January
January 8 – West Germany has 8 million refugees inside its borders.
January 12 - The University of Tennessee admits its first black student.
January 24 - Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canada-born Governor General of Canada.
February
The 3 Queens in mourning- Elizabeth II, her grandmother, Queen Mary and her mother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother at the funeral of George VI.
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
George VI (King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon) dies aged 56 after a long illness. He is succeeded by his daughter The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh (now Elizabeth II), who is on a visit to Kenya. She is proclaimed Queen of Canada at Rideau Hall, Ottawa.
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 – February 25 – The Winter Olympics held in Oslo, Norway.
February 15 – The funeral of George VI takes place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
February 18 – Greece and Turkey join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
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.
Winston Churchill scraps UK compulsory national identity cards.
February 21 – In Dhaka, East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) police open fire on a procession of students, killing 4 people and starting a country-wide protest which leads to the recognition of Bengali as one of the national languages of Pakistan. The day is later declared "International Mother Language Day" by UNESCO.
February 25 - The Parícutin active volcano in Michoacán, west central Mexico, ceases its discontinuous eruption after spewing forth a gigaton of lava and burying San Juan Parangaricutiro.
February 26 – United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that the United Kingdom has an atomic bomb.
March
March 1 – The British Psychological Society is founded.
March 10 – General Fulgencio Batista re-takes power in Cuba.
March 15–16 – 73 inches (1,870 mm) of rain falls in Cilaos, Réunion, the most rainfallin one day up to that time.
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 22 – Wernher von Braun publishes the first in his series of articles titled Man Will Conquer Space Soon!, including ideas for manned flights to Mars and the Moon.
March 27 – Konrad Adenauer survives an assassination attempt.
March 29 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces that he will not seek reelection.
April
April 4
In the Hague Tribunal, Israel demands reparations worth $3 billion from Germany.
West Ice accidents: During a severe storm in the West Ice, east of Greenland, 78 seal hunters on 5 Norwegian seal hunting vessels vanish without a trace.
April 7 - The American Research Bureau reports that the I Love Lucy episode, "The Marriage License" was the first TV show in history to be seen in around 10,000,000 homes the evening the episode aired.
April 8 – Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer: The U.S. Supreme Court limits the power of the President to seize private business, after President Harry S. Truman nationalizes all steel mills in the United States, just before the 1952 steel strike begins.
April 9 – Hugo Ballivián's government is overthrown by the Bolivian National Revolution, which starts a period of agrarian reform, universal suffrage and the nationalization of tin mines.
April 11 – Battle of Nanri Island: The Republic of China seizes the island from the Peoples' Republic of China.
April 15 – The United States B-52 Stratofortress flies for the first time.
April 18
Bolivia National Revolution: A universal vote enables indigenous peoples and women to vote, nationalizes mines and enacts agrarian reform.
West Germany and Japan form diplomatic relations.
April 26 - The United States Navy aircraft carrier Wasp collides with the destroyer Hobson while on exercises in the Atlantic Ocean, killing 175 men.
April 28 – The Treaty of San Francisco goes into effect, formally ending the war between Japan and the Allies, and simultaneously ending the occupation of the four main Japanese islands.
April 29 – Lever House officially opens at 390 Park Avenue in New York City, heralding a new age of commercial architecture in the United States. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it is the first International Style skyscraper.
May
May 1 – East Germany threatens to form its own army.
May 2 – The first passenger jet flight route opens 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 has himself announced as a descendant of prophet Muhammad.
May 13 – Pandit Nehru forms his first government in India.
May 15 – Diplomatic relations are established between the governments of Israel and Japan at the level of legations.
May 18 – Ann Davison becomes the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean.
June
June 1
The Roman Catholic Church bans the books of André Gide.
Navigation opens on the Volga–Don Canal, connecting the Caspian Sea basin with that of the Black Sea.
June 14
The keel is laid for the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
Myxomatosis is introduced to Europe on the French estate of Dr. Paul Armand-Delille.
June 15 – The Diary of a Young Girl is published.
June 19 – The Special Forces (United States Army) are created.
June 21 – The Philippine School of Commerce, through a government act, is converted to the Philippine College of Commerce (later the Polytechnic University of the Philippines).
June 26 – The Pan-Malayan Labour Party is founded in Malaya, as a union of statewise labour parties.
June 27 – Decree 900 in Guatemala orders redistribution of uncultivated land.
June 29 – Finnish contestant Armi Kuusela wins the title of Miss Universe.
July
France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands form the European Coal and Steel community, the foundation organization which would become the European Union.
July 3 – The ocean liner SS United States makes her maiden crossing of the Atlantic.
July 13 – East Germany announces the formation of its National People's Army.
July 19 – August 3 – The 1952 Summer Olympics are held in Helsinki, Finland.
July 21 – A magnitude 7.5 earthquake (Richter scale) strikes Tehachapi, California, destroying unreinforced brick buildings.
July 23
The European Coal and Steel Community is established.
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.
August
August 5 – The Treaty of Taipei between Japan and the Republic of China goes into effect, to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War.
August 11 – The Jordanian army forces King Talal to resign due to mental illness; he is succeeded by his son Hussein of Jordan.
August 13 – Japan joins the IMF.
August 14 – West Germany joins the IMF and the World Bank.
August 16 – Lynmouth, North Devon, England is devastated by floods; 34 die.
August 26 – A British passenger jet makes a return crossing of the 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 – Composer John Cage's 4′33″, during which the performer does not play, premieres in Woodstock, New York.
August 30 – The last Finnish war reparations are sent to the Soviet Union.
August 31 – The Grenzlandring racetrack closes in Wegberg, Germany.
September
September 2 – Dr. C. Walton Lillehei and Dr. F. John Lewis perform the first open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota.
September 6 – Television debuts in Canada as the CBC in Montreal, Quebec airs.
September 8 – CBC Toronto debuts.
September 10 – The European Parliamentary Assembly (from March 1962, European Parliament) opens.
September 18 – The Soviet Union vetoes Japan's application for membership in the United Nations.
September 30 - The Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published and released to the public.
October
October 3 – The first British nuclear weapon is detonated in Australia making the United Kingdom the third nuclear weapons state.
October 8
Negotiations for a ceasefire in Korea are postponed.
A three-train crash at Harrow railway station in England kills 112 people.[citation needed]
October 12 – The Gamma Sigma Sigma National Service Sorority is founded in New York City at Panhellenic Tower.
October 14 – The United Nations begins work in the new United Nations building in New York City, designed by Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer.
October 16 – Limelight opens in London; writer/actor/director/producer Charlie Chaplin arrives by ocean liner; in transit his re-entry permit to the USA is revoked by J. Edgar Hoover.
October 17 – Indonesian troops led by General 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 the 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 be awarded the George Cross.
October 20 – Martial law is declared in Kenya due to the Mau Mau uprising.
November
November 1 – Nuclear testing and 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.
The explosion of the first hydrogen bomb.
November 4
Kamchatka earthquake: An 8.25 Richter scale (9.0 moment magnitude scale) earthquake hits the Kamchatka Peninsula of the Soviet Union, equal only to the 2011 Japanese earthquake.[1]
United States presidential election, 1952: Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Governor of Illinois Adlai Stevenson (correctly predicted by the UNIVAC computer).
The U.S. National Security Agency is founded.
The Pace-Finletter MOU 1952: A Memorandum of understanding is signed between "...Air Force Secretary Finletter and Army Secretary Pace that established a fixed wing weight limit [for the Army] of five thousand pounds empty, but weight restrictions on helicopters were eliminated..."[2]
November 18 – Jomo Kenyatta is arrested in Kenya for an alleged connection to the Mau Mau Uprising.
November 20
Slánský trials: A series of Stalinist and largely anti-Semitic show trials are held in Czechoslovakia.
A fireball crashes in a backyard in Havelock North, New Zealand.[citation needed]
The first official passenger flight over the North Pole is made from Los Angeles to Copenhagen.
The first successful sex reasignment surgery was performed in Kopenhagen, making George Jorgenson Jr. become Christine Jorgenson.
November 21 – A show trial in Czechoslovakia sentences 11 ex-communist officials (all of them Jews) to death.
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
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines takes office as President of Mexico.
The New York Daily News carries a front page story announcing that Christine Jorgensen, a transsexual woman in Denmark, has become the recipient of the first successful sexual reassignment operation.
December 4 – the Great Smog: A "killer fog" descends on London (in the process coining the word "Smog", for "smoke" and "fog").
December 14 – The first successful surgical separation of Siamese twins is conducted in Mount Sinai Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio.
December 20 – The crash of a U.S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster at Moses Lake, WA kills 86 servicemen.
December 25 – One West German soldier is killed in a shooting incident in West Berlin.
December 26 – Joseph Ivor Linton, the first Israeli Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan, presents his credentials to the Emperor of Japan.
January 8 – West Germany has 8 million refugees inside its borders.
January 12 - The University of Tennessee admits its first black student.
January 24 - Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canada-born Governor General of Canada.
February
The 3 Queens in mourning- Elizabeth II, her grandmother, Queen Mary and her mother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother at the funeral of George VI.
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
George VI (King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon) dies aged 56 after a long illness. He is succeeded by his daughter The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh (now Elizabeth II), who is on a visit to Kenya. She is proclaimed Queen of Canada at Rideau Hall, Ottawa.
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 – February 25 – The Winter Olympics held in Oslo, Norway.
February 15 – The funeral of George VI takes place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
February 18 – Greece and Turkey join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
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.
Winston Churchill scraps UK compulsory national identity cards.
February 21 – In Dhaka, East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) police open fire on a procession of students, killing 4 people and starting a country-wide protest which leads to the recognition of Bengali as one of the national languages of Pakistan. The day is later declared "International Mother Language Day" by UNESCO.
February 25 - The Parícutin active volcano in Michoacán, west central Mexico, ceases its discontinuous eruption after spewing forth a gigaton of lava and burying San Juan Parangaricutiro.
February 26 – United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that the United Kingdom has an atomic bomb.
March
March 1 – The British Psychological Society is founded.
March 10 – General Fulgencio Batista re-takes power in Cuba.
March 15–16 – 73 inches (1,870 mm) of rain falls in Cilaos, Réunion, the most rainfallin one day up to that time.
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 22 – Wernher von Braun publishes the first in his series of articles titled Man Will Conquer Space Soon!, including ideas for manned flights to Mars and the Moon.
March 27 – Konrad Adenauer survives an assassination attempt.
March 29 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces that he will not seek reelection.
April
April 4
In the Hague Tribunal, Israel demands reparations worth $3 billion from Germany.
West Ice accidents: During a severe storm in the West Ice, east of Greenland, 78 seal hunters on 5 Norwegian seal hunting vessels vanish without a trace.
April 7 - The American Research Bureau reports that the I Love Lucy episode, "The Marriage License" was the first TV show in history to be seen in around 10,000,000 homes the evening the episode aired.
April 8 – Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer: The U.S. Supreme Court limits the power of the President to seize private business, after President Harry S. Truman nationalizes all steel mills in the United States, just before the 1952 steel strike begins.
April 9 – Hugo Ballivián's government is overthrown by the Bolivian National Revolution, which starts a period of agrarian reform, universal suffrage and the nationalization of tin mines.
April 11 – Battle of Nanri Island: The Republic of China seizes the island from the Peoples' Republic of China.
April 15 – The United States B-52 Stratofortress flies for the first time.
April 18
Bolivia National Revolution: A universal vote enables indigenous peoples and women to vote, nationalizes mines and enacts agrarian reform.
West Germany and Japan form diplomatic relations.
April 26 - The United States Navy aircraft carrier Wasp collides with the destroyer Hobson while on exercises in the Atlantic Ocean, killing 175 men.
April 28 – The Treaty of San Francisco goes into effect, formally ending the war between Japan and the Allies, and simultaneously ending the occupation of the four main Japanese islands.
April 29 – Lever House officially opens at 390 Park Avenue in New York City, heralding a new age of commercial architecture in the United States. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it is the first International Style skyscraper.
May
May 1 – East Germany threatens to form its own army.
May 2 – The first passenger jet flight route opens 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 has himself announced as a descendant of prophet Muhammad.
May 13 – Pandit Nehru forms his first government in India.
May 15 – Diplomatic relations are established between the governments of Israel and Japan at the level of legations.
May 18 – Ann Davison becomes the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean.
June
June 1
The Roman Catholic Church bans the books of André Gide.
Navigation opens on the Volga–Don Canal, connecting the Caspian Sea basin with that of the Black Sea.
June 14
The keel is laid for the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
Myxomatosis is introduced to Europe on the French estate of Dr. Paul Armand-Delille.
June 15 – The Diary of a Young Girl is published.
June 19 – The Special Forces (United States Army) are created.
June 21 – The Philippine School of Commerce, through a government act, is converted to the Philippine College of Commerce (later the Polytechnic University of the Philippines).
June 26 – The Pan-Malayan Labour Party is founded in Malaya, as a union of statewise labour parties.
June 27 – Decree 900 in Guatemala orders redistribution of uncultivated land.
June 29 – Finnish contestant Armi Kuusela wins the title of Miss Universe.
July
France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands form the European Coal and Steel community, the foundation organization which would become the European Union.
July 3 – The ocean liner SS United States makes her maiden crossing of the Atlantic.
July 13 – East Germany announces the formation of its National People's Army.
July 19 – August 3 – The 1952 Summer Olympics are held in Helsinki, Finland.
July 21 – A magnitude 7.5 earthquake (Richter scale) strikes Tehachapi, California, destroying unreinforced brick buildings.
July 23
The European Coal and Steel Community is established.
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.
August
August 5 – The Treaty of Taipei between Japan and the Republic of China goes into effect, to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War.
August 11 – The Jordanian army forces King Talal to resign due to mental illness; he is succeeded by his son Hussein of Jordan.
August 13 – Japan joins the IMF.
August 14 – West Germany joins the IMF and the World Bank.
August 16 – Lynmouth, North Devon, England is devastated by floods; 34 die.
August 26 – A British passenger jet makes a return crossing of the 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 – Composer John Cage's 4′33″, during which the performer does not play, premieres in Woodstock, New York.
August 30 – The last Finnish war reparations are sent to the Soviet Union.
August 31 – The Grenzlandring racetrack closes in Wegberg, Germany.
September
September 2 – Dr. C. Walton Lillehei and Dr. F. John Lewis perform the first open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota.
September 6 – Television debuts in Canada as the CBC in Montreal, Quebec airs.
September 8 – CBC Toronto debuts.
September 10 – The European Parliamentary Assembly (from March 1962, European Parliament) opens.
September 18 – The Soviet Union vetoes Japan's application for membership in the United Nations.
September 30 - The Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published and released to the public.
October
October 3 – The first British nuclear weapon is detonated in Australia making the United Kingdom the third nuclear weapons state.
October 8
Negotiations for a ceasefire in Korea are postponed.
A three-train crash at Harrow railway station in England kills 112 people.[citation needed]
October 12 – The Gamma Sigma Sigma National Service Sorority is founded in New York City at Panhellenic Tower.
October 14 – The United Nations begins work in the new United Nations building in New York City, designed by Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer.
October 16 – Limelight opens in London; writer/actor/director/producer Charlie Chaplin arrives by ocean liner; in transit his re-entry permit to the USA is revoked by J. Edgar Hoover.
October 17 – Indonesian troops led by General 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 the 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 be awarded the George Cross.
October 20 – Martial law is declared in Kenya due to the Mau Mau uprising.
November
November 1 – Nuclear testing and 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.
The explosion of the first hydrogen bomb.
November 4
Kamchatka earthquake: An 8.25 Richter scale (9.0 moment magnitude scale) earthquake hits the Kamchatka Peninsula of the Soviet Union, equal only to the 2011 Japanese earthquake.[1]
United States presidential election, 1952: Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Governor of Illinois Adlai Stevenson (correctly predicted by the UNIVAC computer).
The U.S. National Security Agency is founded.
The Pace-Finletter MOU 1952: A Memorandum of understanding is signed between "...Air Force Secretary Finletter and Army Secretary Pace that established a fixed wing weight limit [for the Army] of five thousand pounds empty, but weight restrictions on helicopters were eliminated..."[2]
November 18 – Jomo Kenyatta is arrested in Kenya for an alleged connection to the Mau Mau Uprising.
November 20
Slánský trials: A series of Stalinist and largely anti-Semitic show trials are held in Czechoslovakia.
A fireball crashes in a backyard in Havelock North, New Zealand.[citation needed]
The first official passenger flight over the North Pole is made from Los Angeles to Copenhagen.
The first successful sex reasignment surgery was performed in Kopenhagen, making George Jorgenson Jr. become Christine Jorgenson.
November 21 – A show trial in Czechoslovakia sentences 11 ex-communist officials (all of them Jews) to death.
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
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines takes office as President of Mexico.
The New York Daily News carries a front page story announcing that Christine Jorgensen, a transsexual woman in Denmark, has become the recipient of the first successful sexual reassignment operation.
December 4 – the Great Smog: A "killer fog" descends on London (in the process coining the word "Smog", for "smoke" and "fog").
December 14 – The first successful surgical separation of Siamese twins is conducted in Mount Sinai Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio.
December 20 – The crash of a U.S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster at Moses Lake, WA kills 86 servicemen.
December 25 – One West German soldier is killed in a shooting incident in West Berlin.
December 26 – Joseph Ivor Linton, the first Israeli Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan, presents his credentials to the Emperor of Japan.