July 1950

July 1, 1950 (Saturday)

• Two companies of the U.S. Army First Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division departed from the U.S. base in Japan at Kyushu under the name "Task Force Smith", designated because of its 34-year-old commander, Lt. Col. Charles "Brad" Smith. After leaving at 3:00 am, the task force arrived near Pusan at 11:00 am, becoming the first set of American ground troops to be deployed in the Korean War.
• The 8055th M.A.S.H. became the first Mobile Army Surgical Hospital to be activated in South Korea. On July 6, its physicians, nurses and support staff would be sent from Sasebo to Pusan, initially to be set up at Taejon. It was followed by the 8063rd M.A.S.H., which was activated July 17 and sent on July 18 to Pohang to support the U.S. 1st Cavalry, and the 8076th M.A.S.H.
• Twenty-three American soldiers became the first to die in the Korean War when their C-54 transport plane crashed into a 2000 foot high hill, forty miles northwest of Pusan, upon arrival from Japan.
• Eleven men were killed and 26 injured when a gas leak at the iron works in Consett, England, felled them while they were working at a loading dock.
• ARAADCOM, the ARmy AntiAircraft COMmand, began operations to coordinate U.S. Army defenses against a foreign bomber attack. The unit would be deactivated on January 4, 1975.
• The city of Gainesville, Florida renamed all of its main streets using a system of numbers and directions.
• Unto These Hills, which bills itself as "America's most popular outdoor drama", was given its first performance. It continues to be seen on Saturday evenings during the summer at Cherokee, North Carolina.
• Born: David Duke, American politician and Ku Klux Klan leader; in Tulsa, Oklahoma

  July 2, 1950 (Sunday)

• The Battle of Chumonchin Chan, the first and only naval battle of the Korean War, took place when HMS Jamaica, USS Juneau and HMS Black Swan fought the North Korean Navy and sank three torpedo boats and two gunboats off of the east coast of South Korea, near Jumunjin.
• The John Bunyan novel Pilgrim's Progress, first published in 1678, was named the most boring classic book in a survey of literary critics by the Columbia University Press. Rounding out the list were Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, The Faerie Queene, Life of Samuel Johnson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, Silas Marner, Ivanhoe, Don Quixote and Faust.
• General Manuel A. Odria was elected President of Peru. He was the only candidate on the ballot.

  July 3, 1950 (Monday)

• The Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act was signed into law by U.S. President Truman, giving Puerto Rico the authority to establish its own government to administer "matters of purely local concern".
• New Zealand dispatched its first troops to the Korean War, as the ships HMNZS Pukaki and HMNZS Tutira departed to aid the UN war effort.
• An express train crashed into an excursion bus near Bourg-en-Bresse in France, killing 23 people on the bus.
• In a cablegram sent from North Korea's Foreign Minister, Pak Hen Nen, to United Nations Secretary General Trygve Lie, North Korea announced that it had no intention of agreeing to the UN Security Council resolution 82, calling for an end to hostilities and withdrawal of troops.
• The first U.S. Navy jet attack in the Korean War took place when a Grumman F9F Panther took off from the USS Valley Forge to attack North Korean troops. Ensign Eldon W. Brown, Jr., made the first kill, downing a Yak-9 fighter near Pyongyang, before returning to the Valley Forge.
• The Hazel Scott Show made its debut on the DuMont Television Network, becoming the first television program to be hosted by an African-American woman. Singer Hazel Scott appeared live on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings from 7:45 pm to 8:00 pm Eastern Time on DuMont stations.
• The CBS Radio Network show Granby's Green Acres, created by Jay Sommers, made its debut as a summer replacement series. Starring Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet as John and Martha Granby, two big city residents who became farmers. Though the radio show ran only eight episodes, it would be adapted to television 15 years later as Green Acres
• The Swedish State Railways luxury cruise train Sunlit Nights Land Cruises departed from Stockholm toward northern Sweden on its inaugural run. The service would operate until 1969.
• Died: Lucy Deane Streatfeild, 84, Indian-born British social worker and civil servant

  July 4, 1950 (Tuesday)

• Radio Free Europe began its first broadcasts, transmitting 30 minutes of American programming to Czechoslovakia from a 7,500 watt short wave transmitter located at Lampertheim in West Germany.
• French Premier Henri Queuille, in office for three days, resigned after losing in a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly, by a margin of 336–221.
• A baseball fan at New York's Polo Grounds was killed by a sniper as he sat in the stands along with 40,000 other people at a doubleheader between the Giants and the Dodgers. Bernard Doyle, 54, was struck in the eye while sitting in the second deck in deep left field. New York Police concluded that the bullet had been fired from one of the apartment buildings half a mile away from the ballpark.

  July 5, 1950 (Wednesday)

• At 8:16 a.m., American and North Korean troops engaged in combat for the first time, at the Battle of Osan, 20 miles south of Seoul. Task Force Smith, with 406 U.S. Army troops led by Lieutenant Colonel Charles B. Smith, was far outnumbered when it encountered a column of 33 North Korean T-34 tanks and a large infantry force of 4,000. Four of the T-34 tanks were destroyed and three damaged, while 20 U.S. Marines became the first Americans to die in combat during the Korean War. The Americans sustained 120 deaths and 36 more were taken prisoner. Officially, Kenneth R. Shadrick, an 18-year-old native of Harlan, Kentucky, was the first American serviceman to be killed in action in the Korean War.
• The Law of Return was passed unanimously by the Knesset, the Parliament of Israel, providing that "An immigrant's visa shall be granted to every Jew who has expressed his desire to settle in Israel", with exceptions. Although one author comments that "Israel is the only country in the world which confers citizenship on an immigrant automatically at the moment he steps off the boat or plane"
• The first "Flying Pigeon", a bicycle devised by Huo Baoji at a former artillery plant at Tianjin, was presented to officials of the Chinese Communist Party. Approved as the "People's Bicycle", millions of the bikes were produced and served as the personal vehicle for citizens of the People's Republic of China. Huo Baoji based his bicycle model on the 1932 English Raleigh Roadster.
• Prime Minister of Belgium Jean Duvieusart narrowly survived a vote of confidence in the Belgian Senate, winning 90–83. Duvieusart was a supporter of exiled King Leopold III, and the vote was seen as a narrow approval of Leopold's return.
• The Australian Department of Defence ordered the drafting of 14,000 men into its armed forces in order to fight in Korea.
• Born: Huey Lewis, American musician and frontman of Huey Lewis and the News; in New York City
• Died: Salvatore Giuliano, 27, Sicilian crime boss who had been charged with 117 counts of murder, was killed in a gunbattle with Italian carbinieri at Castelvetrano.

  July 6, 1950 (Thursday)

• U.S. and North Korean forces clashed for the second time at the Battle of Pyongtaek. The engagement resulted in a North Korean victory as the Americans were unable to stop their advance south.
• The Goerlitz Agreement, marking the separation of the two cities of Görlitz in East Germany and Zgorzelec in Poland, was signed at Warsaw. It set the border between the two nations as the Oder River and the Neisse River. The border would be confirmed on November 14, 1990, in a treaty signed between a reunified Germany and Poland on the reunification of Germany by the "Two plus Four Treaty" on September 12, 1990,
• David Greenglass became the second American atomic worker to be indicted for espionage.

  July 7, 1950 (Friday)

• U.S. and North Korean forces engaged for the third time in the Battle of Chonan. The fight ended in a North Korean victory after intense fighting around the town throughout the night and into the morning.
• The U.S. Department of Defense implemented the newly renewed draft law "to build up to full operating strength the units of the Army, Navy and Air Force to be used in the Korean operation.
• Without a Soviet Union representative appearing to cast a veto against it, United Nations Security Council Resolution 84 passed, authorizing a multinational United Nations force, under U.S. command, to fight against North Korea. The Resolution noted that the Council "Recommends that all Members of the United Nations make such forces and other assistance available" Ultimately, 20 nations would send troops and 25 others would provide some form of aid. At a secret meeting in the White House earlier in the day, U.S. President Truman declined a suggestion from CIA Director Roscoe Hillenkoetter that the UN be asked to approve use of the atomic bomb in the war.
• The film noir Where the Sidewalk Ends starring Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney premiered in Los Angeles.
• The newspaper La Tercera de La Hora, edited in Santiago and owned by Copesa Group, is founded.
• Died: Fats Navarro, 26, American jazz trumpet player

  July 8, 1950 (Saturday)

• Nearly five years after Japan's armed forces surrender to the United States, General Douglas MacArthur gave approval for the creation of a National Reserve Force of 75,000 soldiers to replace the former Japanese Army. In 1952, the force would be reorganized and in 1954 would become the Japan Self-Defense Forces to include a navy and air force. .
• G. Mennen Williams, the Governor of Michigan, was attacked and briefly taken hostage by inmates at the Marquette Branch Prison while making a personal visit to investigate complaints about the conditions. One of his attackers was shot dead.
• U.S. President Harry S. Truman named General Douglas MacArthur as commanding general of the United Nations forces in Korea.
• U.S. Army Sergeant Roy Deans was awarded the first Purple Heart medal of the Korean war, after having an eye injury during the June 28 destruction of the Han River bridge.
• Results from the 1950 U.S. population census showed that New York City had 7,841,610 people, still second to London, with 8,390,941 people.
• in Mexico the Querétaro Fútbol Club is founded
• Died:
• *Guy Gilpatric, 54, American author of the Colin Glencannon stories, by suicide, after killing his wife Maude, who was terminally ill with cancer.
• *Helen Holmes, 58, American silent film actress who appeared in 119 episodes of the serial The Hazards of Helen between 1914 and 1917