April 1950


The following events occurred in April 1950:

April 1, 1950 (Saturday)

  • The 1950 United States census was taken. After seven months of tabulation, the population on that day was announced to have been 150,697,361. The population sixty years later would be more than doubled, at 308,745,538.
  • Owen Lattimore, who had been stationed in Afghanistan when Senator Joe McCarthy accused him of being a Soviet agent within the U.S. State Department, returned to the United States to confront the charges.
  • Theodore Donay, a German-born American who had previously been convicted of treason for helping a German bomber pilot escape during World War II, vanished while under investigation by the FBI. Donay rented a motorboat at California's Santa Catalina Island, then abandoned it. Hours later, a foreign submarine was sighted off of Point Arguello. Officials learned that Donay had killed himself, finding a suicide note.
  • Cambridge defeated Oxford in the 96th Boat Race.
  • Born: Samuel Alito, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court since 2006, in Trenton, New Jersey
  • Died:
  • *Charles R. Drew, 45, African-American surgeon, who pioneered preservation techniques for use in blood banks, following an automobile accident. An urban legend arose that Drew, whose work had saved so many lives, died because he was turned away from the nearest hospital because of his race. In reality, Drew and the other three passengers in his car were taken to the Alamance General Hospital in Burlington, North Carolina, but physicians were unable to save him.
  • *F.O. Matthiessen, 48, American historian and literary critic, jumped to his death from the 12th story of a Boston hotel.

April 2, 1950 (Sunday)

April 3, 1950 (Monday)

April 4, 1950 (Tuesday)

  • A Gallup Poll was released showing that 37 percent of the Republicans surveyed were in favor of former General and World War II hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to be the party's nominee in the 1952 U.S. presidential election, compared to 17% for Robert A. Taft, 15% for Thomas E. Dewey, and 12% for Harold Stassen. In addition, 33 percent of independent voters said that they would vote for Eisenhower if he ran in 1952, a better showing than any potential Republican nominee had had in more than 20 years.
  • The United States Navy issued a statement that it had seen evidence of "two or three probable foreign subs" off of Cape Mendocino in northern California, responding to reports of sightings of what were believed to be Soviet submarines in American territorial waters.
  • The United Nations Trusteeship Council passed the "Statute on Jerusalem, declaring that the city should be considered international territory and a demilitarized zone. Neither Israel, which had control of West Jerusalem, or Jordan, which had East Jerusalem, agreed to let the United Nations send forces into the Holy City.
  • Born:
  • *Christine Lahti, American actress, in Birmingham, Michigan
  • *Charles Bernstein, American poet, in New York City

April 5, 1950 (Wednesday)

April 6, 1950 (Thursday)

  • A train fell off of a bridge at Tanguá in Brazil, killing 110 people, mostly persons who were on a vacation trip during the Easter holiday. The Leopoldina Railway train had left Rio de Janeiro and was on its way to Vitória when the locomotive and the first five cars derailed and plunged into a flood-swollen river below.
  • In Great Britain, any person born on or after April 6, 1950, and who qualifies for a UK State Pension at age 65, may have their civil partner draw a pension as well.
  • Dr. Charles P. Bailey, an American heart surgeon in Philadelphia, made the first successful human test of an instrument to dilate the aortic valve.

April 7, 1950 (Friday)

  • NSC 68, authored by Paul Nitze and entitled "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security", was issued by U.S. President Truman's National Security Council. The document, classified top secret until February 27, 1975, guided American foreign policy during the Truman years. Describing the "essential purpose of the United States" as being "to assure the integrity and vitality of our free society", and the "fundamental design of the Kremlin" as "the complete subversion or forcible destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society in the countries of the non-Soviet world", NSC68 concluded that "we must, by means of a rapid and sustained build-up of the political, economic and military strength of the free world... frustrate the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will."
  • The Soviet Union instituted a new five member executive council known as the Bureau of the Presidium consisting of Premier Josef Stalin, First Deputy Nikolai Bulganin, and Deputies Lavrentiy Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich. Georgy Malenkov was added a week later to the group.;
  • Died: Walter Huston, 67, Canadian-born American film actor

April 8, 1950 (Saturday)

April 9, 1950 (Sunday)

  • Biochemists Thomas H. Jukes and Robert Stokstad of Lederle Laboratories announced their accidental discovery of the increased production that resulted from antibiotics mixed into animal feed. Mixing an antibiotic into feed at 1 part per 400 increased the growth rate in piglets by 50 percent, and at a lesser rate in chicks and calves, leading to a practice that would become widespread in animal husbandry.
  • The "Notre-Dame Affair" took place during nationally televised Easter High Mass services at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, when members of the Lettrism movement chose a quiet moment for Michel Mourre to deliver a "blasphemous anti-sermon" that ended with "We proclaim the death of the Christ-God, so that Man may live at last." The church organist began playing music as loudly as possible to drown out the speech after Mourre had declared, "En vérité je vous le dis: Dieu est mort"
  • Born: Pierre Gagnaire, French chef and restauranteur; in Apinac, Loire département

April 10, 1950 (Monday)

April 11, 1950 (Tuesday)

April 12, 1950 (Wednesday)

April 13, 1950 (Thursday)

  • The Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China was promulgated, to take effect on May 1, and outlawed traditional marriage practices that had been imposed on Chinese women and children for centuries. Among the customs that were banned were the arranged marriage, the dowry, the bride price, child marriage and child betrothal, bigamy, and barriers to the remarriage of widowed women. The new rules, which were zealously enforced by the Communist Party, also guaranteed women the right to own land and to file for divorce.
  • The Arab Collective Security Treaty was signed in Cairo by the seven nations of the Arab League with the members agreeing that an attack on one member would be considered an attack on all.
  • Born: Ron Perlman, American film and TV actor, in New York City

April 14, 1950 (Friday)

April 15, 1950 (Saturday)

  • General Nicolas Plastiras became the new Prime Minister of Greece, a day after the resignation of Sophocles Venizelos and the entire cabinet. The action came two weeks after U.S. Ambassador to Greece Henry F. Grady had written a letter to Prime Minister Plastiras and released it to the press the same day, implying that American aid would be halted if an "efficient government" could not be formed.
  • The Red River of the North overflowed its banks and flooded 640 square miles of farmland in Canada's Manitoba province, forcing the largest evacuation- 100,000 people -in the Dominion's history up to that time.
  • President Truman vetoed the Kerr Natural Gas Bill, which would have exempted American natural gas producers from federal regulation.
  • King Leopold III offered to temporarily surrender his powers to his 19-year-old son, Prince Baudouin, in an effort to stop the crisis that followed his plans to return from exile. His radio address to his subjects, in both French and Flemish, marked the first time since 1940 that he had been heard on Belgian radio.
  • "If I Knew You Were Comin' (I'd've Baked a Cake)" by Eileen Barton hit #1 on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.

April 16, 1950 (Sunday)

  • Communist China began an attack on the island of Hainan, occupied by the Nationalist Chinese. Hainan, which had over 2,000,000 residents and was almost as large, geographically, as the island of Taiwan, would fall to the Communists by the end of the month.
  • U.S. President Harry Truman made the decision not to run for re-election in 1952, but would not tell his advisers until November 1951, and would not make the announcement public until April 1952.
  • The McLean House at Appomattox, Virginia, where the American Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant, was opened to the public after years of restoration. Retired U.S. Army Major General Ulysses S. Grant III, the grandson of the Union commander, participated with Lee's great-grandson, 25-year-old Robert E. Lee IV of San Francisco in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

April 17, 1950 (Monday)

  • A California man placed a time bomb into the luggage of a United Airlines flight departing from Los Angeles to San Diego with 16 people on board, including the man's wife and two children. John Henry Grant, an aeronautical engineer, had instructed his wife to take out flight insurance, then placed a five-gallon gasoline bomb into her luggage. A baggage handler set off the bomb prematurely when he dropped the suitcase on loading it, but was not seriously injured. At the same time, Grant had a change of heart and told airport officials not to let the Douglas DC-3 airplane take off. Grant would be convicted of attempted murder in August.
  • The "First National Congress of the Khmer Resistance" met at the Cambodian city of Kompong Som, with 200 delegates, over half of whom were Buddhist monks, and advisers from the Communist Viet Minh movement from neighboring Vietnam. After three days, the delegates formed the United Issarak Front to fight the French colonial government. Exactly 25 years later, on April 17, 1975, the Communist Khmer Rouge would succeed in taking complete control of Cambodia.

April 18, 1950 (Tuesday)

  • U.S. Postmaster General Jesse M. Donaldson issued cost-cutting measures, bringing an end to the long time practice of letter carriers making two deliveries per day, and limiting the carriers to an 8-hour day.
  • The Avro Canada C102 Jetliner became the first jet airplane to transport airmail in North America, flying from Toronto to New York City in less than an hour, and half the time of a propeller driven airplane.
  • Billy Martin, controversial as a baseball player and later as a baseball manager, made his Major League Baseball debut, getting hits in both of his at bats, and scoring a run for the New York Yankees in a 15–10 win over the Boston Red Sox.
  • Vin Scully made his first broadcast as an announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 2016, Scully retired after 67 consecutive seasons as the team's announcer.

April 19, 1950 (Wednesday)

  • The governments of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China concluded their first trade agreement.
  • The Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act was signed into law by President Truman, with $88,700,000 to fund "a long-range program that would hasten the day that federal assistance for Indians could be withdrawn".
  • Born: Lani Guinier, African-American legal scholar, in New York City
  • Died:
  • *Former Soviet generals E.A. Egorov, 58; I.G. Bessonov, 45; A.Z. Naumov, 58; A.E. Budykho, 56; S.A. Khudiakov, 48; and M.V. Bogdanov, 52. The six, who had deserted to Germany during World War II, were each tried, convicted, and executed by a gunshot to the back of the head on the same day.
  • *Lord Berners, 66, British composer

April 20, 1950 (Thursday)

April 21, 1950 (Friday)

April 22, 1950 (Saturday)

April 23, 1950 (Sunday)

April 24, 1950 (Monday)

April 25, 1950 (Tuesday)

  • The Republic of the South Moluccas was proclaimed by Christiaan Soumokil in three islands that had been part of Indonesia. The islands of Ambon and Buru would be recaptured by the end of the year, but fighting would continue on Ceram for six more years, and the island of Soumokil would not fall until 1963.
  • Chuck Cooper of Duquesne University became the first African-American to be selected in the NBA draft, picked in the second round by the Boston Celtics. Later in the draft, the Washington Capitols selected Earl Lloyd and Harold Hunter. After their college eligibility ended, both Cooper and Lloyd had signed temporary contracts to play for the Harlem Globetrotters.
  • Born: Lenora Fulani, American third-party presidential candidate, in Chester, Pennsylvania, as Lenora Branch
  • Died: Abdul Majeed Ahmed Hassan, 25, who had assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha on December 28, 1948. Hassan, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was hanged after being found guilty of Nukrashi's killing.

April 26, 1950 (Wednesday)

April 27, 1950 (Thursday)

  • The United Kingdom formally recognized Israel, with de jure recognition following the de facto recognition that had been made since January 29, 1949. On the same day, the U.K. recognized the annexation of the West Bank by Jordan.
  • In a speech to the American Newspaper Publishers Association that was broadcast on nationwide radio, former American President Herbert Hoover declared "I suggest that the United Nations should be reorganized without the Communist nations in it. If that is impractical, then a New United Front should be organized of those peoples who disavow communism, who stand for morals and religion, and who love freedom... and in rejecting the atheistic other world, I am confident that the Almighty God will be with us."
  • Died:
  • *Karel Koželuh, 55, Czech athlete who won the U.S. professional tennis championships in 1929, 1932 and 1937, and played on the Czechoslovak national football and ice hockey teams, was killed in an auto accident
  • *Hobart Cavanaugh, 63, American character actor

April 28, 1950 (Friday)

April 29, 1950 (Saturday)

April 30, 1950 (Sunday)