What happened in 1949

World2

• Feb 17Chaim Weizmann begins his term as the first president of Israel.
• Jun 29Apartheid: The South African Citizenship Act suspends the granting of citizenship to Commonwealth of Nations immigrants after 5 years, and imposes a ban on mixed marriages.

Japan2

• May 16The Tokyo Stock Exchange resumes operations, after a four-year shutdown.
• NovYukawa Hideki wins the Nobel Prize in PhysicsIn 1935 he had predicted in theory the meson, which binds protons and neutrons in the nucleus. It was the first Nobel Prize for a Japanese person.

North America9

• Mar 24The 21st Academy Awards Ceremony is held. The movie Hamlet wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.
• Mar 28United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal resigns suddenly.
• Apr 4The North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., creating the NATO defense alliance.
• Apr 7Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, starring Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, opens on Broadway, and goes on to become Rodgers and Hammerstein's second longest-running musical. It becomes an instant classic of the musical theatre. The score's biggest hit is the song "Some Enchanted Evening".
• May 22After two months in Bethesda Naval Hospital, James Forrestal commits suicide under suspicious circumstances.
• Jun 8Second Red Scare in the United States: Celebrities including Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named as Communist Party members in a Federal Bureau of Investigation report.
• Jun 14Albert II, a rhesus monkey aboard U.S. Hermes project V-2 rocket Blossom IVB, becomes the first primate to enter space. He is killed on impact at return.
• Aug 3The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League finalize the merger that will create the National Basketball Association.
• Sep 9Albert Guay affair: A dynamite bomb destroys Canadian Pacific Airlines Douglas DC-3, in Quebec.

Europe24

• Mar 25First issue of weekly magazine Paris Match published in France.
• Mar 30An anti-NATO riot in Iceland takes place, prompted by the decision of the Icelandic parliament to join the newly formed NATO.
• Apr 20Royal Navy frigate HMS Amethyst goes up the Yangtze River, to evacuate British Commonwealth refugees escaping the advance of Mao's Communist forces. Under heavy fire, she grounds off Rose Island. After an abortive rescue attempt on April 26, she anchors upstream. Negotiations with the Communists to let the ship leave drag on for weeks, during which time the ship's cat Simon raises the crew's morale.
• May 4Superga air disaster: A Fiat G.212 airliner of Avio Linee Italiane, carrying the entire Torino F.C. football team, crashes into the back wall of the Basilica of Superga, killing all 31 on board.
• May 5The Council of Europe is founded, by the signing of the Treaty of London.
• May 23The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) is officially established (until 1990).
• Jun 8George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in London.
• Jul 27The de Havilland Comet, the world's first jet-powered airliner, makes its first flight, in England.
• Aug 12The Fourth Geneva Convention is agreed to.
• Aug 24The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is established.
• Aug 29The Council of Europe meets for the first time.
• Sep 2Film noir The Third Man, with screenplay by Graham Greene and set in Allied-occupied Vienna, is released in the United Kingdom; it wins the 1949 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
• Sep 7The first Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany convenes in Bonn. They will elect Konrad Adenauer as Chancellor while the Federal Convention, a constitutional body consisting of the Bundestag members and a same number of representatives of the States, elect the liberal Theodor Heuss as President of Germany on 12 September.
• Oct 7The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) is officially established (until 1990).
• Nov 12The Volkswagen Type 2 panel van is unveiled in Germany.

9 more in the app

USSR / Russia3

• Jan 25The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or COMECON) is established by the Soviet Union and other communist nations.
• May 12Cold War: The Soviet Union lifts the Berlin Blockade.
• Aug 29The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, RDS-1 ("Joe 1"). Its design imitates the American plutonium bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.

Asia12

• Jan 31Forces from the Chinese Communist Party enter Beijing.
• Apr 28Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, 61, is assassinated while en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and 10 others are also killed.
• Jul 1The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is established.
• Aug 8Bhutan signs a Treaty of Friendship with newly independent India, agreeing non-interference in internal affairs, but allowing India to "guide" its foreign policy (similar to the previous arrangements with the British administration in India).
• Sep 29The first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference approves a design for the flag of the People's Republic of China.
• Oct 1The People's Republic of China is officially proclaimed.
• Oct 6The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) established its first diplomatic and friendly relations with newly proclaimed Communist China (PRC) between the two nations.
• Oct 20China People's Insurance Corporation, as predecessor of China Life was founded.
• Oct 27Battle of Kuningtou: Chinese communist troops fail to take Quemoy; their advance towards Taiwan is halted.
• Nov 15Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte are executed for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi.
• Dec 7Retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan finishes, and it declares Taipei its temporary capital city, a status it will retain more than 50 years later.
• Dec 17Burma recognises the People's Republic of China.

Middle East6

• Jan 25In the first Israeli elections, David Ben-Gurion becomes Prime Minister.
• Mar 30A military coup in Syria ousts President Shukri al-Quwatli.
• May 11Israel is admitted to the United Nations, as its 59th member.
• Jul 20Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their 19-month war.
• Dec 7The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is established as a United Nations agency.
• Dec 13The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.

Latin America1

• Aug 5In Ecuador, the 6.8 Ambato earthquake kills more than 5,000, and destroys a number of villages.

Africa1

• Apr 14The N'Ko alphabet is completed by Solomana Kante.