50 Fun Facts About 1949

Which military alliance was born when twelve nations signed a treaty in Washington, D.C., in April 1949?

NATO rests on Article 5, which treats an armed attack on one member as an attack on them all. The clause was never invoked during the Cold War it was written for.

Which Communist leader proclaimed the People's Republic of China from Beijing's Tiananmen Gate in October 1949?

Mao Zedong made the announcement at exactly three in the afternoon on 1 October, a date China has marked as its National Day ever since.

Which dystopian novel, published in June 1949, gave the world Big Brother and the Thought Police?

Nineteen Eighty-Four was the ninth and final book its author completed. Its vocabulary outlived him: doublethink, Newspeak and thoughtcrime all come from its pages.

Which speedy Looney Tunes bird made its debut opposite Wile E. Coyote in the 1949 short Fast and Furry-ous?

Road Runner and his hungry pursuer were dreamed up by director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese as a parody of chase cartoons such as Tom and Jerry.

Which singing cowboy took 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' to number one in the US at Christmas 1949?

Gene Autry first rejected the song, but his wife convinced him to record it. Suggested only as a B-side, it went on to become the first chart-topper of the 1950s.

Which country secretly exploded its first atomic bomb in August 1949, four years after the United States?

The USSR based the device on America's Fat Man bomb, and the United States code-named the test Joe-1 after Joseph Stalin.

Which name for the birth of the universe did astronomer Fred Hoyle coin on BBC radio in March 1949?

Big Bang was Hoyle's label for a theory he rejected. He spent his career defending a rival steady-state model, until mounting evidence won most cosmologists over to the idea he had named.

Which word was cut from the end of the Hollywood Sign in 1949, having advertised a housing development since 1923?

Land completed the original 'HOLLYWOODLAND', put up as a temporary advert for a local real-estate development and left standing as its fame grew.

Which kind of animal was Albert II, the first mammal in space, launched on a V-2 rocket in June 1949?

A monkey beat every dog and human there: Albert II, a rhesus macaque, flew from White Sands, New Mexico, but died when his capsule's parachute failed on the way down.

Which item of clothing was first presented to a Masters golf champion in 1949, when Sam Snead won at Augusta?

The green jacket was then handed out retroactively to every earlier champion. Snead also won that year's PGA Championship, the first golfer to take both titles in one calendar year.

Which New Jersey rocker, nicknamed the Boss, was born in the shore town of Long Branch in September 1949?

Bruce Springsteen grew up in nearby Freehold, where his mother rented him a guitar for six dollars a week. The E Street Band has backed him since 1972.

Which actress, born in Summit, New Jersey, in June 1949, has earned more Oscar acting nominations than anyone else?

Meryl Streep earned the first of those nominations for The Deer Hunter, only a year after making her film debut in Julia.

Which singer-songwriter, nicknamed the Piano Man after his 1973 signature song, was born in the Bronx in May 1949?

Billy Joel moved to Hicksville on Long Island at the age of one, and began taking piano lessons there at his mother's insistence.

Which Commodores singer, writer of the hits 'Easy' and 'Sail On', was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in June 1949?

Lionel Richie grew up on the campus of Tuskegee Institute and later attended it on a tennis scholarship, graduating in economics before music took over.

Which Alien star, born in October 1949, took her first name from a minor character in The Great Gatsby?

Sigourney Weaver was born Susan and adopted the new name at 14. Her breakthrough as Ellen Ripley came two years after a minor role in Annie Hall.

Which heavyweight boxer, born in Marshall, Texas, in January 1949, later put his name to a best-selling kitchen grill?

George Foreman regained the heavyweight title at 45, the oldest man ever to win it, and later sold the commercial rights to his grill for $138 million.

Which original Saturday Night Live cast member, a star of Animal House, was born in Chicago in January 1949?

John Belushi was the son of an Albanian immigrant who ran a restaurant on Chicago's North Avenue, and he learned his trade at the city's Second City comedy club.

Which Kiss bassist, known on stage as the Demon, was born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel, in August 1949?

Gene Simmons was the son of Jewish refugees from Hungary, and moved to Queens, New York, with his mother at the age of eight.

Which London model, born Lesley Hornby in September 1949, was named the Face of 1966 by the Daily Express?

Twiggy grew up in Neasden, the daughter of a carpenter, and within a year of that headline her fame had spread to France, Japan and the United States.

Which Austrian racing driver, born in February 1949, returned to Formula One six weeks after a fiery 1976 crash?

Niki Lauda was badly burned when his car caught fire at the Nürburgring, yet he raced again at the Italian Grand Prix and lost that year's title by a single point.

Which Gone with the Wind author died in August 1949 after a speeding car hit her on Atlanta's Peachtree Street?

Margaret Mitchell was walking to the cinema with her husband when an off-duty taxi driver struck her. The Civil War epic was the only novel she published in her lifetime.

Which playwright's Death of a Salesman opened on Broadway in February 1949 and won that year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama?

Arthur Miller's tragedy of the worn-out traveller Willy Loman ran for 742 performances and also took the Tony Award for Best Play.

Which Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, based on James Michener's wartime stories, premiered on Broadway in 1949?

South Pacific was written to carry a strong progressive message on racism as well as to make money. It ran for 1,925 performances and won a Pulitzer of its own.

In which occupied European capital is the 1949 thriller The Third Man set, with Orson Welles as racketeer Harry Lime?

Vienna was filmed as it stood, with six weeks of location shooting among its ruins and sewers. Anton Karas, an unknown local musician, wrote a theme that topped charts worldwide.

Which sportswear company did Bavarian shoemaker Adolf Dassler register in August 1949 after a rift with his brother?

Adidas joins its founder's nickname, Adi, to the start of his surname. His brother Rudolf answered with a rival firm in the same town, first called Ruda and later Puma.

Which sports league was created in August 1949 by a merger of the rival BAA and NBL?

The NBA exists because several teams were in financial trouble, which pushed the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League to join forces.

Which heavyweight boxer, nicknamed the Brown Bomber, gave up his world title in 1949 after a reign begun in 1937?

Joe Louis held the championship longer than any other heavyweight. His retirement proved temporary: a comeback failed, and Rocky Marciano knocked him out in 1951.

Which Brooklyn Dodgers second baseman was voted the National League's Most Valuable Player for 1949?

Jackie Robinson was the first Black player to win the award, in a season when he lifted his batting average from .296 to .342.

Which country formally became a republic on Easter Monday in April 1949, ending the British monarch's last role there?

Ireland chose the day with care: it was the 33rd anniversary of the start of the Easter Rising against British rule.

Which former British dominion became Canada's tenth province at midnight on 31 March 1949?

Newfoundland remains the most recent province to join Canada. Its mainland region had to wait until 2001 to be added to the official name, Newfoundland and Labrador.

To which island did Chiang Kai-shek's defeated Nationalist government retreat from mainland China in December 1949?

Taiwan received far more than refugees and troops: the fleeing Nationalists also carried off China's gold, silver and dollar reserves.

Which city, the birthplace of Beethoven, was chosen in 1949 as provisional capital of the new West German state?

Bonn was picked ahead of Frankfurt and held the title until 1990. Even after reunification it stayed the seat of government until 1999.

Which Asian nation won Dutch recognition of its sovereignty at the end of 1949, after a four-year independence struggle?

Indonesia had declared independence in 1945. The Netherlands gave way only after the United States threatened to cut off the aid that was paying for Dutch post-war rebuilding.

Which brain operation won Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz a share of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine?

Lobotomy, which Moniz called leucotomy, enjoyed only a brief vogue as a treatment for psychosis, yet it made him the first Portuguese national to receive a Nobel Prize.

Which name did President Harry Truman's domestic programme take from his State of the Union address of January 1949?

Fair Deal echoed a line in the speech, where Truman told Congress that every individual had a right to expect one from his government. A housing act for 810,000 low-income homes followed.

Which term did Billboard begin using on its chart listings in June 1949 in place of 'race music'?

Rhythm and Blues is credited to Jerry Wexler, then a writer at the magazine. The name lasted on the chart until 1969, when the listing was renamed for soul.

Which police drama, created by Jack Webb and starring him as Joe Friday, began on NBC radio in 1949?

Dragnet followed Los Angeles detectives doing by-the-book police work. It stayed on radio until 1957 while a television version, launched in 1951, ran alongside it.

Which Western hero's television series began on ABC in 1949, with Clayton Moore in the starring role?

The Lone Ranger gave the network its first true hit. Jay Silverheels, a Mohawk actor from Canada, rode beside him as his companion Tonto.

Which entertainment awards were first presented in January 1949, at a ceremony in the Hollywood Athletic Club?

The Emmys began as a strictly local affair: only shows produced in Los Angeles County and aired in the Los Angeles market were eligible to win.

Which Hollywood star of the film Gilda married Prince Aly Khan in May 1949, at the height of her fame?

Rita Hayworth walked away from her film career for the marriage. Her husband was a son of the Aga Khan, leader of the Ismaili community of Shia Islam.

In which Latin American capital did a 1949 radio staging of The War of the Worlds end with the station attacked?

Quito reportedly panicked at the Spanish-language broadcast, and hundreds of people then attacked the station and the newspaper that owned it. It stayed off the air until 1951.

Which Italian football club lost its entire first team when their plane hit the Superga hill in May 1949?

Torino, then celebrated as the Grande Torino, supplied most of Italy's national side. Flying home from Lisbon, the airliner struck the wall behind a hilltop basilica.

Which British aircraft, the world's first commercial jet airliner, made its maiden flight from Hatfield in July 1949?

The De Havilland Comet stayed up for 31 minutes that day. Its head start was wasted: the early fleet was later grounded and its certificate of airworthiness revoked.

Which US Air Force B-50 bomber made the first non-stop flight around the world in 1949, refuelling in mid-air?

Lucky Lady II stayed aloft for 94 hours and one minute, took on fuel from tanker aircraft four times, and landed two minutes ahead of its estimated arrival.

Which record company launched the seven-inch 45 rpm single in March 1949 as a sturdier replacement for 78s?

RCA Victor picked the speed so that a seven-inch disc could play for five and a half minutes. The first singles carried a song on each side.

Which Italian cyclist won both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in 1949, the first rider to manage the double?

Fausto Coppi repeated the double in 1952. He had taken his first Giro back in 1940, when he was only 20 years old.

Which 1949 film about a ruthless Southern politician, based on a Robert Penn Warren novel, won the Best Picture Oscar?

All the King's Men patterned its antihero Willie Stark on Louisiana governor Huey Long, and Broderick Crawford won Best Actor for playing him.

Which actor played eight members of the D'Ascoyne family in the 1949 Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets?

Alec Guinness played every relative standing between the hero and a dukedom. The studio's boss had at first refused to make a comedy about eight murders.

Which French philosopher published The Second Sex in 1949, a study of women that the Vatican placed on its banned list?

Simone de Beauvoir researched and wrote the book in about 14 months, and published it in two volumes, Facts and Myths and Lived Experience.

Which novelist, creator of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature?

William Faulkner based the county on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life. He is the only Nobel laureate born in that state.