istoryworld
Events relating to europe
Eire is renamed the republic of Ireland and withdraws from the Commonwealth, severing the last link with the British crown
The British government declares that northern Ireland will remain British unless the parliament in Stormont decides otherwise
George Orwell publishes Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel set in a terrifying totalitarian state of the future, watched over by Big Brother
French dramatist Eugène Ionesco's play The Bald Prima Donna launches the Theatre of the Absurd
A prehistoric victim of strangling is found in Tollund Moss in Denmark, with part of the noose still round his neck
The Family Moskat, about a Jewish family in Warsaw, is the first of Isaac Bashevis Singer's books to be published in English
C.S. Lewis gives the first glimpse of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
British author Doris Lessing publishes her first novel, The Grass is Singing
The British government bans hereditary ruler Seretse Khama from Bechuanaland because he has married a white woman
Kirsten Flagstad sings the posthumous premiere, in London, of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs
The Medical Research Council in Britain produces a report, by Austin Hill and Richard Doll, linking smoking and lung cancer
Appointed minister of housing in Churchill's new government, Harold Macmillan soon achieves the ambitious target of building 300,000 houses a year
Six European nations agree to joint coal and steel production through the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)
The British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean escape to the Soviet Union just ahead of their detection and arrest
The Festival of Britain, on the south bank of the Thames in London, celebrates the end of wartime austerity
British author John Wyndham creates a dark fantasy in his novel The Day of the Triffids
In Christ of St John of the Cross Salvador Dali paints an image of the crucified Christ seeming to fly on his cross
A Question of Upbringing begins Antony Powell's 'A Dance to the Music of Time'
The Rake's Progress, with music by Igor Stravinsky and libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman, has its premiere in Venice
Labour loses the general election and Winston Churchill returns to Downing Street as prime minister
Libya wins independence from Italy, as a kingdom with Idris I as head of state
Henri Matisse completes the Chapel of the Rosary at Vence, with every detail designed by himself
George VI dies and is succeeded by his elder daughter as Elizabeth II
French economist Jean Monnet becomes the first president of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)
X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, working at King's College in London, photographs DNA
