The following events occurred in April 1950:
April 1, 1950 (Saturday) The 1950 United States census was taken. After seven months of tabulation, the population on that day was announced to have been 150,697,361."U.S. Population Hists Total Of 150,697,361", St. Petersburg (FL) Evening Independent, November 2, 1950, p1 The population sixty years later (April 1, 2010) would be more than doubled, at 308,745,538."U.S. Census Bureau Announces 2010 Census Population Counts — Apportionment Counts Delivered to President" , Census.gov Owen Lattimore, who had been stationed in Afghanistan when Senator Joe McCarthy accused him of being a Soviet agent within the U.S. State Department, returned to the United States to confront the charges."Lattimore Back, Denies He's Red", Miami Daily News, April 1, 1950, p1 Theodore Donay, a German-born American who had previously been convicted of treason for helping a German bomber pilot escape during World War II, vanished while under investigation by the FBI. Donay rented a motorboat at California's Santa Catalina Island, then abandoned it. Hours later, a foreign submarine was sighted off of Point Arguello. Officials learned that Donay had killed himself, finding a suicide note."Traitor Vanishes As Sub Is Sighted Off California", Miami Daily News, April 3, 1950, p1 Cambridge defeated Oxford in the 96th Boat Race. Born: Samuel Alito, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court since 2006, in Trenton, New Jersey Died: Charles R. Drew, 45, African-American surgeon, who pioneered preservation techniques for use in blood banks, following an automobile accident."Prominent Negro Surgeon Is Killed When Car Wrecked Near Haw River", Burlington (NC) Daily Times News, April 1, 1950, p9 An urban legend arose that Drew, whose work had saved so many lives, died because he was turned away from the nearest hospital because of his race. In reality, Drew and the other three passengers in his car were taken to the Alamance General Hospital in Burlington, North Carolina, but physicians were unable to save him.Gail B. Stewart, Urban Legends (ReferencePoint Press, 2012) pp14-16 F.O. Matthiessen, 48, American historian and literary critic, jumped to his death from the 12th story of a Boston hotel."Harvard Professor Dies In 12-Story Hotel Leap", Miami Daily News, April 1, 1950, p1
April 2, 1950 (Sunday)
Pakistan's Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan arrived in Delhi as the guest of India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the first summit meeting between the two since the partition of British India into predominantly Muslim Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India. The meeting came in the wake of anti-Hindu violence in Pakistan and anti-Muslim violence in India, and would result in a pact between the two leaders to punish anti-religious violence against religious minorities.Srinath Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) p184 Born: Melba Boyd, African American poet, in Detroit. Died: Jean George Auriol, 43, French film critic and screenwriter, was killed in an automobile accident Recep Peker, 61, Prime Minister of Turkey 1946–1947
April 3, 1950 (Monday) The standard ratio for the dimensions of television receivers was set at 4:3 (with the length of the screen being 4/3 of the height) after originally having been 5:4, and that would remain the standard for nearly half a century. With the advent of digital television, the ratio would be changed to the wider 16:9 dimensions.Peter Ward, Picture Composition for Film and Television (Taylor & Francis US, 2012) pp97-98 Worlds in Collision, by Immanuel Velikovsky, was published for the first time, as a book by Macmillan Publishing.Harold I. Brown, Perception, Theory, and Commitment: The New Philosophy of Science (University of Chicago Press, 1993) p188 Born: Sally Thomsett, English actress, in Sussex David Fulmer, American author, in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Died: Kurt Weill, 50, German-born composer Carter G. Woodson, 74, African-American educator referred to as "The Father of Black History"
April 4, 1950 (Tuesday) A Gallup Poll was released showing that 37 percent of the Republicans surveyed were in favor of former General and World War II hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to be the party's nominee in the 1952 U.S. presidential election, compared to 17% for Robert A. Taft, 15% for Thomas E. Dewey, and 12% for Harold Stassen. In addition, 33 percent of independent voters said that they would vote for Eisenhower if he ran in 1952, a better showing than any potential Republican nominee had had in more than 20 years.Michael Bowen, Roots of Modern Conservatism: Dewey, Taft, and the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party (University of North Carolina Press, 2011) The United States Navy issued a statement that it had seen evidence of "two or three probable foreign subs" off of Cape Mendocino in northern California, responding to reports of sightings of what were believed to be Soviet submarines in American territorial waters."Foreign Subs Are Prowling Off California, Navy Indicates", Miami Daily News, April 4, 1950, p1 The United Nations Trusteeship Council passed the "Statute on Jerusalem, declaring that the city should be considered international territory and a demilitarized zone. Neither Israel, which had control of West Jerusalem, or Jordan, which had East Jerusalem, agreed to let the United Nations send forces into the Holy City.Howard Grief, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International Law: A Treatise on Jewish Sovereignty Over the Land of Israel (Mazo Publishers, 2008) pp258-259 Born: Christine Lahti, American actress (Chicago Hope), in Birmingham, Michigan Charles Bernstein, American poet, in New York City
April 5, 1950 (Wednesday) In what has been described as "[a]rguably the most famous dinner party in the annals of twentieth-century science", American physicist James Van Allen hosted a group of scientists in honor of visiting British geophysicist Sydney Chapman. At the gathering, Lloyd Berkner proposed a worldwide series of atmospheric observations starting seven years in the future, in 1957, a concept that was endorsed by the persons present and which would become the International Geophysical Year. Born: Agnetha Fältskog, Swedish pop musician and songwriter (ABBA); in Jönköping Harpo, Swedish pop musician, as Jan Harpo Svensson; in Bandhagen Louise Dolan, American physicist and superstring theoretician; in Wilmington, Delaware Franklin Chang-Díaz, Costa Rican native and American astronaut; in San José Died: Charles Binaggio, Kansas City crime boss and political leader, in a "gangland execution"
April 6, 1950 (Thursday) A train fell off of a bridge at Tanguá in Brazil, killing 110 people, mostly persons who were on a vacation trip during the Easter holiday. The Leopoldina Railway train had left Rio de Janeiro and was on its way to Vitória when the locomotive and the first five cars derailed and plunged into a flood-swollen river below."Apr 6, 1950: Train falls off bridge in Brazil", "This Day in History", www.history.com In Great Britain, any person born on or after April 6, 1950, and who qualifies for a UK State Pension at age 65, may have their civil partner draw a pension as well.Frances Kay, The Good Non Retirement Guide 2012: Everything You Need to Know About Health, Property, Investment, Leisure, Work (Kogan Page Publishers, 2012) p30 Dr. Charles P. Bailey, an American heart surgeon in Philadelphia, made the first successful human test of an instrument to dilate the aortic valve.Harris B. Shumacker, Jr., The Evolution of Cardiac Surgery (Indiana University Press, 1992) p119
April 7, 1950 (Friday)
NSC 68, authored by Paul Nitze and entitled "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security", was issued by U.S. President Truman's National Security Council. The document, classified top secret until February 27, 1975, guided American foreign policy during the Truman years.Curt Cardwell, NSC 68 and the Political Economy of the Early Cold War (Cambridge University Press, 2011) p10 Describing the "essential purpose of the United States" as being "to assure the integrity and vitality of our free society", and the "fundamental design of the Kremlin" as "the complete subversion or forcible destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society in the countries of the non-Soviet world", NSC68 concluded that "we must, by means of a rapid and sustained build-up of the political, economic and military strength of the free world... frustrate the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will."
The Soviet Union instituted a new five member executive council known as the Bureau of the Presidium consisting of Premier Josef Stalin, First Deputy Nikolai Bulganin, and Deputies Lavrentiy Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich. Georgy Malenkov was added a week later to the group.;Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk, Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945–1953 (Oxford University Press, 2004) p106; Uri Ra'anan, Flawed Succession: Russia's Power Transfer Crises (Lexington Books, 2006) p7 Died: Walter Huston, 67, Canadian-born American film actor
April 8, 1950 (Saturday) In the first shootdown of an American military aircraft by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, two Soviet Lavochkin La-11 fighters intercepted and downed a U.S. Navy PB4Y-2 Privateer surveillance plane that was flying over or near the Latvian SSR with ten men on board, the first of over 350 American servicemen lost in Cold War missions.L. Parker Temle, Shades Of Gray: National Security And The Evolution Of Space Reconnaissance (AIAA, 2005) p27"U.S., RED PLANES BATTLED OVER LATVIA, SAYS RUSSIA", Miami Daily News, April 11, 1950, p1; "U.S. Charges Russians Shot Down Plane Over Open Waters of Baltic", Milwaukee Journal, April 19, 1950"The Privateer's lost crew", by Sean Chase, The Daily Observer (Pembroke, ON), April 9, 2008 Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed the first photograph demonstrating the appearance of an atom, using x-rays to simulate a pattern of iron and sulphur atoms, within the mineral marcasite, magnified more than 10,000,000 times."Scientists Display 'Atom Photograph'", Miami Sunday News, April 9, 1950, p1 Born: Grzegorz Lato, Polish soccer football star, in Malbork Died: Vaslav Nijinsky, 61, Russian ballet dancer and choreographer
April 9, 1950 (Sunday) Biochemists Thomas H. Jukes and Robert Stokstad of Lederle Laboratories announced their accidental discovery of the increased production that resulted from antibiotics mixed into animal feed. Mixing an antibiotic into feed at 1 part per 400 (five pounds into one ton) increased the growth rate in piglets by 50 percent, and at a lesser rate in chicks and calves, leading to a practice that would become widespread in animal husbandry.Jessica Snyder Sachs, Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World (Macmillan, 2008) The "Notre-Dame Affair" took place during nationally televised Easter High Mass services at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, when members of the Lettrism movement chose a quiet moment for Michel Mourre to deliver a "blasphemous anti-sermon" that ended with "We proclaim the death of the Christ-God, so that Man may live at last." The church organist began playing music as loudly as possible to drown out the speech after Mourre had declared, "En vérité je vous le dis: Dieu est mort" ("Verily, I say unto you: God is dead")Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century (Harvard University Press, 1990) p279 Born: Pierre Gagnaire, French chef and restauranteur; in Apinac, Loire département
April 10, 1950 (Monday)