Events 
 January 20 – Harry S. Truman proposes Point Four program to help world's less developed areas.
 February 22 – Grady the Cow, a 1,200-pound cow gets stuck inside a silo on a farm in Yukon, Oklahoma and garners national media attention.
 April 4 – Twelve nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
 May 11 – Siam changes its name to Thailand.
 September 21 – The German Federal Republic (West Germany) established.
 October 1 – The founding of the People's Republic of China is announced by Mao Zedong.
 October 7 – The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) is established.
 December 27 – Indonesia's independence is recognised by the Netherlands.

Births 
 January 12 – Murakami Haruki, Japanese writer
 January 12 – Ottmar Hitzfeld, German football manager
 February 5 – Kurt Beck, German politician
 February 22 – Niki Lauda, Austrian racecar driver
 February 24 – John Belushi, American actor (d. 1982)
 March 28 - Kevin Lloyd, British actor (d. 1998)
 April 7 - Wells Kelly, American singer-songwriter and musician (Orleans) (d. 1984)
 April 11 – Bernd Eichinger, German movie producer
 April 19 – Joachim Sauer, husband of German chancellor Angela Merkel
 April 20 – Jessica Lange, American actress
 May 9 – Billy Joel, American singer
 May 13 – Zoe Wanamaker, actress
 May 23 – Alan Garcia, President of Peru (d. 2019)
 May 26 – Jeremy Corbyn, English politician
 June 6 – Robert Englund, American actor
 June 18 – Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Polish politician
 June 18 – Lech Kaczynski, President of Poland (d. 2010)
 June 20 – Lionel Richie, American singer and musician
 June 22 – Meryl Streep, American actress
 July 4 – Horst Seehofer, German politician
 July 17 - Geezer Butler, English bass guitarist (Black Sabbath)
 July 22 - Alan Menken, American pianist and theatre composer
 July 26 – Thaksin Shinawatra, Thai politician
 July 26 – Roger Taylor, British musician (Queen)
 August 1 – Kurmanbek Bakiyev, former President of Kyrgyzstan
 August 15 – Ivan Boldirev, Russian ice hockey player
 August 20 - Phil Lynott, Irish bass guitarist (Thin Lizzy) (d. 1986)
 August 25 - Gene Simmons, American singer-songwriter and musician (Kiss)
 August 31 – Richard Gere, American actor
 September 9 – Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia
 September 13 - Dennis Pendrith, Canadian bass player
 September 19 – Twiggy, British model
 September 23 – Bruce Springsteen, American singer and musician
 October 3 - Lindsey Buckingham, American guitarist (Fleetwood Mac)
 October 4 - Armand Assante, American actor
 October 8 – Sigourney Weaver, American actress
 October 9 - Bob Leinbach, American singer-songwriter and musician (Orleans)
 October 13 - Rick Vito, American guitarist (Fleetwood Mac)
 October 21 – Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli politician
 October 25 - Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., American voice actor
 November 14 - James "J.Y." Young, American guitarist (Styx)
 December 1 – Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord (d. 1993)
 December 12 – Marc Ravalomanana, former President of Madagascar
 December 21 – Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso (d. 1987)
 December 22 – Maurice Gibb, singer (Bee Gees) (d. 2003)
 December 22 – Robin Gibb, singer (Bee Gees) (d. 2012)
 December 25 – Sissy Spacek, American actress
 December 26 – Jose Ramos Horta, President of East Timor

Deaths 
 January 6 – Victor Fleming, American director (b. 1883)
 January 11 – Nelson Doubleday, American publisher (b. 1889)
 January 14 – Joaquín Turina, Spanish composer (b. 1882)
 January 28 – Jean-Pierre Wimille, French race car driver (b. 1908)
 February 12 – Imam Hassan al Banna, Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (b. 1906)
 March 30 – Friedrich Bergius, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1884)
 April 19 – Ulrich Salchow, Swedish figure skater (b. 1877)
 May 6 – Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1862)
 May 9 – Louis II, Prince of Monaco (b. 1870)
 May 22 – James Forrestal, U.S. Secretary of Navy and Defense (suicide) (b. 1892)
 May 22 – Klaus Mann, German writer (suicide) (b. 1906)
 June 10 – Sigrid Undset, Norwegian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1882)
 June 14 – Russell Doubleday, American writer and publisher (b. 1872)
 July 9 – Fritz Bennicke Hart, English-born composer (b. 1874)
 July 12 – Douglas Hyde, first President of Ireland (b. 1860)
 July 18 – Vítězslav Novák, Czech composer (b. 1870)
 August 18 – Paul Mares, American musician (b. 1900)
 August 30 – Arthur Fielder, English cricketer (b. 1877)
 September 8 – Richard Strauss, German composer (b. 1864)
 September 13 – August Krogh, Danish zoophysiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1874)
 September 19 – Will Cuppy, American humorist (b. 1884)
 September 19 – Nikolaos Skalkottas, Greek composer (b. 1901)
 October 27 – Marcel Cerdan, French boxer (plane crash) (b. 1916)
 October 27 – Ginette Neveu, French violinist (plane crash) (b. 1919)
 December 6 – Leadbelly, American musician (b. 1885)
 December 11 – Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya, Indian philosopher (b. 1875)
 December 16 – Sidney Olcott, Canadian movie director (b. 1873)
 December 28 – Hervey Allen, American writer (b. 1889)
 December 28 – Jack Lovelock, New Zealand athlete (b. 1910)

Awards

Movies released 
 Adam's Rib
 Kind Hearts and Coronets
 Samson and Delilah
 The Third Man

New Books 
 The Aleph – Jorge Luis Borges
 Alien Land – Willard W. Savoy
 The Angry Wife – Pearl S. Buck
 Beneath The Sky – Alfred Q. Jarrette
 Beyond Earth's Gates – C. L. Moore
 Bright Leaf – Foster Fitzsimmons
 Cannibal – John Hawkes
 Crooked House – Agatha Christie
 The Dream Merchants – Harold Robbins
 The Egyptian – Mika Waltari
 Father of the Bride – Edward Streeter
 The Golden Sequence – Martha E. Von Almedingen
 The Heat of the Day – Elixabeth Bowen
 King of the Wind – Marguerite Henry
 Let Love Come Last – Taylor Caldwell
 Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
 Male and Female – Margaret Mead
 The Man with the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
 Men of Maize – Miguel Angel Asturias
 The Miracles of the Red Altar Cloth – Hermann L. Hunter
 Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
 Pride's Castle – Frank Yerby
 A Rage To Live – John O'Hara
 The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvoir
 To Hell and Back – Audie Murphy
 Shane – Jack Schaefer
 The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
 The Trial – Franz Kafka
 Trouble with Harry – Jack Story