What happened in 1954

World5

• Jan 25The foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union meet at the Berlin Conference.
• May 1The Unification Church is founded in South Korea.
• May 22The common Nordic Labour Market act is signed.
• May 29Creation and first meeting of the Bilderberg Group.
• Jul 1The Common Nordic Labor Market Act comes into effect.

Japan2

• Apr 26Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is released in Japan.
• Nov 3The first Godzilla film premieres in Tokyo.

North America17

• Jan 7Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head office of IBM.
• Mar 29A C-47 transport with French nurse Geneviève de Galard on board is wrecked on the runway at Dien Bien Phu.
• Mar 30The first operational subway line in Canada opens in Toronto.
• Apr 1The U.S. Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorize the founding of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
• Apr 12Bill Haley & His Comets record "Rock Around the Clock" in their first session for American Decca in New York City; it is released on May 20 as a B-side, but only in 1955 becomes a #1 hit, helping to initiate the rock and roll craze.
• May 14The Boeing 367-80, prototype for the later Boeing 707 jetliner, is rolled out in the United States, after about 2 years of development.
• May 17Brown v. Board of Education (347 US 483 1954): The Supreme Court of the United States rules unanimously that segregated schools are unconstitutional.
• Jul 15The Boeing 367-80 (or Dash 80), prototype of the Boeing 707 series, makes its maiden flight.
• Aug 16The first issue of Sports Illustrated magazine is published in the United States.
• Aug 23A United States Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules makes its first flight at Burbank, California, manufactured by Lockheed Martin.
• Sep 5KLM flight 633, a Lockheed L-1049C Super Constellation named “Triton”, attempted to ditch into the river Shannon immediately after takeoff from Shannon Airport, Ireland. 28 of the 56 passengers and crew were killed
• Sep 27The Tonight Show first airs on live television on NBC in the United States being the first late night talk show.
• Nov 10U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial), at the Arlington National Cemetery.
• Nov 30In Sylacauga, Alabama, a four-kilogram piece of the Hodges Meteorite crashes through the roof of a house and badly bruises a napping woman, in the first documented case of an object from outer space hitting a person.
• Dec 4The first Burger King opens in Miami, Florida.

2 more in the app

Europe15

• Jan 3The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting.
• Jan 10BOAC Flight 781, a de Havilland Comet jet plane, disintegrates in mid-air due to metal fatigue, and crashes in the Mediterranean near Elba; all 35 people on board are killed.
• Apr 26An international conference on Korea and Indo-China opens in Geneva.
• May 14The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict is adopted in The Hague, Netherlands.
• May 15The Latin Union (Unión Latina) is created by the Convention of Madrid. Its member countries use the five Romance languages: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. It suspended operations in 2012.
• Jun 7English cryptanalyst, mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing, age 41, commits suicide by cyanide poisoning.
• Jun 15The UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) is formed in Basel, Switzerland.
• Jul 4"Miracle of Bern": West Germany beats Hungary 3–2 to win the 1954 FIFA World Cup.
• Jul 21First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference sends French forces to the south, and Vietnamese forces to the north, of a demarcation line. The agreement leads to the establishment of the North Vietnam regime and the state of South Vietnam.
• Jul 29The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of three volumes in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, is published in London.
• Jul 311954 Italian expedition to K2: Italian mountaineers Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni become the first to reach the summit of the second highest mountain in the world, in the Karakoram range.
• Sep 14English composer Benjamin Britten's chamber opera version of The Turn of the Screw receives its world premiere, at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Italy.
• Sep 17William Golding's allegorical dystopian novel Lord of the Flies is published in London.
• Oct 23Paris Agreement sets up the Western European Union to implement the Treaty of Brussels (1948), providing for mutual self-defence and other collaboration between Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Germany is granted admission to the NATO which becomes effective in 1955.
• Dec 3Väinö Linna's war novel The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon sotilas) is published.

USSR / Russia4

• Feb 191954 transfer of Crimea: The Soviet Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.
• May 16Beginning of the Kengir uprising in the Gulag.
• Jun 6The grand opening of the sculpture of Yuriy Dolgorukiy takes place in Moscow (this statue is one of the main monuments of Moscow).
• Sep 14The Soviet Union carries out the Totskoye nuclear exercise.

Asia9

• Mar 13Việt Minh forces under General Võ Nguyên Giáp began a massive artillery bombardment on the French military, beginning the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the climactic battle of the First Indochina War.
• Mar 23In Vietnam, the Viet Minh capture the main airstrip of Dien Bien Phu. The remaining French Army units there are partially isolated.
• May 7First Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).
• May 8The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is formed in Manila, Philippines.
• Aug 1The First Indochina War ends with the Vietnam People's Army in North Vietnam, the Vietnamese National Army in South Vietnam, the Kingdom of Cambodia in Cambodia, and the Kingdom of Laos in Laos, emerging victorious against the French Army.
• Sep 6The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) treaty is signed in Manila, Philippines.
• Oct 11Pre-Vietnam War: The Viet Minh takes control of North Vietnam.
• Nov 21People's Action Party, an eventual dominative political party in Singapore, was established.
• In South Vietnam, the Viet Minh is reorganised into the Viet Cong.

Latin America4

• Jun 17A CIA-engineered military coup occurs in Guatemala.
• Jun 27Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz steps down in a CIA-sponsored military coup, triggering a bloody civil war that continues for more than 35 years.
• Aug 24Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas commits suicide, after being accused of involvement in a conspiracy to murder his chief political opponent, Carlos Lacerda.
• Dec 15The Netherlands Antilles is created out of the Dutch Caribbean nations. It is dissolved between 1986 and 2010.

Africa3

• Sep 9The 6.7 Chlef earthquake shakes northern Algeria, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). The shock destroys Orléansville, leaving 1,243–1,409 dead, and 5,000 injured.
• Oct 31Algerian War of Independence: The Algerian National Liberation Front begins a revolt against French rule.
• Nov 1The FLN attacks representative and public buildings of the French colonial power.

Oceania2

• Mar 27The Castle Romeo nuclear test explosion is executed at Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands.
• Jun 22Parker–Hulme murder case: Pauline Parker, 16 and her friend Juliet Hulme, 15, bludgeon Parker's mother to death using a brick, at Victoria Park in New Zealand.