Fund. A $10,000 investment in this Class A
portfolio would have grown to $2 million by 1992, when he sold his
stake.
(Econ, 7/19/08, p.95)
1954 The 1st major neon sign in
Las Vegas was the Young Electric sign Co.’s project for the Boulder
Club.
(SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C12)
1954 AT&T Bell Labs scientists
invented the solar cell.
(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)
1954 Con-Tact paper premiered at
59 cents a yard.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.8)
1954 A team of scientists at
General Electric that included Robert Wentorf Jr. (d.1997 at 70)
perfected a process for converting graphite to diamond using high
pressures and temperatures. Wentorf also developed Borazon, a cubic
form of boron, second only to diamond in hardness but more resistant to
high temperatures.
(SFC, 4/7/97, p.A20)
1954 IBM rolled out its models 704
and 705 computers.
(http://www.thocp.net/timeline/1952.htm)
1954 The Semiautomatic Ground
Environment (SAGE) program was established by the US Air Force. It was
an air defense network of the time using the largest computer ever
built. SAGE machines contained 55,000 vacuum tubes, weighed 275 tons
and occupied half an acre of floorspace.
(WSJ, 10/15/01, p.R23)(Econ, 6/10/06, Survey p.33)
1954 The Rand corp. built the
Johnniac computer. Bill Gunning (1916-2006), computing pio-neer, helped
build the device, one of 17 designed around the computing architecture
suggested by John von Neumann. Gunning went on to help develop Ethernet
(1972) at Xerox’s PARC.
(SFC, 11/8/06, p.B13)
1954 T.D. Lee and C.N. Yang of
Columbia Univ. published a paper pointing out that although most
interactions in nature seem to occur in such a way as to keep parity
unbroken, there is no reason why this must always be so. It was
completely within the realm of possibility that nature was not
invariant under the parity operation. All that was necessary was that
if it were not, then charge conjugation, time reversal, or both would
have to be violated as well. For this they re-ceived the Nobel prize in
1957.
(JST-TMC,1983, p.173)
1954 Marc Gregoire, a French
engineer, bonded aluminum with polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) and
created the 1st nonstick pan.
(AARP, 5-6/04)
1954 The American Cancer Society
and the British Medical Research Council, in independent reports, found
higher death rates among smokers than nonsmokers.
(HNQ, 11/10/98)
1954 Dr. George Moore and
colleagues at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute at Buffalo, NY,
published a pioneering study of male patients with cancer of the mouth
showing that a majority of them had been tobacco chewers for
significant periods of time.
(SFC, 6/16/08, p.B3)
1954 General Electric introduced
highly structured coursework centering on leadership and development.
This introduced the concept of the corporate university.
(Hem, 9/04, p.66)
1954 Maurice Allais, French
economist, recorded the movement of a pendulum for 30 days during which
the moon eclipsed the sun and caused the pendulum to move a bit faster.
The “Al-lais effect” confounded physicists and indicated a possible
flaw in General Relativity.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.65)
1954 A US middle-class home of 800
square feet cost $7,000.
(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.B1)
1954 Col. John Paul Stapp, an Air
Force medical researcher, accelerated to 632 mph on a rocket powered
sled in 5 sec. The sled then decelerated to a dead stop in 1.4 sec.
with 40 times the pull of gravity.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C7)
1954 A major flood along the
Tennessee River took away a third of Pittsburg Landing, held by Union
troops during the 1862 Confederate attack at Shiloh.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.27)
1954 Labib Habachi, Egyptian
archeologist, unearthed at Karnak a ‘victory stela’ in which the Theban
king Kamose (successor to Sekenre) commemorated incidents in his
successful strug-gle with the Hyksos king, Aweserre Apopi.
(L.C.-W.P.p.59)
1954 Charles Belden (b.1904),
writer, died. His 1933 play “The Mystery of the Wax Museum” was turned
into the 1953 film "House of Wax," the first 3-D movie, starring
Vincent Price and Charles Bronson.
(www.moria.co.nz/horror/waxmuseum.htm)(SFC, 11/1/02,
p.A28)
1954 Strickland Gillilan (b.1869),
American poet, died. His poems included "The Reading Mother."
"...Richer than I your can never be / I had a mother who read to me."
(SSFC, 4/25/04, p.M6)
1954 Charles Ives (b.1874),
insurance agent and composer, died. His work included sympho-nies,
songs, and "Three Places in New England." He was pioneer of dissonance
as flavoring. Jan Swafford later authored the biography "Charles Ives:
A Life With Music." Helen R. Sive au-thored the biography "Music's
Connecticut Yankee."
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A10)(HN, 10/20/00)(WSJ, 1/20/04,
p.D7)
1954 Robert H. Jackson, US Supreme
Court Justice (1941-1954), died. His incomplete mem-oir of FDR, begun
in the early 1950s, was published in 2003 as "That Man: An Insider's
Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt."
(WSJ, 9/19/03, p.W11)
1954 Areogun (b.1880), Yoruba
sculptor, died. He was a native of the Ekiti region of Nigeria.
(www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/11/sfg/ht11sfg.htm)
1954 In Australia Evdokia Petrov
(d.2002), Soviet Union spy, was abducted by Soviet agents after she and
her husband Vladimir Petrov (d.1991), the third secretary at the Soviet
embassy in Australia, defected. Australian police snatched her back as
her plane stopped for fuel in Darwin.
(AP, 7/26/02)
c1954 Anti-witchcraft laws were
repealed in Britain.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A6)
1954 Quebec, Canada, celebrated
its first Winter Carnaval.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.T5)
1954 Deng Xiaoping condemned the
"Gao Gang-Rao Shushi anti-Party clique."
(WSJ, 2/20/97, p.A20)
1954 In China a flood on the
Yangtze killed 30,000 people.
(NH, 7/96, p.2)
1954 The Crimea was ceded to
Ukraine as a gift from Russia by Nikita Khrushchev. In 2004 ethnic
Russian made up a majority of the population.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 12/21/04, p.A14)
1954 In Egypt Youssef Chahine
(1926-2008), filmmaker, directed “The Blazing Sun” with Omar Sharif.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.B5)
1954 Colonel Nasser took over in
Egypt and the British pulled out of the Suez.
(TMC, 1994, p.1954)
1954 In Egypt the statue of Ramses
II was moved from Memphis to Cairo. It was divided into 3 pieces and
loaded onto trucks for the move.
(WSJ, 8/21/97, p.A12)
1954 Otto John, the first head of
West Germany’s Federal Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution -
an intelligence agency, crossed over to East Berlin. He said he was
kidnapped.
(SFEC, 3/30/97, p.D5)
1954 Elizabeth Dewey Johns Drake
(1915-1996) and her husband St. Clair Drake received a Ford Foundation
grant to study the impact of western media in the Gold Coast (Ghana).
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A20)
1954 The French National Assembly
rejected the European Defense Community.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.53)
1954 A French military court
sentenced Alois Brunner to death in absentia for war crimes. He had
sent 23,000 French Jews to death camps. Brunner fled from Germany to
Syria.
(SFC, 3/3/01, p.A10)
1954 Jacques Courtin (1921-2007)
opened his first beauty salon, the Institut Clarins, on Paris’ Rue
Tronchet. His beauty lines were among the first to tap into natural
ingredients. Clarins went public in 1984.
(WSJ, 4/7/07, p.A6)
1954 French engineer Marc Gregoire
sprayed his wife’s pans with teflon and created his own marketable
invention: nonstick cookware. [see 1956]
(Sm, 2/06, p.38)
1954 In Honduras a three month
strike was held by some 60,000 workers against the US-based United
Fruit Co. and other land holders. They won improved labor conditions
and influ-enced union movements throughout Latin America.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A22)
1954 Israel established an enemy
infiltrators law. It allowed the government to hold people without
judicial revue if they were deemed to be security threats.
(SFC, 6/9/06, p.A14)
1954 The Uzi machine gun was first
made by Israel Military Industries. Uzi Gal, the inventor of Israel's
Uzi submachine gun, died in Philadelphia after a long illness in 2002.
The Netherlands was the 1st country outside Israel to buy Uzis in 1958.
(AP, 9/9/02)(SFC, 9/10/02, p.A16)
1954 Italy regained Trieste, which
had been held by the United Nations. In 2001 Jan Morris authored
"Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere."
(SSFC, 10/28/01, p.R2)(SSFC, 10/28/01, p.R2)
1954 Ardito Desio (d.2001 at 104)
of Italy organized the 1st expedition to reach the top of K2 in
Kashmir, the world’s 2nd highest peak. In 1962 Desio became the 1st
Italian to reach the South Pole.
(SFC, 12/14/01, p.A33)
1954 In Kenya the British
government began making preparations for the country’s Independ-ence.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A10)
1954 In Kenya British forces
allegedly used pliers to castrate Paulo Nzili, a Mau Mau rebel. He
survived the severe beatings which killed many other Mau Mau and in
2009 launched a bid with 4 others to win compensation from Britain over
claims they were tortured and unlawfully impris-oned during Britain’s
colonial rule.
(AFP, 6/23/09)
1954 In Lebanon Beirut Int’l.
Airport opened. In 1998 a new $460 million airport was under
construction.
(WSJ, 4/6/98, p.A1)
1954 Mexico’s Dept. of Tourism
made the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico founded by Amalia Her-nandez the
nation’s official cultural ambassador.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, DB p.47)
1954 The 5 islands of the
Netherlands Antilles were federated. These included Bonaire, Cu-racao,
St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.38)
1954 Russian conducted the Totsk
nuclear test involving ground troops.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.A17)
1954 Gen. Franco closed the
Spanish consulate on Gibraltar in a fit of rage over a visit by Queen
Elizabeth II.
(AP, 9/19/06)
1954 Albert Pickerell (d.1999 at
86) served in Thailand as a Fulbright lecturer and helped es-tablish a
School of Journalism at Thammasatt Univ. Later at UC Berkeley he
published "The Courts and the New Media."
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.A19)
1954 In Uganda Owen Falls Dam was
built at the source of the Nile River. It used Lake Victo-ria’s waters
to generate power for Ugandan residents and export to neighboring
nations.
(SFC, 6/24/08, p.A14)
1954 Venezuela’s Radio Caracas
Television Station (RCTV) began operations.
(Econ, 6/2/07, p.38)
1954-1955 Charles David Keeling, a geochemist at Cal
Tech, conducts his experiments to measure the concentration of carbon
dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. He finds out that the concentra-tion
of carbon dioxide varies throughout the night and day and settles at a
daily balance of 315 parts per million every mid-afternoon.
(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.23)
1954-1955 The Univ. of Michigan fired professors
Chandler Davis, Clement Markert, and Mark Nickerson because they
refused on Constitutional grounds to answer questions of the
Con-gressional Committee on Un-American Activities on their
relationships with the US Communist Party. An annual lecture on
academic freedom was established in their honor in 1990.
(MT, Win. ‘96, p.7)
1954-1956 Drummer Max Roach and trumpet player
Clifford Brown led an influential jazz quintet over this period.
(DFP, 7/28/96, p.F8)
1954-1960 Robert Young (d.1998 at 91) played the
loving father Jim Anderson on TV in "Father Knows Best." Jane Wyatt
(1910-2006) played his wife. The show had started as a radio sitcom in
1949.
(SFC, 7/23/98, p.C4)(SFC, 10/23/06, p.B3)
1954-1962 During the Algerian war of independence
French generals approved torture and the dis-appearance of the 3,000
suspected guerrillas. In 2000 former Gen. Paul Aussaresse testified on
French military behavior and the approval of Gen. Jacques Massu. In
2001 a mass grave of 290 people was found at the site of the former
headquarters of the French army.
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B9)(SFC, 4/24/01, p.A12)
1954-1963 This period of the civil rights era was
covered in Taylor Branch’s book: "Parting the Wa-ters: American in the
King Years, 1954-1963."
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A24)
1954-1965 This period of the Vietnam War was covered
by Mark Moyar in his book “Triumph For-saken: The Vietnam War
1954-1865” (2006).
(WSJ, 9/28/06, p.D8)
1954-1989 Todor Zhikov (d.1998) ruled Bulgaria.
During his rule he authorized a forced assimilation drive against the 1
million ethnic Turks. Over 100 were killed and some 310,000 forcibly
ex-pelled.
(SFC, 8/7/98, p.D3)
Go to 1955