1952

Events in 1952 57

• 1857 – 1952 Charles Sherrington (1857-1952) Died 4 March 1952, aged 94 Sir Charles Sherrington, the British neurophysiologist who shared the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on the function of neurons, died on 4 March 1952. His research established the concept of the synapse and laid foundations for modern neuroscience. He had also served as president of the Royal Society.
• 1859 – 1952 John Dewey (1859-1952) Died 1 June 1952, aged 92 John Dewey, the American philosopher and education reformer who championed progressive, experience-based learning, died in New York on 1 June 1952. He was a founding figure of pragmatism alongside William James and Charles Sanders Peirce. His ideas reshaped educational theory across the twentieth century.
• 1863 – 1952 George Santayana (1863-1952) Died 26 September 1952, aged 88 George Santayana, the Spanish-American philosopher and writer known for the aphorism "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," died in Rome on 26 September 1952. He taught at Harvard before retiring to Europe to write. His works spanned philosophy, poetry and the novel The Last Puritan.
• 1866 – 1952 Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) Died 20 November 1952, aged 86 Benedetto Croce, the Italian philosopher, historian and liberal statesman, died in Naples on 20 November 1952. He was a leading anti-fascist intellectual voice during Mussolini's rule and helped rebuild Italian democratic institutions after the war. His work on aesthetics and historiography influenced philosophy across Europe.
• 1870 – 1952 Maria Montessori Educational Pioneer Physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name.
• 1874 – 1952 Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) Died 9 November 1952, aged 77 Chaim Weizmann, a chemist and Zionist leader who became the first President of Israel, died on 9 November 1952 in Rehovot. He had played a key role in securing the 1917 Balfour Declaration and led the World Zionist Organization for decades. He took office as Israel's president in 1949.
• 1893 – 1952 Hattie McDaniel (1893-1952) Died 26 October 1952, aged 59 Hattie McDaniel, the actress and singer who became the first African American to win an Academy Award for her role in Gone with the Wind, died of breast cancer on 26 October 1952 in Los Angeles. She had built a career on stage, radio and screen despite the constraints of the era's racial segregation. Her Oscar win in 1940 remained a landmark for Black performers in Hollywood.
• 1895 – 1952 George VI (1895-1952) Died 6 February 1952, aged 56 King George VI of the United Kingdom died in his sleep at Sandringham House on 6 February 1952, having reigned since his brother Edward VIII's abdication in 1936. He had led Britain through the Second World War and suffered from lung cancer in his final years. His daughter succeeded him as Queen Elizabeth II.
• 1895 – 1952 Paul Eluard (1895-1952) Died 18 November 1952, aged 56 Paul Eluard, one of the founders of the French Surrealist movement and a leading poet of the Resistance, died of a heart attack in Charenton-le-Pont on 18 November 1952. His poetry collection Liberty became emblematic of wartime resistance to Nazi occupation. He was a close associate of Andre Breton and Pablo Picasso.
• 1896 – 1952 Hugh Cairns Port Pirie, Australia The Australian neurosurgeon who attended Lawrence after the crash. He went on to organise mobile neurosurgical units in the Second World War and to run the trial that proved penicillin worked on head wounds.
• 1903 – 1952 Curly Howard (1903-1952) American comedian, the most popular of the Three Stooges.
• 1913 – 1952 John Garfield (1913-1952) American actor, a rebel hero of 1940s film whose career was cut short by the Hollywood blacklist.
• 1919 – 1952 Eva Peron (1919-1952) Died 26 July 1952, aged 33 Eva Peron, the influential First Lady of Argentina and wife of President Juan Peron, died of cervical cancer on 26 July 1952. Known as "Evita," she championed workers' rights and women's suffrage and was revered by much of the Argentine working class. Her body was embalmed and became the subject of a decades-long saga before permanent burial.
• 1952 – 2024 Bill Walton (1952-2024) Died 27 May 2024, aged 71 American basketball player considered one of the great all-round centres, and later a beloved broadcaster.
• 1952 Elizabeth II becomes queen Elizabeth II becomes queen Elizabeth II became queen on 6 February 1952 on the death of her father George VI, while she was in Kenya at the start of a Commonwealth tour. Her coronation the following June was the first to be televised. She reigned for seventy years, longer than any other British monarch.
• 1952 – 2023 Klaus Teuber (1952-2023) Died 1 April 2023, aged 70 German game designer who created Settlers of Catan, the board game that opened the hobby to a mass audience.
• 1952 Knorozov cracks the script Leningrad, Soviet Union Yuri Knorozov, working from a library copy of Landa and never having seen a Maya site, showed the glyphs recorded sounds, not just ideas. Western scholars dismissed him for years, partly because he was Soviet.
• 1952 Pakal's tomb is opened Palenque, Mexico Alberto Ruz Lhuillier followed a blocked stairway down through the Temple of the Inscriptions for four years and found an intact royal burial — the first proof that Maya pyramids could be tombs, as Egyptian ones were.
• 1952 – 2023 Paul Reubens (1952-2023) Died 30 July 2023, aged 70 American actor and comedian who created Pee-wee Herman.
• 1952 – 2024 Peter Westbrook (1952-2024) Died 29 November 2024, aged 72 American fencer, the first African American to win an Olympic medal in the sport.
• 1952 – 1954 Pettit leads the Southeastern Conference in scoring All three of his varsity seasons, ending at 31.4 points a game Freshmen could not play varsity then, so his college career was only three years long.
• 1952 – 2023 Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023) Died 28 March 2023, aged 71 Japanese composer and member of Yellow Magic Orchestra who won an Oscar for The Last Emperor and shaped electronic music worldwide.
• 1952 Second straight Finals loss The Knicks lose the NBA Finals to the Minneapolis Lakers, their second consecutive Finals defeat.
• 1952 The 1952 Olympics Helsinki Games An event that signaled Finlands recovery from the war and its re-entry into the international community.
• 1952 – 2021 bell hooks (1952-2021) Died 15 December 2021, aged 69 American writer and academic whose work on race, gender and class shaped a generation of feminist thought.
• 1952 – 2026 Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalifa Al Thani (1952-2026) Died 12 July 2026, aged 74 Emir of Qatar from 1995 to 2013, whose liberal reforms and gas exports transformed the country into the wealthiest per capita in the Gulf.
• 1952 Cairo Fire (Black Saturday) Riots destroy central Cairo's colonial-era buildings On 26 January 1952, rioters burned hundreds of buildings in central Cairo associated with foreign and upper-class interests, including hotels, cinemas and department stores. The unrest followed anger at British troops and the monarchy. It preceded the Free Officers' coup by six months and exposed the instability of Farouk's government.
• 1952 India holds its first general election Independent India's inaugural nationwide vote concludes India's first general election, the largest exercise of universal suffrage yet held anywhere, ran from October 1951 to February 1952 across the new republic. The Indian National Congress led by Jawaharlal Nehru won a decisive majority. The election established the electoral machinery for the world's largest democracy.
• 1952 Greece and Turkey join NATO Alliance expands into the eastern Mediterranean Greece and Turkey formally acceded to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on 18 February 1952, its first enlargement since the alliance's founding in 1949. The move extended NATO's southern flank against Soviet influence. Both countries had fought alongside UN forces in the Korean War.
• 1952 1952 World Snooker Championship The Split Year Fred Davis won the Professional Matchplay, recognized as the world title. Winner: Fred Davis; Runner-up: Walter Donaldson. Score: 38–35.
• 1952 Batista's coup in Cuba Fulgencio Batista seizes power before scheduled elections General Fulgencio Batista led a bloodless coup on 10 March 1952, ousting President Carlos Prio Socarras just months before elections he was expected to lose. Batista suspended the constitution and ruled as a dictator. His government's later corruption and repression helped fuel the Cuban Revolution.
• 1952 – 2001 Douglas Adams (1952-2001) Died 11 May 2001, aged 49 Adams wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which began as a BBC radio series in 1978 and became a bestselling series of comic science-fiction novels. He was also an early enthusiast for personal computers and an environmental campaigner. He died suddenly of a heart attack in California.
• 1952 Singin' in the Rain premieres Gene Kelly musical opens in New York The MGM musical Singin' in the Rain, starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor, premiered in New York on 11 April 1952. Though only modestly successful on release, it later came to be regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. Kelly's rain-soaked title number became one of cinema's most iconic scenes.
• 1952 De Havilland Comet enters commercial service World's first jet airliner begins scheduled flights BOAC's De Havilland Comet flew its first commercial jet passenger service from London to Johannesburg on 2 May 1952. It cut flight times dramatically compared to propeller aircraft. A series of fatal crashes caused by metal fatigue later grounded the fleet, but the Comet had opened the jet age of air travel.
• 1952 Jonas Salk begins testing polio vaccine First human trials of an inactivated poliovirus vaccine Jonas Salk began testing his experimental polio vaccine on children at the Watson Home for Crippled Children in Pittsburgh in 1952, during the worst US polio epidemic on record. The trials followed earlier tests on Salk himself and his family. Results paved the way for the large-scale field trials of 1954.
• 1952 – 2016 Pat Summitt (1952-2016) Died 28 June 2016, aged 64 Summitt was the head coach of the University of Tennessee women's basketball team for 38 seasons, winning eight national championships. She retired in 2012 after being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. She remains one of the most successful coaches in college basketball history.
• 1952 Cairns dies of cancer Oxford, United Kingdom He was 56, and had been warned for years that his workload would kill him. He did not live to see helmets made compulsory for civilian riders, the change his own research had argued for.
• 1952 1952 Summer Olympics XV Olympiad - Helsinki Most world records broken until 2008. Winner: USA.
• 1952 Egyptian Revolution of 1952 Free Officers Movement overthrows King Farouk Army officers led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in Cairo on 23 July 1952. King Farouk abdicated three days later and went into exile. The coup ended the Muhammad Ali dynasty and led to Egypt becoming a republic the following year.
• 1952 Puerto Rico becomes a US Commonwealth New constitution creates the Estado Libre Asociado Puerto Rico's constitution took effect on 25 July 1952, establishing it as a self-governing Commonwealth of the United States. Residents had approved the constitution by referendum earlier that year. The arrangement gave Puerto Rico local autonomy while it remained under US sovereignty.
• 1952 – present Nelson Piquet The Strategist Three-time World Champion known for his technical mind and blunt personality.
• 1952 – 2009 Patrick Swayze (1952-2009) Died 14 September 2009, aged 57 Swayze was an American actor who starred in the films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, both major box-office successes of the 1980s and 1990s. He continued to work in film and television after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2008. His death drew tributes from around the world.
• 1952 – 2002 Joe Strummer (1952-2002) Died 22 December 2002, aged 50 Joe Strummer was the singer, guitarist and co-songwriter of The Clash, the London punk band whose politically charged records included London Calling and Sandinista!. After the band split in the mid-1980s he worked on film soundtracks and acting before a late return to touring with the Mescaleros. He died suddenly of an undiagnosed heart defect.
• 1952 – present Jimmy Connors Jimbo Holds the record for most ATP singles titles (109) and matches won.
• 1952 – 2020 Rishi Kapoor (1952-2020) Died 30 April 2020, aged 67 Rishi Kapoor was a leading Bollywood actor from the noted Kapoor film dynasty, starring in over a hundred Hindi films across five decades. He died on 30 April 2020 following a two-year battle with leukemia.
• 1952 – 2020 Neil Peart (1952-2020) Died 7 January 2020, aged 67 Neil Peart was the drummer and primary lyricist of the Canadian rock band Rush, widely regarded as one of the greatest drummers in rock history. He died on 7 January 2020 after a three-year battle with brain cancer, kept private until his death was announced.
• 1952 Hank Williams records Your Cheatin' Heart Last session His final recording session.
• 1952 – 2004 Christopher Reeve (1952-2004) Died 10 October 2004, aged 52 Reeve rose to fame playing Superman in the 1978 film and its sequels. Paralyzed after a horse-riding accident in 1995, he became a prominent advocate for spinal cord injury research until his death from cardiac arrest.
• 1952 – present Salman Rushdie British-Indian novelist Rushdie writes magical realist fiction exploring identity, religion, and politics in global contexts.
• 1952 Operation Hurricane nuclear test United Kingdom becomes the third nuclear power Britain detonated its first atomic bomb aboard the frigate HMS Plym off the Monte Bello Islands, Australia, on 3 October 1952. The test made the UK the third country to possess nuclear weapons, after the United States and Soviet Union. It was conducted in secrecy under the Attlee-era weapons programme.
• 1952 – present Vladimir Putin Russia's dominant leader since 2000 Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born October 7, 1952) has been the dominant leader of Russia since 2000. A former KGB officer, he served as President 2000-2008, Prime Minister 2008-2012, and again as President from 2012 onwards. He launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
• 1952 Mau Mau Uprising Britain declares a state of emergency in Kenya Colonial authorities declared a state of emergency in Kenya on 20 October 1952 in response to the Mau Mau rebellion against British rule. The uprising, driven largely by Kikuyu grievances over land, triggered years of guerrilla warfare and mass detention. It became one of the most violent decolonization conflicts in the British Empire.
• 1952 Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb test United States detonates the first thermonuclear device The US tested Ivy Mike at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands on 1 November 1952, yielding about 10.4 megatons. It was the first successful test of a hydrogen bomb, vastly more powerful than the atomic bombs used in 1945. The blast vaporized the island of Elugelab.
• 1952 Dwight Eisenhower elected US president Republican war hero wins by landslide Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson in the US presidential election on 4 November 1952, ending twenty years of Democratic control of the White House. Eisenhower's running mate was Richard Nixon. The election was also notable for early television use of computer-based vote prediction.
• 1952 Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap opens Murder mystery begins its record-breaking West End run Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952. It went on to become the longest continuously running play in history. The identity of the murderer became one of theatre's most closely guarded secrets.
• 1952 Christine Jorgensen's transition becomes public American ex-GI's sex reassignment surgery makes headlines The New York Daily News broke the story on 1 December 1952 that former US Army soldier George Jorgensen had undergone sex reassignment surgery in Denmark and become Christine Jorgensen. The coverage made her the first widely publicized transgender person in the United States. It sparked national debate and made transgender identity visible in mainstream media for the first time.
• 1952 The Great Smog Clean Air Act A severe air pollution event that led to environmental regulation.