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)

• Pakistan's Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan arrived in Delhi as the guest of India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the first summit meeting between the two since the partition of British India into predominantly Muslim Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India. The meeting came in the wake of anti-Hindu violence in Pakistan and anti-Muslim violence in India, and would result in a pact between the two leaders to punish anti-religious violence against religious minorities.
• Born: Melba Boyd, African American poet, in Detroit.
• Died:
• *Jean George Auriol, 43, French film critic and screenwriter, was killed in an automobile accident
• *Recep Peker, 61, Prime Minister of Turkey 1946–1947

  April 3, 1950 (Monday)

• The standard ratio for the dimensions of television receivers was set at 4:3 after originally having been 5:4, and that would remain the standard for nearly half a century. With the advent of digital television, the ratio would be changed to the wider 16:9 dimensions.
• Worlds in Collision, by Immanuel Velikovsky, was published for the first time, as a book by Macmillan Publishing.
• Born:
• *Sally Thomsett, English actress, in Sussex
• *David Fulmer, American author, in Northumberland, Pennsylvania.
• Died:
• *Kurt Weill, 50, German-born composer
• *Carter G. Woodson, 74, African-American educator referred to as "The Father of Black History"

  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)

• In what has been described as "rguably the most famous dinner party in the annals of twentieth-century science", American physicist James Van Allen hosted a group of scientists in honor of visiting British geophysicist Sydney Chapman. At the gathering, Lloyd Berkner proposed a worldwide series of atmospheric observations starting seven years in the future, in 1957, a concept that was endorsed by the persons present and which would become the International Geophysical Year.
• Born:
• *Agnetha Fältskog, Swedish pop musician and songwriter ; in Jönköping
• *Harpo, Swedish pop musician, as Jan Harpo Svensson; in Bandhagen
• *Louise Dolan, American physicist and superstring theoretician; in Wilmington, Delaware
• *Franklin Chang-Díaz, Costa Rican native and American astronaut; in San José
• Died: Charles Binaggio, Kansas City crime boss and political leader, in a "gangland execution"

  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)

• In the first shootdown of an American military aircraft by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, two Soviet Lavochkin La-11 fighters intercepted and downed a U.S. Navy PB4Y-2 Privateer surveillance plane that was flying over or near the Latvian SSR with ten men on board, the first of over 350 American servicemen lost in Cold War missions.
• Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed the first photograph demonstrating the appearance of an atom, using x-rays to simulate a pattern of iron and sulphur atoms, within the mineral marcasite, magnified more than 10,000,000 times.
• Born: Grzegorz Lato, Polish soccer football star, in Malbork
• Died: Vaslav Nijinsky, 61, Russian ballet dancer and choreographer

  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)

• By a 6–2 vote, the United States Supreme Court declined to grant certiorari for an appeal of the contempt of Congress convictions of the "Hollywood Ten", who had refused in 1947 to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
• The musical racetrack film Riding High directed by Frank Capra and starring Bing Crosby premiered at the Paramount Theater in New York City.
• Born:
• *Ken Griffey, Sr., American baseball player, in Donora, Pennsylvania
• *Eddie Hazel, American rock guitarist, in Brooklyn

  April 11, 1950 (Tuesday)

• The 30-year Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, signed on February 14, 1950, formally went into force, providing that the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union would defend each other in the event of an invasion; the treaty included a stipulation that the treaty would be automatically extended if neither side annulled it before April 11, 1979.
• The first elections in Jordan to include the Palestinian Arab voters from the soon-to-be-annexed West Bank were conducted. The united parliament had 40 representatives, with 20 from the east and west sides of the Jordan River.
• Died: Bainbridge Colby, 80, U.S. Secretary of State 1920–1921