1954

Table of contents

1 Events 2 Unknown date 3 Births 4 Deaths 5 Nobel Prizes 6 Heads of state in 1954

Events

• January - Playboy magazine issue features Margie Harrison, the first playmate.
• January 7 - The first public demonstration of a machine translation system was held in New York at the head office of IBM.
• January 14 - The Hudson Motor Car Company merges with Nash-Kelvinator forming the American Motors Corporation
• January 20 - The National Negro Network is established with 40 charter member radio stations.
• January 21 - The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut, by Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
• January 25 - The foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union meet at the Berlin Conference
• February 10 - President Dwight Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam
• February 23 - The first mass vaccination of children against polio begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• February 25 - Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser is made premier of Egypt.
• March 1 - Nuclear testing: Officials announce that an American hydrogen bomb test had been conducted on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
• March 1 - Puerto Rican nationalists attack the United States Capitol building, injuring five Representatives.
• March 4 - Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston announces the first successful kidney transplant.
• March 9 - McCarthyism: CBS broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy," produced by Edward R. Murrow.
• March 13 - Battle of Dien Bien Phu: Viet Minh forces attack French
• March 19 - Joey Giardello knocks out Willie Tory in round seven at Madison Square Garden in the first televised prize boxing fight shown in color.
• March 22 - The London gold market reopens (it was closed in 1939).
• March 30 - Canada's first subway opens in Toronto.
• April 1 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
• April 7 - Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his"domino theory" speech during a news conference.
• April 22 - Senator Joseph McCarthy begins hearings investigating the United States Army for being "soft" on Communism.
• May 1 - Taku (city in Japan) founded
• May 6 - Roger Bannister runs the first four minute mile
• May 7 - Construction started on Michigan's Mackinac Bridge.
• May 7 - Vietnam War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).
• May 17 - US Supreme Court hands down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas 347 US 483 1954
• May 20 - Chiang Kai-shek is reelected president of the Republic of China by the National Assembly.
• June 9 - McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army.
• June 15 - UEFA (the Union des Associations Européennes de Football) is formed in Basle, Switzerland.
• June 19 - The last regular-service streetcar operated by Twin City Rapid Transit runs in Minneapolis.
• June 27 - Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán steps down in a CIA-sponsored military coup–Operation PBSUCCESS–triggering a bloody civil war that would continue for more than 35 years.
• July 7 - In Memphis, Tennessee, WHBQ becomes the first radio station to air an Elvis Presley record.
• July 21 - First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
• July 28 - Foundation of the Situationist International.
• July 29 - First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition.
• August - First flight of a B-52 Stratofortress.
• August 6 - Emilie Dionne, one of the Dionne Quintuplets, dies of asphyxiation following a epileptic seizure at Sainte Agathe, Quebec.
• August 16 - Volume 1, Issue 1 of Sports Illustrated is published.
• September 3 - The last new episode of the Lone Ranger is aired on radio after 2,956 episodes over a period of 21 years.
• September 8 - The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established.
• September 11 - First Miss America Pageant broadcast on television
• September 14 - USSR Tests Nuclear Weapon
• September 30 - USS Nautilus, 1st atomic-powered vessel (submarine), commissioned by the US Navy
• October 11 - Vietnam War: The Viet Minh take control of North Vietnam.
• October 31 - Algerian War of Independence: The Algerian National Liberation Front begins a revolt against French rule.
• November 10 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima memorial} in Arlington National Cemetery.
• November 29 - The main immigration port-of-entry in New York Harbor at Ellis Island closes (the facility processed more than 20 million immigrants from 1892 to this day).
• November 30 - In Sylacauga, Alabama, an 8.5 pound sulfide meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges in her living room after bouncing off her radio, giving her a bad bruise (this is the first known modern case of a human being hit by a space rock).
• December 2 - Red Scare: The United States Senate votes 67 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."
• December 24 - Laos becomes independent.

• Battle of Dien Bien Phu between French and Viet Minh forces in Indochina
• Boy Scouts of America desegregates on the basis of race
• Stop signs are changed from black-on-yellow to white-on-red

• January 6 - Anthony Minghella, director
• January 12 - Howard Stern, "shock-jock" radio host
• January 22 - Peter Pilz, Austrian politician
• January 29 - Oprah Winfrey, actress, talk show host, producer, publisher
• February 1 - Bill Mumy, actor, musician
• February 2 - Christie Brinkley, model
• February 6 - Argusto Emfazie, occultist, author
• February 12 - Philip Zimmermann, American cryptographer
• February 15 - Matt Groening, cartoonist
• February 18 - John Travolta, actor
• February 19 - Socrates, football player
• February 20 - Anthony Stewart Head, actor
• February 20 - Patty Hearst, socialite
• February 25 - John Doe, musician
• February 26 - Michael Bolton, singer
• March 1 - Ron Howard, actor, director, producer
• March 4 - Catherine O'Hara, actress
• March 13 - Baroness Amos, British politician, first black woman in the UK Cabinet
• March 16 - Nancy Wilson (guitarist), band founder, singer, actress
• March 17 - Lesley-Anne Down, actress
• March 24 - Robert Carradine, actor (Revenge of the Nerds, Lizzie Mc
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