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)

## 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