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Lisbon, Portugal. NATO meets and decides that by the end of the year, member states must provide 42 ready-to-use divisions, and 45 additional divisions ready to be mobilized within 30 days. Soon after, the latter figure will be increased to 48, for a total of

Raphael Robinson, at Berkeley, writes a program for the Standard Western Automatic Computer (SWAC) that calculates a huge Mersenne prime: 2^521 – 1. A few hours later, he produces an even bigger one: 2^607 – 1. That same year, he will find three more. The

During Eisenhower’s presidency, the government’s Signal Intelligence Agency (NSA) received considerable funding, which also went toward establishing a database network based on IBM mainframes and later Cray supercomputers. Ike Eisenhower was well aware of the benefits the Ultra interception program had brought during the war

The National Security Agency (NSA) is founded.

Marzabotto Massacre Trial. The trial of SS Major Walter Reder, battalion commander of the 16th Reichsführer Panzer Division, accused of being responsible for the series of massacres collectively known as the “Marzabotto Massacre,” begins at the Bologna Military Court. The trial will conclude on October

Geophysical Service changes name to Texas Instruments

Chinese Maoists destroy Lhasa in Tibet

Korea: Battle of Heartbreak Ridge, costs 3,700 American and 25,000 North Korean deaths

Korea: Battle of Bloody Ridge, one of the bloodiest of the war: the 15th Field Artillery Battalion sets a record by firing 14,425 cannon rounds in 24 hours

The aircraft carrier Essex suffers the worst disaster of the Korean War: an F2H Banshee botches its landing (it fails to lower its tailhook) and crashes into other parked aircraft: four people are burned alive, seven jump into the sea, three of whom are burned

By order of President Truman, the Nevada Test Range (Area 51) was established, northwest of Las Vegas; over the next 40 years, more than 900 nuclear tests were conducted there, almost all of them in the 1950s and 1960s.

On the Virginia-Pennsylvania border, Site-R is built, a secure facility dug into the hard granite of Raven Rock, 800 meters inside the mountain and 800 meters below its peak. It has the resources and space to house 10,000 high-ranking American officials in the event of

Neil Armstrong’s first mission in the Korean War

Richard Feynman spent the 1951-52 sabbatical granted to him by Caltech at the CBPF in Rio de Janeiro. Here he continued his research, frequented the beach, the bars, and the PanAm hostesses at the Miramar Palace in Copacabana, attended a samba school, became a skilled

Henrietta Lacks cells (HeLa cell line) are cloned as part of cancer research; within half a century, the HeLa cell culture will reach industrial proportions: tons per day; all, technically, are Henrietta Lacks clones.

The birth control pill was developed by Gregory Pincus.

The development of SAGE by Lincoln Laboratories (a military-funded institution affiliated with MIT) allows some of its founder Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider’s revolutionary ideas to be realized: decentralized networks, multitasking time-sharing, facilitated human-machine interfaces (HMIs), machines that work with and for humans, not instead of

To get an idea of the progress of computer electronics from 1951 to 2017, let’s make a comparison with automobiles: in 1951, the UNIVAC performed 2,000 operations per second and was the fastest computer around, while one of the fastest cars was the Alfa Romeo

The UNIVAC is delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau; it uses magnetic tape to store the program and input data. It is the first general-purpose commercial electronic computer.

Eniwetok Atoll: Operation GreenHouse, “Item” thermonuclear detonation from 61m tower: 45.5Kton; uses deuterium-tritium gas in the bomb core to enhance the fission stage initiation; resulting in double the overall efficiency.

Chinese and North Korean troops gain ground and reach the 38th parallel

Communist forces recapture Pyongyang, North Korea

The US National Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) takes control of the Nevada test range, 101 km from Las Vegas; 106 atmospheric nuclear tests (the last in 1963) and 822 underground tests will be carried out there, for a total of 928 nuclear explosions (the last

UN troops, heavily outnumbered by half a million Chinese and North Korean soldiers, begin their retreat

Massive Chinese intervention in the Korean War: nearly 400,000 Chinese soldiers enter North Korea

The Soviet air cover for the Chinese maneuvers in Korea did not have the desired effect, especially thanks to the work done by the USAF in supersonic flight in the previous years and which placed the F86 Seebers at a clear advantage over the MIGs.

Glenn Seaborg synthesizes Californium. He is probably the greatest discoverer of elements (or inventor, since the ones he “discovered” are not found in nature): plutonium, curium, americium, berkelium, and californium in a span of just 10 years.

United States. The United Press reports that 13 Chinese and North Korean divisions (130,000 soldiers) have broken through UN-allied lines in northwest Korea. The war against North Korea has become a war against Communist China. And that makes a big difference.

United States. A shocked Acheson tells reporters that he is “deeply concerned” about the clash with Chinese troops in North Korea.

North Korea. The unexpected happens: spokesmen for the US X Corps confirm that American troops clashed with Chinese regiments north of the Hungnam River.

American landing in South Korea under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, simultaneously at Pusan, in the south-east and at Inch’on opposite Seoul, 500,000 marines will land; at Inchon the super-defended island of Wolmi-Do, in the port, is immediately taken.

United Nations. The members of the UN Security Council meet. The Soviet envoy is absent, protesting the failure to remove Taiwan’s representative from the UN, once the representative of the People’s Republic of China had been brought in following the success of Mao’s revolution. The

Mikhail Gorbachev moves to Moscow to study at the University

New York. In the New Yorker’s society column, a strange piece of news appears: the University of California at Berkeley has just discovered elements 97 and 98 and named them Berkelium and Californium. (These are the first new elements since the birth of the Solar

Leo Szilard calculates that if 2 grams of Cobalt-60 were released per square kilometer onto the planet, the resulting gamma radiation would wipe out the human race. The weapon could be a multi-stage warhead: for example, a first stage of plutonium, which triggers a hydrogen

The relativistic effect that leads to the extension of the muon’s half-life at speeds close to that of light has been measured with a precision of 5%.

Niels Bohr delivers a speech at the United Nations: “Impact of Science on Society.” He declares that “knowledge itself is the basis of civilization.”

President Truman decides to launch an all-out effort to develop a hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb. Bethe, Fermi, Teller, and von Neumann complete a lengthy feasibility study with unsuccessful results: the difficulties are insurmountable, but then an invention by Stan Ulam and Edward Teller in 1951 will

President Truman meets with David Lilienthal, Dean Acheson, and Louis Johnson to discuss the Super Bomb (Teller calls it “The Super”). The president asks if the Soviets could develop it. He is told yes. “In that case, we have no choice. We’ll go ahead.”

Klaus Fuchs, spontaneously confesses in court that in June 1945 he provided the Soviets with a complete description of the American plutonium bomb technology.

United States. Milk production increases significantly from 58 billion liters from 22 million cows (1950) to 105 billion liters from 9 million cows (2015). Yield per cow therefore increases by 330%.

“The Polygon,” Kazakhstan. In a desert area of Kazakhstan, known to insiders as “The Polygon,” which was not marked on any map at the time, the Soviet Union detonated 566 atomic bombs: 266 in the air and 300 underground.

Albert II is the first monkey (a macaque) in space, launched by the Americans to an altitude of 134 km in a V-2 rocket. Upon reentry, the parachute fails to open, and Albert II dies.

Operation Magic Carpet: 49,000 Yemenite Jews are flown to Israel on American and British planes, in an operation kept secret until its completion.

Four years after the unconditional surrender, the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) came into force, establishing the Federal Republic of Germany, thus unifying the three zones of British, French, and American occupation.

Torino’s plane crashes. A plane carrying the entire Torino team crashes into the Basilica of Superga. No one from the team that had dominated football since 1943 survives the crash. The country receives the news with emotion: the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, in

David Ben Gurion, Israeli Prime Minister

Dutch coup in Jakarta: the entire Indonesian government is captured by paratroopers.

Pasadena, California. The Theory of Automata is born at the Hixon Symposium on Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior. John von Neumann had been thinking about the basic ideas for some time, and had presented some of them two years earlier at Princeton. He asked, for example,

Attack against Togliatti in Rome

Bell Labs Auditorium in New York, West Street, Manhattan. The official announcement of the invention of the transistor. It was misunderstood at the time by many media outlets (and not only), but it would make a difference for the rest of the 20th century and

Operation Nahshon: A military operation during the 1948 Palestine War to lift the siege of Jerusalem, clear the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, blocked by Palestinian Arabs, and supply supplies and weapons to the isolated Jewish communities in Jerusalem. Nahshon was the name given to the Haganah’s

Vorkuta, Soviet Union. An uprising occurs at construction site No. 501 of the Shivaya Maska-Salekhard railway. The initiative comes from former soldiers who had served in the war, young men with still some self-confidence and the will to act. At the head is former Colonel

Charles Lindbergh is commissioned by the U.S. government to assess the state of SAC (Strategic Air Command), the branch of the U.S. Air Force dedicated to a possible American nuclear counterattack. Lindbergh finds morale low, training poor, landings risky, frequent accidents, and poor maintenance. After

The American military plan, HALFMOON, in the likely event of a Red Army attack on Western Europe, envisioned containing the Russians for the first two weeks, during which they would reach as far as the Netherlands. Then, 50 atomic bombs, later increased to 133, would

Czechoslovakia. German prisoners of war are used to clear minefields and fed less than 1,000 calories a day. They wear a white armband with the letter “N,” for “Nemec,” meaning “German.”

Great Britain. 110,000 German prisoners of war continue to work in the country.

Kilwa, Tanzania. Hundreds of small pottery fragments were found, later dated to the period between the 11th and 16th centuries AD. They are of Asian origin, particularly Chinese porcelain. These fragments testify to the long history of trade and cultural exchange in the Indian Ocean.

Harvard University’s Mark II computer is short-circuited by a moth (a “bug” in English).

Norway is one of the few Western countries where the purge of collaborators is carried out in an orderly and effective manner. Trials are quick and efficient, and sentences are harsh. Out of a population of just 3 million, there are 90,000 cases, with approximately

France. An amnesty is approved for fascist prisoners from the war. Of the 311,000 cases investigated, only 95,000 resulted in prison sentences, but only 45,000 would serve a few months in prison or worse. The 1947 amnesty left only 1,500 in French prisons.

At the Wapakoneta Airport in Ohio, Neil Armstrong’s hometown, his friend Frederick Carl Lange, a 20-year-old World War II veteran, crashes into a power line and dies. Neil witnesses the dark side of flight.

The Portella della Ginestra massacre: a massacre committed in the municipality of Piana degli Albanesi in the province of Palermo, by Salvatore Giuliano’s criminal gang, who opened fire on a crowd of farmers gathered to celebrate Labour Day, causing 11 deaths and numerous injuries.

Jackie Robinson became the first African-American professional athlete to play in Major League Baseball on April 15, 1947. He was prominently featured in the film “42.” In 1997, in his honor, his jersey number, 42, was retired by all teams: he was the first athlete

Moscow Conference: Final rupture on peace with Germany between the two blocs

This is the economic phase known as the “Long Boom,” characterized by a very long economic growth in GDP and jobs. The term “Long Boom” is sometimes used to describe the period from 1947 to 1973, which ended with the Oil Crisis. A subsequent or

The Polish Second Army Corps, stationed in Italy, was disbanded. It had fought for the liberation of Italy at Monte Cassino, Ancona, and Bologna. They were all former Gulag prisoners and had become inconvenient for De Gasperi, who was trying to make peace with Togliatti

Bikini Atoll, Operation CrossRoads, underwater “Baker” detonation at 27m below the surface, 21Kton, projects 9 million liters of water (9000 tons) to a depth of 1600m; the 600m-wide column of water falls back, creating 29m waves that destroy part of the Ghost Fleet (71 ships)

Texas. With nothing to do, in a military camp, Wehrner von Braun asks for paper, pencil, and a slide rule, and in two years he quickly writes a treatise on astronautics: Das Marsprojekt (The Mars Project). It will be published in West Germany in 1949

Around 200 sightings of unidentified objects (nicknamed ghost rockets) were reported in the skies of Scandinavia, mostly over Sweden. Swedish intelligence officials concluded that they were V-1s and V-2s captured by the Soviets and undergoing testing.

The Air Force launches Project RAND (Research And Development—although some jokingly call it Research And No Development). On May 2nd, it will produce its first report: “Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship,” essentially an artificial satellite. It also deals with Operations Research, particularly Linear

The United States has 11 nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union has zero.

Hans Bethe answers a question before the U.S. Senate about the possibility of igniting the entire atmosphere with a nuclear explosion. He states that it would require heating a huge volume of air and water, perhaps comparable to the volume of the Sun, to a

New York. First session of the United Nations. The Iranian delegation presents a letter of protest against the Soviet Union. On August 25, 1943, a bilateral invasion had begun, with British forces in the southwest and Soviet forces in the north. There were only isolated

Civil war in China: 1 million dead.

Belgian psychologist and aristocrat Albert Michotte publishes a book on causality that overturns centuries of research in the field. He argues that we are programmed from birth to recognize causality everywhere (“impressions of causality”), whether physical or intentional.

The International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg begins its proceedings, bringing 24 high-ranking Nazis to account for atrocities committed during World War II. The trial, conducted by British, Soviet, American, and French judges, was unprecedented in history. On October 1, 1946, twelve architects of Nazi

Southern Lithuania. Jonas Neifalta, nom de guerre Lakunas (Pilot), leading a small but determined group of local partisans, is killed by the Soviets.

President Truman summons Robert Oppenheimer to the White House, but the two don’t like each other. At one point, Truman asks Oppenheimer to guess when the Russians would have their atomic bomb. Oppenheimer says he doesn’t know, and Truman says he knows: “Never.” The discussion

Robert Oppenheimer resigns from the Manhattan Project