Year retrospective · 1950s

1950

1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1950th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 950th year of the 2nd millennium, the 50th year of the 20th century, and the 1st year of the 1950s decade.

Recorded events

10

top entries

Notable births

30

Notable deaths

30

Decade

1950s

Timeline

Defining events of 1950

  1. 1950 The Nainital wedding massacre occurs, killing 22 members of the Harijan caste.

    This is a list of mass stabbings that took place before 2010. It includes incidents in which there were at least three casualties.

  2. 1950 Guam is organized as an unincorporated territory of the United States as the President Harry S. Truman signs the Guam Organic Act.

    U.S. territory in Micronesia

    Guam is an island that is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, and the most populous village is Dededo. S.

  3. 1950 Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre: Seventy-five American POWs are massacred by the North Korean Army.

    1950–1953 conflict in Korean Peninsula

    The Korean War was an armed conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea was supported by the United Nations led by the United States under the auspices of the United Nations Command (UNC). 5 to 3 million civilians were killed during the war.

  4. 1950 Measuring Mw 8.6, the largest earthquake on land occurs in the Assam-Tibet-Myanmar border, killing 4,800.

    Scales to describe earthquake strength

    Seismic magnitude scales are used to describe the overall strength or "size" of an earthquake. These are distinguished from seismic intensity scales that categorize the intensity or severity of ground shaking (quaking) caused by an earthquake at a given location. Magnitudes are usually determined from measurements of an earthquake's seismic waves as recorded on a seismogram.

  5. 1950 Korean War: Forty-two American prisoners of war were massacred by the Korean People's Army on a hill above Waegwan, South Korea.

    1950–1953 conflict in Korean Peninsula

    The Korean War was an armed conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea was supported by the United Nations led by the United States under the auspices of the United Nations Command (UNC). 5 to 3 million civilians were killed during the war.

  6. 1950 Julien Lahaut, the chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium, is assassinated. The Party newspaper blames royalists and Rexists.

    Belgian politician (1884–1950)

    Julien-Victor Lahaut was a Belgian politician and communist activist who served as president of the Communist Party of Belgium from 1945 to 1950. An important figure during the German occupation of 1940–44, he became a vocal advocate for the abolition of the Belgian monarchy during the post-war Royal Question. His assassination in August 1950, at the height of the crisis, was linked to anti-communist and royalist elements inside the Belgian intelligence services by a team of historians in 2015; however, the murder remains officially unsolved.

  7. 1950 Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to the United Nations.
  8. 1950 To avert a threatened strike during the Korean War, President Truman orders Secretary of the Army Frank Pace to seize control of the nation's railroads.
  9. 1950 Korean War: British Commonwealth Forces Korea arrives to bolster the US presence.
  10. 1950 TWA Flight 903 crashes near Itay El Barud, Egypt, killing all 55 aboard.

Arrivals

Born in 1950

Grigory Sokolov 1950– Russian pianist (born 1950)
Peter Frampton 1950– British musician (born 1950)
Jancis Robinson 1950– British journalist
Lee Tamahori 1950– New Zealand film director (1950–2025)
Wendie Malick 1950– American actress (born 1950)
Bruce Oldfield 1950– British fashion designer (born 1950)
Kathy Baker 1950– American actress (born 1950)
Sônia Braga 1950– Brazilian actress
Bruce Boxleitner 1950– American actor and writer (born 1950)
Gabriel Byrne 1950– Irish actor (born 1950)
Billy Squier 1950– American musician (born 1950)
Grigory Sokolov 1950– Russian pianist (born 1950)

Farewells

Died in 1950

Ernst Robert Curtius German philologist and literary scholar
Charles Hamilton Houston American lawyer (1895–1950)
Giovanni Giorgi Italian physicist and engineer (1871–1950)
Abraham Wald Hungarian mathematician
Marcel Mauss French sociologist and anthropologist (1872–1950)
George Minot American medical researcher
Harry Lauder Scottish entertainer (1870–1950)
Thomas William Burgess British swimmer (1872–1950)
Edgar Rice Burroughs American writer (1875–1950)
Norman Haworth British chemist (1883–1950)
Belle da Costa Greene American librarian (1879–1950)
Alfonso Quiñónez Molina President of El Salvador (1923–1927)

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