Explore 5191 historical events from 1950–1959.
James Henderson Finlayson was a Scottish actor who worked in both silent and sound comedies. Balding, with a fake moustache, he had many trademark comic mannerisms—including his sq…
James Finlayson, Scottish-American actor (born 1887)
Sir Erima Harvey Northcroft was a New Zealand lawyer, judge, and military leader. His papers from the Tokyo War Crimes Trial are held by the University of Canterbury.
Erima Harvey Northcroft, New Zealand general, lawyer, and judge (born 1884)
France was the host of the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. France was one of many nations that had competed in the 1896 Summer Olympics in Greece, which were the first international…
Émile Sarrade, French rugby player and tug of war competitor (born 1877)
Kyuichi Tokuda was a Japanese politician and first chairman of the Japanese Communist Party from 1945 until his death in 1953.
Kyuichi Tokuda, Japanese lawyer and politician (born 1894)
Werner Baumbach was a German bomber pilot during World War II. He commanded the secret bomber wing Kampfgeschwader 200 of the Luftwaffe, the air force of Nazi Germany. Baumbach rec…
Werner Baumbach, German colonel and pilot (born 1916)
Adrien Maurice Victurnien Mathieu de Noailles, 8th Duke of Noailles, was a French aristocrat and Olympian.
Adrien de Noailles, French son of Jules Charles Victurnien de Noailles (born 1869)
Holger Pedersen was a Danish linguist who made significant contributions to language science and wrote about thirty authoritative works concerning several languages. He was born in…
Holger Pedersen, Danish linguist and academic (born 1867)
Thomas George Wass was a Nottinghamshire cricketer, a bowler best remembered, alongside Albert Hallam, for bowling that gave Nottinghamshire a brilliant County Championship win in …
Thomas Wass, English cricketer (born 1873)
The Douglas C-124 Globemaster II, nicknamed "Old Shaky", is a retired American heavy-lift cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California.
A Douglas C-124 Globemaster II aircraft crashed just after takeoff from Tachikawa, Japan, killing all 129 people on boar
Ariel "Arik" Sharon was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
Israeli military commander Ariel Sharon and his Unit 101 special forces attacked the village of Qibya on the West…
Oscar William Kapell was an American classical pianist. The Washington Post described him as "America's first great pianist", while The New York Times described him as "one of the …
William Kapell, American pianist (born 1922)
The Pinewood Derby is the wood car racing event of the Cub Scout Program of Scouting America. Pinewood derbies are often run by packs of the Cub Scouts program. With the help of ad…
Don Murphy organized the first pinewood derby, an event for Cub Scouts of the Boy Scouts of America where wooden cars bu
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers con…
The mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay (both pictured) became the first people to reach the summit of Mount
Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her lif…
Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers con…
The mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest
During the evening hours of Monday, June 8, 1953, a large and extremely violent tornado struck the north side of Flint, Michigan and the northern suburb of Beecher, causing catastr…
An F5 tornado struck Flint and Beecher, Michigan, causing 116 fatalities, 844 injuries and $19 million in damage during
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were an American married couple who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, including providing top-secret information about American ra…
Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (pictured) were executed as spies for passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet
Colorado City is a town in Mohave County, Arizona, United States, and is located in a region known as the Arizona Strip. The population was 2,478 at the 2020 census. The Town of Co…
In Short Creek, Arizona, police conducted a mass arrest of approximately 400 Mormon fundamentalists for polygamy.
The Battle of the Samichon River was fought during the final days of the Korean War between United Nations (UN) forces—primarily Australian and American—and the Chinese People's Vo…
The Battle of the Samichon River, the last engagement of the Korean War, ended a few hours before the signing of the…
The Korean Armistice Agreement is an armistice that brought about a cessation of hostilities of the Korean War. It was signed by United States Army Lieutenant General William Harri…
An armistice was signed (pictured) to end hostilities in the Korean War, officially making the division of Korea…
The Korean Armistice Agreement is an armistice that brought about a cessation of hostilities of the Korean War. It was signed by United States Army Lieutenant General William Harri…
An armistice was signed to end hostilities in the Korean War, officially making the division of Korea indefinite by…
Alfred Curry Glassell Jr. was an American businessman and philanthropist. He made a fortune in the oil and gas industry in Louisiana and Texas and was a co-founder of Transcontinen…
Alfred C. Glassell Jr. caught a black marlin weighing 1,560 lb (710 kg) (pictured) off the coast of Peru, setting the…
The First Indochina War, known alternatively internationally as the French Indochina War, was fought in French Indochina between France and the Viet Minh and their respective allie…
First Indochina War: The French Union withdrew its forces from Operation Camargue against the Việt Minh in central…
The Metropolitan Cathedral of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, commonly known as Holy Rosary Cathedral, is a late 19th-century French Gothic revival church that serves as the cathedral…
Vancouver's Holy Rosary Cathedral was dedicated by Archbishop William Mark Duke, fifty-three years after it first…