| 1950 USSR and China Sign a Thirty Year Pact Mao Tse-Tung signed a 30-year Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union. The treaty was one of alliance and mutual assistance. A series of economic agreements followed. |
1950 North Korea Invades the South The Korean War began with an attack made by North Korean forces across the 38th parallel dividing North and South Korea. The attack took place on June 24, 1950, and was a complete surprise to the American administration. It was feared that this attack heralded the beginning of World War III.
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| 1950 Aramco Gives Half Oil Income Saudi Arabia and Arabian-American Oil Company reached an agreement under which the government was to receive 50% of the income from oil. |
| 1950 Truman Announces National Emergency To respond to the strain on economic and military resources caused by the Korean War, President Truman announced a National Emergency. This gave him broad economic powers. |
| 1950 Super Contellation Tested Lockheed unveiled its new "Super Constellation" on October 13. The "Super Constellation" was a stretched version of the C-69. The Tourist Class section grew from 69 to 92. |
| 1951 Peace Treaty between Japan and Allies A peace treaty was signed between Japan and all the belligerents, with the exception of the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Under the terms of the treaty, Japan was forced to give up all its overseas territory. |
| 1951 King Abdulah assassinated King Abdullah of Jordan (formerly Transjordan) was assassinated while praying at the Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem. Abdullah had been engaging in secret negotiations with Israel and was killed by a Palestinian extremist. Abdullah was succeeded by his son Emir Talal, who was later declared mentally ill. His son, Crown Prince Ibn Talal Hussein, took over, and ruled Jordan until his death in 1999. |
| 1951 H- Bomb On May 12, the United States detonated a hydrogen bomb on an island in the Pacific. The hydrogen bomb is many times more powerful than an atomic bomb. The Russian development of an A–bomb convinced the US to proceed with development of the H–bomb. |
| 1951 First Electronic Computer The Remington Rand Corporation unveiled the first commercial digital computer, called the "UNIVAC" (Universal Automatic Computer). The "UNIVAC" followed the experimental "ENIAC," which had been developed in 1945. The first "UNIVAC" was sold to the Census Bureau. |
| 1951 Color TV Introduced CBS introduced the first color television broadcast. The broadcast took place in 5 American cities, and CBS began producing two and a half hours a day. |
| 1951 US Airforce Orders B- 52 Bomber The US Airforce ordered production models of the B-52 Bomber from Boeing. The B-52 was set to replace the B-36 Bomber. It has eight engines and a total bomb load of 50,000 pounds. The B-52 can fly non-stop for a total of 15,000 miles. |
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| 1949 NATO Founded -(4/4/49) The Berlin Blockade provided compelling evidence that, in order to deter the Soviets from further aggression, an alliance was necessary between nations of Western Europe and the United States. On April 4, 1949, the foreign ministers of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United States formally signed the North Atlantic Treaty. The key paragraph was Article 5. It stated that "an armed attack against one or more of the European signatories or the North American signatories would be considered an attack against all of them." |
| 1949 Ireland Becomes Independent - (4/18/49) The Republic of Ireland proclaimed its complete independence from Britain, and left the Commonwealth of Nations. |
| 1949 Federal Republic of Germany Created - (5/21/49) The zones of Germany occupied by the US, Great Britain and France were transformed into the Federal Republic of Germany. A new constitution was adopted, and elections were held. The Christian Democratic Party and its ally, the Christian Socialist Party, won a plurality in the first election. Konrad Adenauer became the first Chancellor. |
| 1949 "Comet"- First Commercial Jet Unveiled -(7/27/49) On July 27, De Havilland unveiled the DH-106 Comet aircraft. The plane was a 36-passenger jet aircraft. Its cruising speed was 490 mph. The Comet's service was to be cut short after a number of them crashed in the late 1950's. |
| 1949 Soviets Detonate A-Bomb -(9/23/49) America's monopoly on atomic weapons ended when President Truman announced, on September 23, that the Soviets had successfully detonated an atomic bomb. As a result, the nuclear arms race, that was to last until 1990, was born. |
| 1949 Communist Victory in China- (10/1/49) The Nationalist Army essentially disintegrated after the fall of Tientsin and Peking. By July, the Nationalists announced that they would begin to withdraw to Taiwan. On October 1st, the People's Republic of China was officially proclaimed, with Peking as its capital. |
| 1949 Stratocruiser Goes into Service -The Boeing "Stratocruiser" made its commercial debut on April 1, 1949, when Pan Am began using it on its service between San Francisco and Honolulu. |
| 1949 Non-Stop Around The World Flight - A US Army Boeing 50-A made a flight around the world. It flew for a total of 94 hours and one minute. It was refueled in the air four times. The plane carried its full crew of 13. |
