1952

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Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events of 1952

January

January 8 - West Germany has 8 million refugees inside its borders.
January 14 - The Today Show premieres on NBC.
January 24

Sudden heavy snowfall in Algeria.
Vincent Massey sworn in as first Canada-born Governor-General of Canada.

February

February 2 - A tropical storm forms just north of Cuba moving northeast. The storm makes landfall in southern Florida the next day. It is the earliest reported landfall from a tropical storm, and the earliest formation of a tropical storm on record in the Atlantic basin.
February 6

Elizabeth II becomes Queen upon the death of her father George VI. She is simultaneously proclaimed Queen of Canada at Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Ontario.
In the United States, a mechanical heart is used for the first time in a human patient.

February 7 - Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom at St. James's Palace, London, England.
February 14 to February 25 - Winter Olympics in Oslo.
February 15 - Funeral of King George VI takes place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
February 20 - Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.
February 21 - Event1- In Dhaka, East Pakistan (present Bangladesh) police opened fire on a procession of students, who demanded the establishment of Bengali as the official language, killing four people and starting a country-wide protest which led to the recognition of Bengali as one of the national languages of Pakistan. The day was later declared as "International Mother Language Day" by UNESCO. Event2 - Winston Churchill scraps UK compulsory national Identity Cards.
February 26 - United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that his nation has an atomic bomb.

March

March 4 - Ronald Reagan marries Nancy Davis.
March 10 - General Fulgencio Batista re-takes power in Cuba.
March 15 to March 16 - 73 inches (1,870mm) of rain falls in Cilaos, Réunion, the most rainfall ever in one day.
March 20 - The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
March 21

The last two executions in the Netherlands take place.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is elected Prime Minister of the Gold Coast.
Tornadoes ravage the lower Mississippi River Valley, leaving 208 dead, through March 22.

March 27 - Failed assassination attempt against Konrad Adenauer.
March 29 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces that he will not seek reelection.

April

April 4 - In Hague tribunal, Israel demands reparations worth 3 billion dollars from Germany.
April 8 - Hours before the 1952 steel strike is to begin, President Harry S. Truman nationalizes all steel mills in the United States—creating a dispute which led to landmark legal ruling in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer.
April 11 - Battle of Nanri island took place.
April 15 - The B-52 Stratofortress flies for the first time.
April 18

Bolivia National Revolution: universal vote enables indigenous and women to vote, nationalization of mines and agrarian reform.
West Germany and Japan form diplomatic relations.

April 23 - Nuclear test in Nevada desert.
April 28

The Treaty of San Francisco goes into effect, formally ending the occupation of Japan.
Treaty of Taipei (Treaty of Peace between Japan and the Republic of China).

April 29 - Lever House officially opens in New York City, heralding a new age of commercial architecture in the United States.

May

May 1 - East Germany threatens to form its own army.
May 2 - First passenger jet flight route between London and Johannesburg.
May 3 - U.S. lieutenant colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict land a plane at the geographic North Pole.
May 6 - Farouk of Egypt had himself announced as a descendant of prophet Muhammad.
May 13 - Pandit Nehru forms his first government.
May 15 - Diplomatic relations established between the governments of Israel and Japan at the level of Legations.
May 18 - Ann Davison became the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean.

June

June 1 - Roman Catholic church bans books of André Gide.
June 1 - Navigation opens on the Volga-Don Canal, connecting the Caspian Sea basin with that of the Black Sea.
June 5 - Remains of a Viking ship found near Boston, Massachusetts.
June 14 - The keel is laid for the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
June 15 - The Diary of Anne Frank published.
June 21 - Philippine School of Commerce, through a republic act, was converted to Philippine College of Commerce; later to be the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
June 26 - Evita Peron dies at 8:25 p.m. at age 33 due to cancer.
June 29 - Finnish Armi Kuusela wins the title of Miss Universe.
June 30 - Marshall Aid ends.

July

July 13 - East Germany announced formation of its National People's Army.
July 19 to August 3 - The Summer Olympic Games are held in Helsinki.
July 19 to July 26 - Washington D.C. "buzzed" by several UFOs tracked on multiple radars. Jets scrambled on several occasions and objects took evasive action only to return after the jets left the area.
July 21 - A magnitude 7.5 earthquake (Richter scale) strikes Tehachapi, California, destroying unreinforced brick buildings.
July 23

Establishment of the European Coal and Steel community.
General Mohammed Naguib leads The Free Officers (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser - the real power behind the coup) in the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt.

July 25 - Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.
July 26 - Military coup in Egypt ousts King Farouk.

August

August 11 - Jordanian army forces king Talal to resign due to mental illness - his successor is his son Hussein of Jordan.
August 13 - Japan joins IMF.
August 14

West Germany joins the IMF and the World Bank.

August 16 - Lynmouth in North Devon England is devastated by floods, death toll of 34.
August 26 - British passenger jet flies twice over Atlantic Ocean in the same day.
August 27 - Reparation negotiations between West Germany and Israel end in Luxembourg - Germany will pay 3 billion Deutsche Marks.
August 29 - Premiere of John Cage's 4' 33" in Woodstock, New York.
August 30 - Last Finnish war reparations to Soviet Union.
August 31 - Closure of the Grenzlandring racetrack in Wegberg, Germany.

September

September 2 - Dr. C. Walton Lillehei and Dr. F. John Lewis perform first open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota.
September 4 - September 9 - Thick smog in London, England causes 4,000 fatalities.
September 6 - TV debuts in Canada as the CBC in Montreal, Quebec airs.
September 8 - CBC Toronto debuts.
September 18 - Soviet Union vetoes Japan's application for membership in the United Nations.

October

October 8

Negotiations for a ceasefire in Korea are postponed.
Three-train crash in Harrow railway station in England - 112 dead.

October 12 - Gamma Sigma Sigma National Service Sorority was founded in New York City at Beekman Towers.
October 14 - United Nations begins work in the new United Nations building in New York City.
October 17 - Indonesian troops led by Nasution surround the presidential palace, seeking the dismissal of the People's Representative Council; Sukarno avoids confrontation.
October 19

Alain Bombard begins to sail from Canary Islands to Barbados in 65 days; he reaches them December 23.
John Bamford, aged 15, rescues victims of a house fire and becomes the youngest person to have been awarded the George Cross.

October 20 - Martial law in Kenya due to Mau Mau uprising.

November

November 1 - Nuclear testing: Operation Ivy - The United States successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike", at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, with a yield of 10.4 megatons.
November 4

8.25 Richter scale earthquake in Kamchatka.
United States presidential election, 1952: Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson (correctly predicted by the UNIVAC computer).
The US National Security Agency is founded.

November 18 - Jomo Kenyatta is arrested in Kenya for alleged connection to Mau Mau uprising
November 20

Slánský trials - series of Stalinist and largely anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
Fireball crashes in a backyard in Havelock North, New Zealand.
First official passenger flight over the North Pole from Los Angeles to Copenhagen.

November 21 - Show trial in Czechoslovakia sentences 11 ex-communist officials to death - all of them Jews.
November 25 - Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London; as of 2007 , it continues, next door at the St. Martin's Theatre, and remains the longest continuously running production of a play in history.
November 29 - Korean War: U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a political campaign promise by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict.

December

December 1 - The New York Daily News carries a front page story announcing that Christine Jorgensen, a transsexual woman in Denmark became the recipient of the first successful sexual reassignment operation.
December 4 - Great Smog of 1952: A "killer fog" descends on London (In the process coining the word "Smog", for "smoke" and "fog").
December 14 - First successful surgical separation of Siamese twins in Mount Sinai Hospital, Ohio.
December 20 - Crash of U.S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster at Moses Lake, WA kills 86 servicemen.
December 25 - Shooting incident in West Berlin - one West German soldier is killed.
December 26 - Joseph Ivor Linton, first Israeli Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan, presents his credentials to the Japanese Emperor.

Undated

Nearly 58,000 cases of polio are reported in the U.S.– 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.
Charles Chaplin is expelled from the U.S..
Wernher von Braun publishes his ideas for a manned flight to Mars in The Mars Project.
Nordic Council agrees free transport of people, goods and services throughout the Nordic Countries.
National Prohibition Foundation incorporated in Indiana.
American Embassy School of New Delhi founded.
Fallskärmsjägarna - Swedish paratrooper training school (FJS) created.
World Wrestling Entertainment - Professional Wrestling Promotion was founded by Vince McMahon Sr.