1951 - What happened in 1951 ?

January 1951

Wednesday 03:

Dragnet airs on television for the first time (NBC).

Thursday 04:

Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul.

Tuesday 09:

United Nations headquarters officially opens in New York City.

Sunday 14:

The National Football League has its first Pro Bowl Game (Los Angeles, California).

Monday 15:

Ilse Koch, The "Bitch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany.

February 1951

Saturday 03:

Dick Button wins the American figure skating championship for the fourth consecutive time.

Tuesday 06:

The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge, New Jersey. The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more. The wreck is one on the worst rail disasters in American history.

Monday 12:

Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari marries the Shah of Iran Reza Pahlavi at Golestan Palace in Teheran at age of 17.

Sunday 25:

The first Pan American Games are held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Tuesday 27:

The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.

March 1951

Tuesday 06:

The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins.

Wednesday 07:

In Korea, United Nations troops led by General Matthew Ridgeway begin an assault against Chinese forces.

Saturday 10:

Henri Queuille becomes Prime Minister of France

Monday 12:

The Dennis the Menace comic strip appears in newspapers across the USA for the first time.

Friday 30:

Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.

April 1951

Thursday 05:

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are sentenced to death for performing espionage for the Soviet Union.

Wednesday 11:

Korean War: President Harry S. Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of overall command in Korea

Thursday 19:

General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.

May 1951

Thursday 03:

The United States Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.

Tuesday 15:

The Polish cultural attache in Paris, Czeslaw Milosz, asks the French government for political asylum.

June 1951

Thursday 14:

UNIVAC I is dedicated by U.S. Census Bureau.

July 1951

Thursday 05:

William Shockley invents the junction transistor.

Tuesday 10:

Randy Turpin becomes the middleweight boxing champion after defeating Sugar Ray Robinson.

Monday 16:

King Léopold III of Belgium abdicates in favour of his son, Baudouin I of Belgium, to avoid internal social strife.

Friday 20:

King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem.

Tuesday 31:

Japan Airlines is established.

August 1951

Saturday 11:

René Pleven becomes Prime Minister of France

September 1951

Monday 03:

The first long-running American television soap opera, Search for Tomorrow, airs its first episode on the CBS network.

Saturday 08:

Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, California, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.

Monday 10:

United Kingdom began an economic boycott of Iran.

Monday 17:

Robert A. Lovett was sworn in as the 4th Secretary of Defense of United States.

Saturday 22:

The first live sporting event seen coast-to-coast in the United States, a college football game between Duke and the University of Pittsburgh, is televised on NBC.

October 1951

Wednesday 03:

New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-4, winning the National League pennant, with Bobby Thomson's "The Shot Heard 'Round the World".

Sunday 07:

David Ben-Gurion forms Israeli government.

Monday 15:

Television sitcom I Love Lucy premieres.

Tuesday 16:

The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, is assassinated in Rawalpindi

November 1951

Thursday 01:

US soldiers are exposed to an atomic explosion for training purposes in Desert Rock, Nevada; participation was not voluntary.

Saturday 10:

Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.

Saturday 24:

The Broadway play Gigi opens starring little known actress Audrey Hepburn playing the lead character (the play ran for six months and led to Hepburn's film debut in Roman Holiday).

December 1951

Monday 24:

Libya becomes independent from Italy. Idris I is proclaimed King of Libya.