1949
Events
January
File:VW Standard, Bj1950 2005-09-17.jpg|thumb|120px| January 17: Beetle in U.S.
- January 17 - The first VW Type 1 to arrive in the United States, a 1948 model, is brought to New York by Dutch businessman Ben Pon. Unable to interest dealers or importers in the Volkswagen, Pon sells the sample car to pay his travel expenses. Only two 1949 models are sold in America that year, convincing Volkswagen chairman Heinrich Nordhoff the car has no future in the U.S.
- January 25
- * The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance is established by the Soviet Union and other communist nations.
- * In the first Israeli elections, David Ben-Gurion becomes Prime Minister.
- January 26 – Australian citizenship comes into being.
- c. January 28 - Stalin and antisemitism: The media in the Soviet Union resume a propaganda campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans", a euphemism for Soviet Jews, accusing them of being pro-Western and antisocialist.
- January 31 - Forces from the Chinese Communist Party enter Beijing.
February
- February 13 - António Óscar Carmona is re-elected president of Portugal, for lack of an opposing candidate.
- February 17 - Chaim Weizmann begins his term as the first president of Israel.
- February 26 - The Revolutionary Communist Party of India stages attacks at Dum Dum.
March
- March 1 - Indonesia seizes Yogyakarta from the Dutch.
- March 2 - The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II lands in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight.
- March 20 - The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, Denver and Rio Grande Western and Western Pacific railroads inaugurate the California Zephyr passenger train between Chicago and Oakland, California, as the first long-distance train to feature Vistadome cars as regular equipment.
- March 24 - The 21st Academy Awards Ceremony is held. The movie Hamlet wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.
- March 25
- * Operation Priboi: An extensive deportation campaign begins in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Soviet authorities deport more than 92,000 people from the Baltic states to remote areas of the Soviet Union.
- * First issue of weekly magazine Paris Match published in France.
- March 26 - The first half of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida, conducted by legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini, and performed in concert, is telecast by NBC, live from Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center. The second half is telecast a week later. This is the only complete opera that Toscanini ever conducts on television.
- March 28
- * United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal resigns suddenly.
- * English astronomer Fred Hoyle coins the term Big Bang during a BBC Third Programme radio broadcast.
- March 30 - A military coup in Syria ousts President Shukri al-Quwatli.
- An anti-NATO riot in Iceland takes place, prompted by the decision of the Icelandic parliament to join the newly formed NATO.
- March 31 - The former British colony of Newfoundland joins Canada, as its 10th province.
April
- April 4 - The North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., creating the NATO defense alliance.
- April 7 - Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, starring Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, opens on Broadway, and goes on to become Rodgers and Hammerstein's second longest-running musical. It becomes an instant classic of the musical theatre. The score's biggest hit is the song "Some Enchanted Evening".
- April 14 - The N'Ko alphabet is completed by Solomana Kante.
- April 18 - The Republic of Ireland formally becomes a republic, and leaves the British Commonwealth.
- April 20 - Royal Navy frigate HMS Amethyst goes up the Yangtze River, to evacuate British Commonwealth refugees escaping the advance of Mao's Communist forces. Under heavy fire, she grounds off Rose Island. After an abortive rescue attempt on April 26, she anchors upstream. Negotiations with the Communists to let the ship leave drag on for weeks, during which time the ship's cat Simon raises the crew's morale.
- April 23 - Chinese Communist troops take Nanjing.
- April 26 - Transjordan changes its name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
- April 28
- * The 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference issues the London Declaration, enabling India to remain in the Commonwealth despite becoming a republic, creating the position of 'Head of the Commonwealth', and renaming the organization, from the 'British Commonwealth' to the 'Commonwealth of Nations'.
- * Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, 61, is assassinated while en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and 10 others are also killed.
May
- May 1 - Nereid, a moon of Neptune, is discovered by Gerard Kuiper.
- May 4 - Superga air disaster: A Fiat G.212 airliner of Avio Linee Italiane, carrying the entire Torino F.C. football team, crashes into the back wall of the Basilica of Superga, killing all 31 on board.
- May 5 - The Council of Europe is founded, by the signing of the Treaty of London.
- May 6 - EDSAC, the first practicable stored-program computer, runs its first program at Cambridge University.
- May 9 - Rainier III becomes Prince of Monaco, upon the death of his maternal grandfather Louis II.
- May 11
- * Israel is admitted to the United Nations, as its 59th member.
- * Siam officially changes its French name to "Thaïlande", having officially changed its Thai name to "Prated Thai" since 1939.
- May 12 - Cold War: The Soviet Union lifts the Berlin Blockade.
- May 16 - The Tokyo Stock Exchange resumes operations, after a four-year shutdown.
- May 20
- * The AFSA is established.
- * The Kuomintang regime declares martial law in Taiwan, which lasts until 1987.
- May 22 - After two months in Bethesda Naval Hospital, James Forrestal commits suicide under suspicious circumstances.
- May 23 - The Federal Republic of Germany is officially established.
- May 31 - The first trial of Alger Hiss for perjury begins in New York City, with Whittaker Chambers as principal witness for the prosecution.
June
- June 5 - Thailand elects Orapin Chaiyakan, the first Thai female member of Thailand's Parliament.
- June 6 - With the passage of the Bodh Gaya Temple Act by the Indian government, Mahabodhi Temple is restored to partial Buddhist control.
- June 7-25 - Dock workers strike in the United Kingdom.
- June 8
- * Second Red Scare in the United States: Celebrities including Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named as Communist Party members in a Federal Bureau of Investigation report.
- * George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in London.
- June 14 - Albert II, a rhesus monkey aboard U.S. Hermes project V-2 rocket Blossom IVB, becomes the first primate to enter space. He is killed on impact at return.
- June 19 - Glenn Dunaway wins the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Charlotte Speedway, a 3/4 mile oval in Charlotte, North Carolina, but is disqualified due to illegal springs. Jim Roper is declared the official winner.
- June 24 - The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, airs on NBC in the United States.
- June 29 - Apartheid: The South African Citizenship Act suspends the granting of citizenship to Commonwealth of Nations immigrants after 5 years, and imposes a ban on mixed marriages.
July
- July 1 - The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is established.
- July 11 - Pamir is the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, under sail alone.
- July 15 - In an explosion at Prüm in Germany, the town is badly damaged and 12 people die. The explosion crater is one of the largest ever recorded.
- July 20 - Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their 19-month war.
- July 24 - Eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma begins.
- July 27
- * The de Havilland Comet, the world's first jet-powered airliner, makes its first flight, in England.
- * Rhodesia beats the New Zealand national rugby union team 10–8, in an exhibition match in Bulawayo, the only non-Test nation ever to achieve this feat.
- July 30 - Legal aid is introduced in England and Wales.
- July 31 - Captain Kerans of HMS Amethyst decides to make a break after nightfall, under heavy fire from the Chinese People's Liberation Army on both sides of the Yangtze River, and successfully rejoins the fleet at Woosung the next day.
August
- August 3 - The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League finalize the merger that will create the National Basketball Association.
- August 5 - In Ecuador, the 6.8 Ambato earthquake kills more than 5,000, and destroys a number of villages.
- August 8 - Bhutan signs a Treaty of Friendship with newly independent India, agreeing non-interference in internal affairs, but allowing India to "guide" its foreign policy.
- August 10 - the Avro Canada C102 Jetliner makes its first flight; it is the first jet airliner to fly in North America.
- August 12 - The Fourth Geneva Convention is agreed to.
- August 14
- * The Salvatore Giuliano Gang explodes mines under a police barracks, outside Palermo, Sicily.
- August 18 - Kemi Bloody Thursday: two protesters die in the scuffle between the police and the strikers' protest procession in Kemi, Finland.
- August 21
- * The Vatican announces that bones uncovered in its catacombs could be those of the apostle Peter; 19 years later, Pope Paul VI announces confirmation that the bones belong to this first pope.
- *Deportivo Saprissa enters Costa Rican soccer's first division.
- * The 1949 Queen Charlotte Islands earthquake is Canada's largest earthquake since the 1700 Cascadia earthquake.
- August 24 - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is established.
- August 29
- * The Council of Europe meets for the first time.
- * The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, RDS-1. Its design imitates the American plutonium bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
- August 31
- * The retreat of the Democratic Army of Greece to Albania, after its defeat at Mount Gramos, marks the end of the Greek Civil War.
- * Six of the last sixteen surviving veterans of the Union Army, in the American Civil War, meet in Indianapolis.