Explore 2486 historical events from 1950–1959.
Claire Lee Chennault was an American military aviator best known for his leadership of the "Flying Tigers" and the Chinese Nationalist Air Force in World War II.
Claire Lee Chennault, American general and pilot (born 1893)
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a collaborator in Fascist Italy and the Salò Republic during Wo…
Controversial American poet Ezra Pound (pictured) was released from St
United Air Lines Flight 736 was a scheduled American transcontinental passenger service flown daily by United Airlines between Los Angeles and New York City. On April 21, 1958, the…
United Airlines Flight 736 collided with a U
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the oldest railroad in the United States and the first steam-operated common carrier. Construction of the line began in 1828, and it operated as…
Service ended on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue Line, one of the first major electrified train lines in th
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he represented California in b…
US vice president Richard Nixon's motorcade was attacked by a mob in Caracas, Venezuela
Frederick Benjamin Carlin was an Australian adventurer who was the first person to circumnavigate the world in an amphibious vehicle. Born in Northam, Western Australia, Carlin att…
The Australian adventurer Ben Carlin (pictured) became the only person to circumnavigate the world in an amphibious vehi
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is an American single-engine, supersonic interceptor. Created as a day fighter by Lockheed as one of the "Century Series" of fighter aircraft for the…
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, a supersonic interceptor aircraft, set a world flight airspeed record of 1,404
The 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom and riots in Ceylon, also known as the 58 riots, refer to the first island-wide ethnic riots and pogrom to target the minority Tamils in the Dominion of …
Ethnic riots mostly targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamils broke out in Ceylon, resulting in at least 158 deaths over
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber that was developed by McDonn…
The F-4 Phantom II, the principal air superiority jet fighter for both the U
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera…
English composer Benjamin Britten's one-act opera Noye's Fludde was premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival
The 1958 Lituya Bay earthquake occurred on July 9, 1958, at 22:15:58 PST with a moment magnitude of 7.8 to 8.3 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). The strike-slip ear…
An earthquake struck Lituya Bay, Alaska; the subsequent megatsunami, the largest in modern times, reached an elevation…
Ngô Đình Diệm was a South Vietnamese politician who was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955) and later the first president of South Vietnam from 1955 until …
South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem began a state visit to the United States, his regime's main sponsor
Ellen Louks Fairclough was a Canadian politician. A Progressive Conservative member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1950 to 1963, she was the first woman ever to serve in th…
Ellen Fairclough is sworn in as Canada's first female Cabinet Minister
The Suez Crisis, also known as the second Arab–Israeli war, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt …
Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal is reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region
The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the full title of which is the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and…
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery enters into force
Rawya Ateya[I] was an Egyptian woman who became the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world in 1957.
Rawya Ateya takes her seat in the National Assembly of Egypt, thereby becoming the first female parliamentarian in the…
Muhammad el-Amine Bey bin Muhammad el-Habib, commonly known as Lamine Bey, was the last Bey of Tunis, and also the only King of Tunisia after independence.
The Tunisian King Muhammad VIII al-Amin is replaced by President Habib Bourguiba.
Carlos Castillo Armas was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who was the 28th president of Guatemala, serving from 1954 to 1957 after taking power in a coup d'état. A mem…
Carlos Castillo Armas, dictator of Guatemala, is assassinated.
The Vickers VC.1 Viking is a British twin-engine short-range airliner derived from the Vickers Wellington bomber and built by Vickers-Armstrongs Limited at Brooklands near Weybridg…
A Vickers VC
Walter Francis O'Malley was an American sports executive who owned the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers team in Major League Baseball from 1950 to 1979. In 1958, as owner of the Dodg…
Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles
Malden Island, sometimes called Independence Island in the 19th century, is a low, arid, uninhabited atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, about 39 km2 (15 sq mi) in area. It is one …
At Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an authorita…
South Africa's government approves of racial separation in universities
Broad Peak is one of the eight-thousanders, and is located in the Karakoram range spanning Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan and Xinjiang, China. It is the 12th highest mountain in the wo…
First ascent of Broad Peak by Fritz Wintersteller, Marcus Schmuck, Kurt Diemberger, and Hermann Buhl
John George Diefenbaker was the 13th prime minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative party leader between 1935 and 1979 to lead the pa…
John Diefenbaker leads the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to a stunning upset in the 1957 Canadian federal ele