Timeline April 1949

Events in April 1949 9

• 1885 – 1949 Wallace Beery (1885-1949) Died 15 April 1949, aged 64 Wallace Beery was an American film actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Champ in 1931. He was one of the highest-paid stars of early Hollywood sound cinema.
• 1949 – 2011 Gil Scott-Heron American poet, musician & author Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011) was an American poet, musician and author whose spoken-word recordings — above all "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" — made him one of the most influential forefathers of hip-hop and a defining voice of Black political consciousness in American music.
• 1949 Gil Scott-Heron born in Chicago 1 April 1949 Gilbert Scott-Heron was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 1 April 1949, to Bobbie Scott, a librarian and opera singer, and Gil Heron, a Jamaican professional footballer who became the first Black player to play for Celtic FC in Scotland.
• 1949 1949 World Snooker Championship Fred Davis Title 2 Winner: Fred Davis; Runner-up: Walter Donaldson. Score: 80–65.
• 1949 Abandons neutrality: UN & NATO A founding member Breaking with its historic neutrality, Luxembourg becomes a founding member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe and NATO.
• 1949 – 2011 Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) Died 15 December 2011, aged 62 The British-American writer and journalist was known for his combative essays and books, including "God Is Not Great," and for his outspoken atheism. He continued writing and giving interviews after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2010. He died in Houston, Texas.
• 1949 Republic of Ireland Act takes effect Ireland leaves the British Commonwealth The Republic of Ireland Act came into force, formally declaring Ireland a republic and ending its remaining constitutional links to the British Crown. Ireland thereby left the British Commonwealth.
• 1949 Communist forces capture Nanjing Fall of the Nationalist capital in the Chinese Civil War The People's Liberation Army captured Nanjing, the capital of the Nationalist Republic of China, in a decisive blow of the Chinese Civil War. The fall of the city precipitated the collapse of Nationalist rule on the mainland later that year.
• 1949 – present António Guterres UN Secretary-General Former Portuguese Prime Minister who became the head of the United Nations in 2017.