(1952)
January 1—Kentucky beats TCU, 20-7, in Cotton Bowl; Georgia Tech beats Baylor, 17-14, in Orange Bowl; Illinois beats Stanford, 40-7, in Rose Bowl; Maryland beats Tennessee, 28-13, in Sugar Bowl.
January 9—Boston Red Sox’ Ted Williams recalled to active duty. He will fly 39 missions, be hit thrice and have one crash-landing in Korean War.
January 12—Gene Mitchell Gray becomes first black student at University of Tennessee.
January 18—Curly Howard (born Jerome Lester Horwitz) of Three Stooges dies of stroke at age 48.
January 20—George Mikan of Minneapolis Lakers scores 61 points in double-overtime defeat of Rochester Royals.
January 26—Anti-British riot occurs in Cairo’s central business district.
February 2—“3 O’Clock Blues” by B.B. King reaches #1 on US Billboard’s R&B hit parade.
February 6—Queen Elizabeth crowned.
February 13—Rocky Marciano knocks out Gino Buonvino in second round for his 40th straight victory.
February 14-25—Winter Olympics held in Oslo, Norway.
February 19—French forces launch offensive against Ho Chi Minh’s Communists in Hanoi.
February 25—After nine years of almost non-stop eruptions, Volcano Parícutin in Mexico goes silent.
March 1—Sam Philips of Sun Records in Memphis releases his first record.
March 10—Fulgencio Batista leads coup d’état in Cuba.
March 20—U.S. Senate ratifies peace treaty with Japan.
March 21—Tornadoes rip through lower Mississippi River valley, leaving 208 dead.
March 22—Werhner von Braun (one-time Nazi and future NASA big shot) publishes first of several articles entitled “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!”; sportscaster Bob Costas born in Queens, New York.
March 26—Kansas beats St. John’s, 80-63, to win national championship.
April 3—Dutch Queen Juliana speaks to U.S. Congress.
April 7—I Love Lucy episode “The Marriage License” seen in a record 10 million homes.
April 10—Lakers beat New York Knicks, 4 games to 1, to win NBA title.
April 21—Doroteo Flores of Guatemala wins Boston Marathon in time of 2:31:53.
May 3—U.S. lieutenant colonels Joseph Fletcher and William Benedict land plane at North Pole; “Call Me Madam” closes at Imperial Theater on Broadway after 644 performances.
May 18—In 23-foot sloop she calls Felicity Ann, Ann Davison becomes first woman to single-handedly sail across Atlantic Ocean.
May 30—Troy Ruttmann, driving a Kuzma-Offenhauser, wins Indianapolis 500.
June 1—Navigation opens on Volga-Don Canal which connects Caspian and Black Seas.
June 7—Eddie Arcaro aboard One Count wins Belmont Stakes in time of 2:30.2.
June 15—English-language translation of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl is published.
June 19—U.S. Army’s Special Forces created; “I’ve Got a Secret” debuts on CBS with Garry Moore as host.
June 25—Jim Turnesa wins PGA championship.
July 1—British architect Michael Ventris solves one of mid-20th century’s greatest linguistic riddles by deciphering Linear B, an ancient form of Greek.
July 19-August 3—Summer Olympics held in Helsinki, Finland.
July 24—“High Noon” starring Gary Cooper is released.
July 26—Maria Eva Duarte de Peron (“Eva”), Argentina’s first lady, enters eternal rest; Mickey Mantle hits grand slam home run off Detroit Tigers pitcher Ted Gray.
August 4—Gambling boss Theodore Roe shot to death on Chicago’s South Side by order of Sam Giancana. He will be buried in a $5,000 casket and have an 81-car funeral procession.
August 12—“Night of the Murdered Poets,” in which 13 Soviet Jews are killed in Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison.
August 14—Alan Turing publishes ground-breaking paper on mathematical biology, “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis.”
August 15—Los Angeles Rams beat College All-Stars, 10-7, at Soldier Field in Chicago.
September 2—Tennis player Jimmy Connors born in Belleville, Illinois.
September 3—Revised Standard Version of the Bible published.
September 15—Boston Braves play last home game before their move to Milwaukee (and 13 years later, to Atlanta).
September 23—Hank Williams records “Kaw-Liga.”
September 28—Short-lived NFL team Dallas Texans loses to New York Giants, 24-6, in Cotton Bowl.
October 5—NHL All-Star Game held at Detroit’s Olympia Stadium.
October 7—New York Yankees beat Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games to win “subway series.”
October 9—United Nations Building in New York City completed.
October 18—First issue of Mad magazine comes out.
October 20—Martial law declared at height of Kenya’s Mau Mau Rebellion.
November 1—U.S. detonates first hydrogen bomb, codenamed “Mike,” in Marshall Islands.
November 4—Dwight Eisenhower (R) wins presidency over Adlai Stevenson (D).
November 15—In Southwest Conference football action, SMU beats Arkansas, 27-17, in Fayetteville.
November 20—George William Jorgensen, Jr. becomes Christine Jorgensen in world’s first sex-reassignment surgery.
December 2—Oklahoma running back Billy Vessels wins Heisman Trophy.
December 5-8—“Great Smog” of London kills more than 8,000 people.
December 10—Albert Schweitzer wins Nobel Peace Prize.
December 20—Crash of U.S. Air Force plane in Washington state kills 86 servicemen.
December 28—Quarterback Bobby Layne leads Detroit Lions to victory over Cleveland Browns in NFL title game.
December 30—Tuskegee Institute reports that no lynchings took place in USA in 1952.
(1953)
January 1—Texas beats Tennessee, 16-0, in Cotton Bowl; Alabama beats Syracuse, 61-6, in Orange Bowl; Southern California beats Wisconsin, 7-0, in Rose Bowl; Georgia Tech beats Mississippi, 24-7, in Sugar Bowl.
January 6—Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma.
January 9—Korean ferry boat “Chang Tyong-Ho” sinks off Busan, killing 249 people.
January 15—Many senior East German officials purged.
January 17—Ken Rosewall wins Australian Open.
January 21—John Foster Dulles appointed Secretary of State.
February 3—More than 1,000 people die in Batepá massacre on African island of São Tomé.
February 11—President Eisenhower refuses clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
February 28—Francis Crick and James Watson discover chemical structure of DNA molecules (double-helix polymer).
March 5—Joseph Stalin dies.
March 19—25th Academy Awards ceremony is held simultaneously in New York and Hollywood.
March 21—Boston Celtics and Syracuse Nationals play rough game, with 106 fouls and 12 men fouling out.
March 26—Dr. Jonas Salk announces successful vaccine to prevent polio.
March 28—Tenley Albright wins US Ladies’ Figure Skating championship.
April 3—First issue of TV Guide printed.
April 4—KFDA channel 10 (CBS) in Amarillo goes on air.
April 12—Ben Hogan wins Masters by five strokes over runner-up Ed Oliver.
May 2—Dark Star, ridden by Hank Moreno, wins Kentucky Derby.
May 4—Ernest Hemingway wins Pulitzer Prize for Literature for “The Old Man and the Sea.”
May 6—Alva “Bobo” Holloman of St. Louis Browns gets first start and throws no-hitter against Philadelphia A’s.
May 11—Tornado hits Waco, resulting in 114 deaths.
May 29—Tenzing Norgay (Nepal) and Edmund Hillary (New Zealand) reach summit of Mt. Everest.
May 30—Maureen Connolly beats fellow American Doris Hart to win French Open.
June 14—Elvis Presley graduates from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis.
June 18—Red Sox rookie Eugene Stephens registers three hits in 17-run 7th inning in 23-3 rout of Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park.
June 19—Rosenbergs executed.
June 26—Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s long-time secret police chief, deposed and arrested.
June 30—First Chevy Corvette manufactured.
July 7—Ernesto “Che” Guevara begins motorcycle trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.
July 9—Philadelphia Phillies’ Robin Roberts’ streak of 28 consecutive complete games (one of them 17 innings long) ends.
July 14—Monument honoring George Washington Carver unveiled in Newton County, Missouri.
July 26—Arizona begins anti-polygamy crackdown on Mormons.
July 27—Battle of Kumsong River (last major battle of Korean War) ends with Chinese victory.
August 4—Black families move into Trumbull Park housing project in Chicago.
August 19—Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, overthrown in coup orchestrated by UK and US.
August 23—Alberto Ascari, driving a Ferrari, wins second straight Formula 1 championship.
September 6—Brooklyn Dodgers’ Roy Campanella hits his 38th home run, a single-season record for catchers.
September 10—Swanson brings out first “TV dinner.”
September 27—Bert Rechichar of Baltimore kicks NFL-record 56-yard field goal against Chicago Bears; typhoon hits Nagoya, Japan.
September 29—“Make Room for Daddy,” starring Danny Thomas, premieres on ABC; U.S. government gives France $385 million for military operations in Indochina.
October 5—Yankees again prevail over Dodgers in World Series, 4 games to 2.
October 22—Laos gains full independence from France.
October 25—Dmitri Shostakovich completes his 10th Symphony.
October 28—Bud Grant of CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers intercepts five passes against Saskatchewan Rough Riders.
November 3—“Tokyo Story,” directed by Yasujirō Ozu and starring Chishū Ryū, Chieko Higashiyama and Setsuko Hara, is released.
November 17—MLB’s St. Louis Browns become the Baltimore Orioles.
November 21—“Piltdown Man” skull revealed as a hoax.
November 28—Alabama beats Auburn, 10-7, in Iron Bowl game in Birmingham.
December 1—Hugh Hefner publishes first issue of Playboy magazine.
December 6—Arturo Toscanini conducts Beethoven’s Eroica for final time.
December 8—Johnny Lattner of Notre Dame wins Heisman Trophy.
December 12—Chuck Yeager reaches Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane.
December 30—RCA begins selling color TVs—rather pricey at $1,175 apiece.
1 Comment
Lots of good stuff here. Must be mentioned that the great George Mikan was born and grew up in my old hometown of Joliet, Illinois. Best basketball player of the first half of the 20th century. Speaking of basketball, that Celtics/Nats game in 1953 was incredible. It went four overtimes and was a playoff game!
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