1950

**1950** (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday in the Gregorian calendar.

## 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 10 - Emeric-László Kiss, Hungarian Musician
- 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 19 - Ann Wilson, American singer (Heart)
- 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 25 - David Kaye, former American rabbi and convicted sex offender
- 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

## 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