istoryworld
Events relating to europe
Australia, aiming for a 2% population increase each year, takes steps to encourage European immigration
The Morris Minor is launched, designed by Alec Issigonis, and becomes one of Britain's best-selling cars
Ezra Pound publishes Pisan Cantos, about his postwar imprisonment in an American detention centre near Pisa
Christopher Fry's verse drama The Lady's Not For Burning engages in high-spirited poetic word play
Vittorio de Sica directs the film Bicycle Thieves, a classic of Italian neorealism
George Marshall, the US secretary of state, launches a plan to distribute aid to sixteen European countries
British astronomer Fred Hoyle puts forward a 'steady-state' theory of the universe, in which matter is continually created
Tito accepts Marshall Aid from the USA, setting Yugoslavia on the path of non-alignment in the Cold War
The World Council of Churches is established in Amsterdam – a significant step in the ecumenical movement
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears together establish an annual festival in the Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh
Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier introduces the Modulor, an architectural unit based on the Golden Section
French composer Pierre Schaeffer writes the first pieces of musique concrète, and coins the term
Olivier Messiaen completes Turangaîlila-symphonie, a symphony in ten movements for an orchestra including ondes martenot
Frederick Ashton's Cinderella, to music by Prokofiev, is the first full-length ballet by an English choreographer
The Soviet Union imposes a blockade on Berlin by denying the other powers access through the land corridor to the city
Roland Petit's ballet Carmen, starring himself and his wife Zizi Jeanmaire, is a sensation at its London premiere
French ex-convict Jean Genet begins his literary career with an autobiographical Thief's Journal
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is set up by the USA and Canada, together with Britain and other European countries, for purposes of collective security
Ealing Studios produce a film of Compton Mackenzie's 1947 novel Whisky Galore, about an alcoholic windfall on the island of Barra
French author Simone de Beauvoir publishes The Second Sex, a widely influential feminist polemic
Carol Reed directs The Third Man, starring Orson Welles and written by Graham Greene
Enid Blyton introduces her most successful character, Noddy, a small boy who can't avoid nodding when he speaks
French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss publishes Elementary Structures of Kinship
British atomic physicist Klaus Fuchs is discovered to be a Soviet agent, passing nuclear secrets to the USSR
The world's first commercial jet airliner, the Comet, designed by de Havilland, goes into service with BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation)
