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2/11/2026nostalgia1949 Events & Facts Posted By: Babyboomers.com Staff On: 9/21/2020, 4:00:00 AM

What Happened in 1949?

MAJOR EVENTS:

• Communists forces gain power in China; nationalists flee to Taiwan
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization established
• Soviet Union detonates its first atomic bomb
• Israel admitted to U.N.
• Soviet Union lifts Berlin blockade; Berlin airlift ends
• Apartheid becomes official government policy in South Africa
• West Germany, East Germany formally established as nations
• Vietnam, Indonesia gain sovereignty

BUSINESS & ECONOMY:

• Nearly 500,000 steel workers strike

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:

• U.S. Air Force’s Lucky Lady completes first non-stop around-the-world flight
• Electron microscopy developed

SPORTS:

• World Series: New York Yankees over Brooklyn, 4-1
• National Basketball Association (NBA) was formed

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:

• Movies:The Third Man, All the King’s Men
• Songs: So In Love, Riders in the Sky, Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Some Enchanted Evening
• TV Shows: Texaco Star Theatre, Candid Camera, Colgate Theatre, Kukla Fran & Ollie
• Books: The Man with the Golden Arm, Nelson Algren; The Jacaranda Tree, H.E. Bates; Guard of Honor, James Gould Cozzens; Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford; 1984, George Orwell; This I Remember, Eleanor Roosevelt
• South Pacific opens on Broadway
• Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman wins Pulitzer Prize
• Cable television debuts

EVERYDAY LIFE:

• Americans buy 100,000 television sets a week
• "Pyramid clubs" in which participants send each other money in hopes of receiving large amounts of money themselves, become a fad
• Editor Russel Lyons coins the terms "highbrow," "miullebrow" and "lowbrow."

FUN FACTS:

• "Silly Putty" introduced
• Meryl Streep, Billy Joel and Richard Gere were born

 

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