.

Events 
 January 5 – U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver introduces a law asking for the government to study crime in the U.S.
 January 9 – The Israeli government say's that the People's Republic of China is a country
 January 11 – Huk guerrillas attack the town of Hermosa in Bataan, Philippines.
 January 12 – British submarine Truculent crashes into a Swedish oil tanker in River Thames – 64 people died.
 January 13 – Finland is friendly with the People's Republic of China
 January 15 – Volcanic cloud kills 5000 in Mount Lamington, New Guinea
 January 17 – The Great Brinks Robbery – 11 thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car in Boston, Massachusetts
 January 23 – The Knesset passes an agreement that says Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
 January 24 – Cold War: Klaus Fuchs tells about his wartime espionage at Los Alamos to British interrogators – formally charged February 2
 January 28 – Somaliland is put under Italian rule
 January 29 – Lord Balfour disagrees with the fact that rationing is still in force in Britain
 January 31 – President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb
 January 31 – Last Kuomintang troops surrender in continental China
 June 5- The Korean War begins
 October 2 – Charles M. Schulz publishes the first Peanuts comic strip.

Births 
 January 3 – Victoria Principal, Japanese-American actress
 January 17 – Richard L. Anderson, American sound editor
 February 25 - Neil Jordan, Irish director
 March 20 - Carl Palmer, English drummer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
 March 27 - Tony Banks, English keyboardist (Genesis)
 April 5 - Agnetha Fältskog, Swedish singer-songwriter and musician (ABBA)
 April 12 – Maia Danziger, American actress
 April 12 - Larry Kemp, American sound editor
 May 9 - Tom Petersson, American bass guitarist (Cheap Trick)
 May 13 – Stevie Wonder, American musician
 May 13 - Danny Kirwan, English guitarist (Fleetwood Mac) (d. 2018)
 May 17 - Howard Ashman, American playwright and lyricist (d. 1991)
 May 22 – Bernie Taupin
 June 21 - Joey Kramer, American drummer (Aerosmith)
 July 28 - Tom Cotcher, Scottish actor
 September 10 - Joe Perry, American guitarist (Aerosmith)
 September 28 - John Sayles, American filmmaker
 October 1 – Randy Quaid, American actor
 October 2 - Mike Rutherford, English singer-songwriter and musician (Genesis)
 October 2 - Lucas Fuego, Slovak politician and doctor
 October 3 - John Curulewski, American guitarist (Styx) (d. 1988)
 October 31 – John Candy, Canadian actor (d. 1994)
 December 18 - Gillian Armstrong‏‎, Australian director
 December 29 - László-Braun Rátót, Hungarian politician of German ethnicity

Deaths 
 January 21 – George Orwell, English writer (b. 1903)
 April 7 - Walter Huston, Canadian actor (b. 1883)
 November 2 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer (b. 1856)
 December 30 – Arthur Davidson, American business man (b. 1881)
 June 22 – Lonnie Moon

Awards

Movies released 
 All About Eve
 Annie Get Your Gun
 Cinderella
 King Solomon's Mines
 Sunset Boulevard

 Hit songs 
 "A-Razz-A-Ma-Tazz" – Georgia Gibbs
 "All My Love (Bolero)" – Patti Page
 "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" – Al Jolson
 "Ballin' The Jack" – Georgia Gibbs
 "Ballin' The Jack" – Danny Kaye
 "Be My Love" – Mario Lanza
 "Bewitched" – Doris Day
 "Black Lace" – Frankie Laine
 "Boo-Hoo" – Guy Lombardo & The Lombardo Trio
 "A Bushel And A Peck" – Perry Como & Betty Hutton
 "Can Anyone Explain? (No, No, No!)" – The Ames Brothers
 "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy" – Red Foley
 "Cry Of The Wild Goose" – Frankie Laine
 "Daddy's Little Girl" – The Mills Brothers
 "Dear, Dear, Dear" – Frankie Laine
 "Dream A Little Dream Of Me" – Frankie Laine
 "A Dreamer's Holiday" – Buddy Clark & The Girlfriends
 "Enjoy Yourself" – Guy Lombardo (Kenny Gardner& The Lombardo Trio vocals)
 "Goodnight, Irene" – The Weavers with Gordon Jenkins
 "Harbor Lights" – Sammy Kaye
 "Here Comes Santa Claus" – Andrews Sisters
 "L'Hymne A L'Amour (Hymn To Love)" – Édith Piaf
 "I Can Dream, Can't I?" – The Andrews Sisters
 "I Love You For That" – Patti Page & Frankie Laine
 "I Wanna Be Loved" – The Andrews Sisters
 "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake" – Eileen Barton
 "I'm Moving On" – Hank Snow
 "It Isn't Fair" – Sammy Kaye (Don Cornell vocal)
 "Let's Go West Again" – Al Jolson
 "A Man Gets Awfully Lonesome" – Frankie Laine
 "Mona Lisa" – Nat King Cole
 "Music, Maestro, Please" – Frankie Laine
 "Music! Music! Music!" – Teresa Brewer
 "My Heart Cries For You" – Guy Mitchell
 "Nevertheless" – The Mills Brothers
 "No Other Love" – Jo Stafford
 "The Old Piano Roll Blues" Al Jolson & The Andrews Sisters
 "Patricia" – Perry Como
 "Play A Simple Melody" – Gary Crosby & Friend (Bing Crosby)
 "Rag Mop" – The Ames Brothers
 "Red Hot Mama" – Georgia Gibbs
 "The Roving Kind" – Guy Mitchell
 "Sentimental Me" – The Ames Brothers
 "Sleepy Ol' River" – Frankie Laine
 "Someday" – The Mills Brothers
 "Someday" – Vaughn Monroe
 "Sometime" – The Mariners
 "Stars & Stripes Forever" – Frankie Laine
 "Swingin' In A Hammock" – Guy Lombardo (Don Rodney & The Lombardo Trio vocals)
 "The Tennessee Waltz" – Patti Page
 "There's No Tomorrow" – Tony Martin
 "The Thing" – Phil Harris
 "The Third Man Theme" – Anton Karas
 "The Third Man Theme" – Guy Lombardo
 "With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming" – Patti Page

 New books 
 Across the River and Into the Trees – Ernest Hemingway
 The Adventurer – Mika Waltari
 Beetlecreek – William Demby
 Cabbagetown – Hugh Garner
 The Cardinal – Henry Morton Robinson
 The Child Who Never Grew – Pearl S. Buck
 The Disenchanted – Budd Schulberg
 The Door in the Wall – Marguerite de Angeli
 The Town and the City – Jack Kerouac
 Floodtide – Frank Yerby
 Florence Nightingale – Cecil Woodham-Smith
 The Grass Is Singing – Doris Lessing
 I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
 Joy Street – Frances Parkinson Keyes
 Jubilee Trail – Gwen Bristow
 Kon-Tiki – Thor Heyerdahl
 The Liberal Imagination – Lionel Trilling
 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
 The Little World of Don Camillo – Giovanni Guareschi
 The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
 Parade's End – Ford Madox Ford
 The Parasites – Daphne du Maurier
 Reading and Criticism – Raymond Williams
 Scenes from Provincial Life – William Cooper
 Star Money – Kathleen Winsor
 Summer In The Country – Edith Templeton
 La vida breve (A Brief Life) – Juan Carlos Onetti
 The Voyage of the Space Beagle – A. E. van Vogt
 The Wall'' – John Hersey