1949

**1949** (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday in the Gregorian calendar.

## 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).
- April 18 - Ireland Act 1949 comes into effect and ceased being in the British Commonwealth.
- 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 7 - Aderval Arvani, Brazilian volleyball player
- 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 24 - Jim Broadbent, English actor
- 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 –  Bill Nighy, British actor
- 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 Defence (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)

## 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