Explore 5191 historical events from 1950–1959.
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 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
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
Isahaya is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. As of June 1, 2024, the city had an estimated population of 131,467 in 55169 households, and a population density of 380 p…
Heavy rain and a mudslide in Isahaya, western Kyushu, Japan, kills 992.
Tonight Starring Jack Paar is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show is the second installment of The Tonight Show. Hosted by Jack Paar, it aired from July 29,…
Tonight Starring Jack Paar premieres on NBC with Jack Paar beginning the modern day talk show.
American Bandstand, an American music and dance television program, aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989. Its best-known incarnation was hosted and produced by Dick Clark, w…
American Bandstand, a show dedicated to the teenage "baby-boomers" by playing the songs and showing popular dances of…
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
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957), along with its companion case Alberts v. California, was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which redefined t…
In Roth v
Hurricane Audrey was a catastrophic and very deadly hurricane that devastated the southwestern Louisiana coast in 1957. Along with Hurricane Alex in 2010, it was also the strongest…
Hurricane Audrey makes landfall near the Texas–Louisiana border, killing over 400 people, mainly in and around Cameron,
The International Geophysical Year, also referred to as the third International Polar Year, was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958…
The International Geophysical Year begins.
Malaya, officially the Federation of Malaya, was a country in Southeast Asia from 1948 to 1963. It succeeded the Malayan Union and, before that, British Malaya. It comprised eleven…
The Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
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 …
President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam becomes the first foreign head of state to make a state visit to Australia.
The 23rd Canadian Parliament was in session from October 14, 1957, until February 1, 1958. The membership was set by the 1957 federal election on June 10, 1957, and it changed only…
The 23rd Canadian Parliament becomes the only one to be personally opened by the Queen of Canada.
Althea Neale Gibson was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis. In 1956, she became …
Althea Gibson wins at the Wimbledon Championships, becoming the first black athlete to do so.
John Winston Ono Lennon was an English musician, songwriter and activist. He gained global fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's songw…
John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, three years before forming the…
Shah Karim al-Hussaini, known simply as Aga Khan IV, was the 49th Imam of Nizari Isma'ili Shia Islam from 1957 until his death in 2025. He inherited the Nizari imamate and the titl…
Prince Karim Husseini Aga Khan IV inherits the office of Imamat as the 49th Imam of Shia Imami Ismai'li worldwide,…
KLM Flight 844 was an international scheduled passenger flight from Biak-Mokmer Airport, Dutch New Guinea to Manila International Airport, Manila, Philippines on 16 July 1957, whic…
KLM Flight 844 crashes off the Schouten Islands in present day Indonesia (then Netherlands New Guinea), killing 58…
An autobiographical novel, also known as an autobiographical fiction, fictional autobiography, or autobiographical fiction novel, is a type of novel which uses autofiction techniqu…
The largely autobiographical novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh was published.