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Top Song(s)
• Vaughn Monroe - (Ghost) Riders in the Sky
• Gene Autry - Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Frankie Laine - Mule Train
• Evelyn Knight - A Little Bird Told Me
• Perry Como - Some Enchanted Evening
Top Film(s)
• The Third Man
• White Heat
• Late Spring
• Kind Hearts and Coronets
• Stray Dog
Best Selling Book(s)
• 1984 - George Orwell
• Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
• The Lottery and Other Stories - Shirley Jackson
• King Solomon's Ring - Konrad Lorenz
• Crooked House - Agatha Christie
Famous Deaths
• January 9 - Martin Grabmann, German Catholic priest, mediaevalist and historian
• February 12 – Hassan al-Banna, Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood
• March 7 – Bradbury Robinson, American who threw the first forward pass in American football history
• April 16 – Joseph Augustine Cushman, American geologist, paleontologist
• May 19 – Paul Schultze-Naumburg, German architect, painter, publicist and politician
• July 12 – Douglas Hyde, Irish academic, linguist and scholar, 1st President of Ireland
• August 16 - Margaret Mitchell, American writer (Gone With the Wind)
• September 13 - August Krogh, Danish zoophysiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize
• October 21 – Laura of Saint Catherine of Siena, Colombian Roman Catholic religious professed and saint
• November 4 - Walther von Bonstetten, Swiss Boy Scout Association founder
Medical/Medical/Science/Technology/Technology
• The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory in California, sees first light.
• Albert II, a rhesus monkey, becomes the first mammal in space.
• Radiocarbon dating technique discovered by Willard Libby at the University of Chicago.
• A group including Dorothy Hodgkin publish the three-dimensional molecular structure of penicillin.
• First Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, a self-report personality test, released.
• Manchester Mark 1 computer operable at the University of Manchester in England.
• Patomskiy crater in Siberia is discovered by Russian geologist Vadim Kolpakov.
• Herbert Butterfield publishes The Origins of Modern Medical/Science/Technology, 1300-1800.
• The use of lithium salts to control mania is rediscovered by Australian psychiatrist John Cade.
• First implant of intraocular lens, by Sir Harold Ridley
Political Events
• January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947.
• January 2 – Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
• January 5 – President Harry S. Truman unveils his Fair Deal program.
• January 20 – President Harry S. Truman begins his full term.
• February 17 – Chaim Weizmann begins his term as the first President of Israel.
• April 4 – The North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., creating the NATO defense alliance.
• August 5 – United States Department of State published The China White Paper as Department of State Publication 3573.
• August 10 – The National Military Establishment (formerly the Department of War) is renamed the Department of Defense.
• August 16 – Office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff created.
• September 15 – The Housing Act of 1949 is enacted.
National Events
• January 11 – Los Angeles, California, receives its first recorded snowfall.
• January 17 – The first Volkswagen Beetle to arrive in the United States, a 1948 model.
• March 28 - United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal resigns suddenly.
• April 13 – The 6.7 Olympia earthquake affected the Puget Sound region of western Washington.
• June 24 – The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, airs on NBC.
• June 29 – The last U.S. troops withdraw from South Korea.
• August 28 – The last 6 surviving veterans of the American Civil War meet in Indianapolis.
• September 23 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces that the Soviet Union has tested the atomic bomb.
• October 24 – The cornerstone of the Headquarters of the United Nations on Manhattan is laid.
• November 24 – The ski resort in Squaw Valley, California officially opens.
Worldwide Events
• March 1 – Indonesia seizes Yogyakarta from the Dutch.
• March 31 – The former British colony of Newfoundland joins Canada, as its 10th province.
• April 18 – The Republic of Ireland formally becomes a republic, and leaves the British Commonwealth.
• May 5 – The Council of Europe is founded, by the signing of the Treaty of London.
• July 11 – Pamir is the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, under sail alone.
• July 30 – Legal aid is introduced in England and Wales.
• August 29 - The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, RDS-1.
• September 7 – The Federal Republic of Germany is officially founded.
• November 7 – Oil is discovered beneath the Caspian Sea.
• December 15 – A typhoon strikes a fishing fleet off Korea, killing several thousand.