1951

Events

January

• January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time.
• January 9 – The Government of the United Kingdom announces abandonment of the Tanganyika groundnut scheme for the cultivation of peanuts in the Tanganyika Territory, with the writing off of £36.5M debt.
• January 11 – In the U.S., a top secret report is delivered to U.S. President Truman by his National Security Resources Board, urging Truman to expand the Korean War by launching "a global offensive against communism" with sustained bombing of Red China and diplomatic moves to establish "moral justification" for a U.S. nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The report will not be declassified until 1978.
• January 15 – In a criminal court in West Germany, Ilse Koch, The "Witch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment.
• January 20 – Winter of Terror: Avalanches in the Alps kill 240 and bury 45,000 for a time, in Switzerland, Austria and Italy.
• January 21 – Mount Lamington in Papua New Guinea erupts catastrophically, killing nearly 3,000 people and causing great devastation in Oro Province.
• January 25 – Dutch author Anne de Vries releases the first volume of his children's novel Journey Through the Night, set during World War II.

  February

• February – The Convention People's Party wins national elections in Gold Coast.
• February 1–2 – The 1951 Nepalese revolution leads to agreement for a democratic constitution.
• February 1 – The United Nations General Assembly declares that China is an aggressor in the Korean War, in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 498.
• February 6 – Woodbridge train wreck: A Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, killing 85 people and injuring over 500, in one of the worst rail disasters in American history.
• February 12
• * The seven-nation Commonwealth Consultative Committee meets to discuss the Colombo Plan for south and south-east Asia.
• * Muhammad Reza Shah marries Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari.
• February 19 – Jean Lee becomes the last woman hanged in Australia, when she and her two pimps are hanged for the murder and torture of a 73-year-old bookmaker.
• February 25 – The first Pan American Games open in Buenos Aires.
• February 27 – The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.

  March

• March 6 – The trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for conspiracy to commit espionage begins in the United States.
• March 14
• * Korean War: Operation Ripper – For the second time, United Nations troops recapture Seoul.
• * West Germany joins UNESCO.
• March 29
• * Second Red Scare: In the United States, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. On April 5 they are sentenced to death.
• * Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I opens on Broadway, and runs for three years. It is the first of their musicals specifically written for an actress. Lawrence is stricken with cancer during the run of the show, and dies halfway through its run a year later. The show makes a star of Yul Brynner.
• * The 23rd Academy Awards Ceremony is held; All About Eve wins the Best Picture award and five others.
• March 31 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
• March – The Israeli government organizes Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, a mass airlift of Jews out of Iraq.

  April

• April 11
• * U.S. President Harry S. Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of his Far Eastern commands.
• * After its clandestine removal from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1950, the Stone of Scone resurfaces at Arbroath Abbey in Scotland.
• April 18 – The Treaty of Paris is adopted, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.
• April 21 – The National Olympic Committee of the Soviet Union is formed. The USSR will first participate in the Olympic Games at Helsinki, Finland, in 1952.
• April 24 – Sakuragichō train fire: in Yokohama, Japan, a fire on a train kills more than 100.
• April 28 – 1951 Australian federal election: Robert Menzies' Liberal/Country Coalition Government is re-elected with a decreased majority, defeating the Labor Party, led by former Prime Minister Ben Chifley. Chifley dies a little over a month after the election; he will be replaced by his deputy H. V. Evatt.

  May

• May 1 – The opera house of Geneva, Switzerland is almost destroyed in a fire.
• May 3
• * King George VI opens the Festival of Britain in London, including the Royal Festival Hall.
• * The U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services and U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry S Truman.
• May 8 – Operation Greenhouse: The first thermonuclear weapon is tested in the "George" test on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands by the United States.
• May 15 – A military coup occurs in Bolivia.
• May 23 – The Tibetan government signs the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with the People's Republic of China.
• May 24 – Operation Greenhouse: The first atomic bomb "boosted" by the inclusion of tritium is tested in the "Item" test on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands by the United States.
• May 25–26 – British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean leave the United Kingdom to defect to the Soviet Union.

  June

• June 7 – Nazi war criminal Otto Ohlendorf is hanged at Landsberg Prison, Bavaria.
• June 14 – UNIVAC I is dedicated by the U.S. Census Bureau.
• June 15–July 1 – In New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, thousands of acres of forests are destroyed in fires.

  July

• July 4 – William Shockley of Bell Labs in the United States announces the invention jointly with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of the grown-junction transistor. Also this year, General Electric and RCA develop the alloy-junction transistor.
• July 10
• * Korean War: Armistice negotiations begin at Kaesong.
• * A formal peace agreement between Canada and Germany is signed.
• July 13 – Vuoristorata, one of the oldest still-operating wooden roller coasters in Europe, is opened at the Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki, Finland.
• July 16 – King Leopold III of Belgium abdicates in favour of his son Baudouin, who on July 17 takes the oath as king of Belgium.
• July 20 – King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem. He is succeeded by his son, King Talal.
• July 22 – Soviet space dogs Dezik and Tsygan become the first to enter space, in a 15-minute sub-orbital spaceflight in an R-1 rocket, being safely parachuted back to earth.
• July 23 – Marshal Philippe Pétain, former Prime Minister and Head of State of France, Chief of State of Vichy France during World War II, hero commander of World War I who led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of Verdun, for which he was called "the Lion of Verdun", dies while serving a sentence of life-imprisonment on the island of Île-d'Yeu at 95 years old.
• July 26 – The first birch bark manuscript is discovered in Novgorod.
• July 28 – Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a multilateral treaty of the United Nations, is signed at a special conference in Geneva, defining the status of refugees and setting out the basis for granting right of asylum, coming into force on 22 April 1954.

  August

• August 11 – René Pleven becomes Prime Minister of France.
• August 31 – The first Volkswagen Type 1 rolls off the production line in Uitenhage, South Africa.

  September

• September 1 – The United States, Australia and New Zealand all sign a mutual defense pact, the ANZUS Treaty.
• September 2 – The Sri Lanka Freedom Party is founded by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike.
• September 8
• * Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, 48 representatives out of 51 attending sign a peace treaty with Japan, formally ending the Pacific War; the delegations of the Soviet Union, Poland and Czechoslovakia do not sign the treaty, instead favoring separate treaties.
• * The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which allows United States Armed Forces to be stationed in Japan even after the end of the occupation of Japan, is signed by Japan and the United States.
• September 9 – Chinese Communist forces move into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
• September 10 – The United Kingdom begins an economic boycott of Iran.
• September 20 – NATO accepts Greece and Turkey as members.
• September 26–28 – A blue sun is seen over Europe: the effect is due to ash coming from the Canadian forest fires 4 months previously.
• September 30 – Charlotte Whitton becomes mayor of Ottawa and Canada's first woman mayor of a major city.

  October

• October 2 – Television in the Netherlands commences with the first broadcast from NTS; also television in Denmark from DR1.
• October 3–8 – Korean War: First Battle of Maryang-san – United Nations forces drive back the Chinese.
• October 6 – Malayan Emergency: Communist insurgents kill British commander Sir Henry Gurney.
• October 14 – The Organization of Central American States is formed.
• October 15
• * Norethisterone, the progestin used in the combined oral contraceptive pill, is synthesized by Luis E. Miramontes in Mexico.
• * On television, the situation comedy I Love Lucy airs its first episode on CBS in the U.S.
• October 16
• * Judy Garland begins a series of concerts in New York's Palace Theatre.
• * Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan of Pakistan is assassinated.
• * East China Normal University is founded in Shanghai, China.
• October 19 – The state of war between the United States and Germany is officially ended.
• October 21 – A storm in southern Italy kills over 100.
• October 24 – U.S. President Harry Truman declares an official end to war with Germany.
• October 26 – Winston Churchill is re-elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in a general election which sees the defeat of Clement Attlee's Labour government, after 6 years in power.
• October 27 – Farouk of Egypt declares himself king of Sudan, with no support.