American Physical Society, New York. Leon Lederman announces the severe violation of parity in our universe. Pion decay creates a muon and a neutrino, which can have spin +1/2 or -1/2, but there are twice as many of one type as the other. The universe
Battle of Algiers: French police action, with FLN reaction
USSR. Plesetsk Space Base. Approved by Khrushchev on January 11, 1957, codenamed Angara. It was the first ICBM base aimed at the United States. To this day, very few Westerners have set foot there. At the height of the Cold War, it was the most
Chien-Shiung Wu, Leon Lederman, and their team experimentally confirm TD Lee and CN Yang’s intuition about the chirality of the weak nuclear force: by seeing the same reaction in a mirror, we can say with certainty that it is a mirror image, that is, in
The Genie, a 1.3-kton tactical nuclear weapon, becomes operational. It can be launched from a US Air Force fighter and is capable of destroying an entire squadron of Soviet bombers without necessarily hitting them directly. Within a 1.6-kilometer radius, it has a 92% probability of
The Italian cruise ship Andrea Doria is rammed by the Swedish icebreaker Stockholm and sinks; more than 40 people die in the collision; the remaining passengers are all rescued by the French ocean liner “Ile de France.”
Eisenhower signs an order for the deployment and possible use of Genie bombs, tactical plutonium nuclear devices to shoot down flocks of Soviet nuclear bombers in flight.
Creation of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) group with people drawn largely from von Braun’s working group at Redstone Arsenal
The fact that national sovereignty did not extend to space above the nation was not always a given. Indeed, in the mid-1950s, the US State Department studied the issue thoroughly. The launch of Sputnik would save the day (setting a useful precedent for both the
American intelligence gathers information (The Strath Report) on the consequences of a possible Soviet nuclear attack on Great Britain. The goal would be to destroy the British government and American bases, and render the country unusable as a base for a possible counterattack. The heat
USAF reaches Mach 2; pilot is A. Scott Crossfield in a Douglas D-558-2
James Watson and Francis Crick published the article “A Structure For Doxyribose Nucleic Acid” in Nature; articles by Wilkins and Franklin were also published separately. Rosalind Franklin, who had made the microscopic observations, died in 1958, while Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize in
Great Britain. The first British strategic nuclear bomber, the Victor, makes its test flight. Four months earlier, it was the Vulcan’s turn, on August 30th. The first, however, was the Valiant, which was only a temporary solution to fill a time gap. The three models
Korea. Naval aviator Royce Williams (US Navy) downed four Soviet fighter planes and became a legend unheard of for over 50 years. In 2022, at 97, he will be awarded the Navy Cross, the service’s second-highest military honor. On November 8, 1952, Williams was piloting
On his seventh mission, Neil Armstrong’s plane crashes, he ejects and survives
Handover of the Seoul government from General MacArthur to the South Koreans
UN troops retake Seoul; the UN flag flies in Seoul; the decision not to fly the Stars and Stripes raises eyebrows in the United States given the overwhelming, if not sole, American contribution.
UN troops manage to form a supply corridor between the Pusan Perimeter and Seoul
A V-2 converted to a two-stage (called Bumper) by Douglas and General Electric reaches Mach 9
Desert Inn, Las Vegas. A casino customer manages to hit 28 consecutive correct dice rolls. A priori, that’s a 1 in 10 million chance. (But obviously, with tens of millions of plays over so many decades, you’d expect at least one chance to happen…)
Secret visit of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung to Beijing, in which he reports Stalin’s approval of the plan to invade South Korea.
The Schuman Plan is published, which will lead to the creation of the ECSC: the European Coal and Steel Community, an institution with clear political objectives of European unification. The primary motivation, according to Schuman, however, is to make a war between France and Germany
Moscow. Kim Il Sung visits Stalin and assures him that the Americans will never intervene to protect South Korea in the event of an invasion from the North. Kim’s confidence stems from a public conference by Dean Acheson, a member of the US administration, in
Mathematician Claude Shannon publishes the article “Programming a Computer for Playing Chess” in Philosophical Magazine. Shannon recognizes chess as an interesting problem to test a computer’s capabilities, and develops the framework for a chess-playing algorithm.
Friendship Treaty between Moscow and Beijing. The price China had to pay included the independence of Outer Mongolia (now Mongolia, formerly China), which entered the Soviet sphere. It also made concessions in Manchuria and Xinjiang.
Modena. The Fonderie Riunite massacre: a massacre that occurred during a strike called by the CGIL union to protest the layoffs of over 500 metalworkers at Fonderie Riunite. To prevent the occupation of the factory, State Police officers opened fire on protesters, killing six workers
Konrad Adenauer (5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was Chancellor of West Germany (FRG). Adenauer’s Germany (in office 1949–1963) chose to anchor its internal democracy in its Catholic regions and in ecumenical Christian values, and its international role in a federation with the West,
The Excommunication of Communists is the popular name for a decree from the Congregation of the Holy Office published on July 1, 1949. Approved by Pope Pius XII, the decree declared, according to the Congregation, membership in the Italian Communist Party, as well as any
The failed communist revolution in France and Italy. The massive presence of Catholics, right-wingers, and moderates prevented the communists from seizing power through the ballot box in either country. Another option was armed revolution. But the British and Americans maintained enormous armies in both countries,
The Italian government launched a sensational attempt at intimidation to try to put an end to strikes, riots, kidnappings, and sabotage sparked by the unrest of former partisans. Ninety-five thousand communists and former partisans were arrested, but only 19,000 went to trial, and only 7,000
Yugoslavia. The rift between Tito and Stalin’s Soviet Union erupts. Yugoslavia is expelled from the Cominform. This is an excommunication issued by Stalin against Tito. The Cominform is also signed by the Italian communists Togliatti and Secchia. The Cominform was founded in 1947 and replaced
Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA. The first Monte Carlo simulation, running on the ENIAC computer and begun on April 28, is completed. The Monte Carlo method was devised by John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam to solve otherwise intractable problems (or problems difficult to solve
The Deir Yassin Massacre: Zionist paramilitaries attack the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem in Mandatory Palestine, killing at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children. The attack was carried out primarily by the Irgun and Lehi, supported by the Haganah and the
Winston Churchill publishes his History of the Second World War, a monumental work, obviously valuable for the protagonist’s point of view.
Charles Yeager (who would break the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 a few days later) spent the evening at Poncho, the bar next to the base, owned by a former pilot who offered a prize for the first to break the sound barrier. Charles
Independence of India and Pakistan. On August 15, 1947, the Mughal Empire was partitioned between the independent nations of India and Pakistan. Mohandas Gandhi fought decades of peaceful resistance before Britain accepted Indian independence. Self-government had been promised during World War II, but trilateral negotiations
United States. Pete Conrad, the future Apollo 12, made his first solo flight on August 22, 1947, at just 17 years old. He was taught to fly by Margaret Lowell, a young World War II pilot (a P-51 Mustang pilot), who had to repay Pete
Dachau, Germany. The U.S. Military Court is trying 24 people for war crimes at the Dora-Nordhausen camp, including a civilian, Georg Rickhey, the general director of Mittleworks. His defense attorney calls to testify Wernher von Braun and other Germans now employed by the U.S. Army,
Indonesia. The Dutch, exasperated by their lack of control of the archipelago, launch a police operation to overthrow the Indonesian Republic. The attempt is stopped by the United Nations, and in December 1949, power is transferred to Indonesia. But it will take another 12 years