1951

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Years: 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 - 1951 - 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956

• January 4 - Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul.
• January 9 - United Nations headquarters officially opens (New York City).
• January 15 - Ilse Koch[?], The "Witch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany .
• January 27 - Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flats.
• February 27 - The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.
• March 6 - The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins.
• March 7 - Korean War: Operation Ripper[?] - In Korea, United Nations troops led by General Matthew Ridgeway[?] begin an assault against Chinese forces.
• March 12 - The Dennis the Menace comic strip appears in newspapers across the country for the first time.
• March 14 - Korean War: For the second time, United Nations troops recapture Seoul.
• March 29 - Red Scare: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. On April 5 they are sentenced to receive the death penalty.
• March 30 - Remington Rand[?] delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
• April 1 - Australia, New Zealand, United States security treaty signed in San Francisco.
• April 18 - Treaty of Paris (1951) adopted, establishing European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC); see EU.
• July 5 - William Shockley invents the junction transistor.
• September 8 - Signing of the Treaty of San Francisco.
• September 10 - Great Britain begins an economic boycott of Iran
• December 24 - Libya becomes independent from Italy
• A fourth, and final, forest fire starts in the Tillamook Burn[?]; but unlike earlier fires this one only burns 32,700 acres, and within acreage already affected by the earlier fires.

Art, Culture & Fashion

• 1951 in film
  • An American in Paris
  • The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn
  • A Streetcar Named Desire
  • Flying Leathernecks starring John Wayne
• 1951 in literature
• 1951 in music
  • The release of "Rocket 88", a song by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats. Some music historians consider this record to be the first rock and roll recording.
• 1951 in sports
• 1951 in television
  • January 3 - Dragnet airs on television for the first time (NBC).
  • May 28 - The U. S. Supreme Court upholds the FCC's approval of the CBS color television system
  • June 25 ? CBS presents its first commercial color telecast with Arthur Godfrey[?], Ed Sullivan, and Faye Emerson[?].
  • June - RCA demonstrates its new electronic color system.
  • August 11 - The first baseball games televised in color, a double-header between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves
  • September 4 - The first coast-to-coast TV broadcast, featuring President Truman.
  • September 22 - The first live sporting event seen coast-to-coast, a college football game between Duke and the University of Pittsburgh, is televised on NBC.
  • October 3 - The first live coast-to-coast network telecast of a World Series game
  • October 15 - I Love Lucy debuts on CBS.
  • December 24 - The first televised opera written for television, Amahl and the Night Visitor, airs on NBC.
  • Ernie Kovacs' Time for Ernie and Ernie in Kovacsland television shows premiere. Kovacs pushes the limits of television technology with his use of camera tricks and special effects.

Births

• January 6 - Kim Wilson[?], rock musician
• January 12 - Rush Limbaugh, radio personality
• January 30 - Phil Collins, musician
• February 6 - Princess Daphné of Belgium[?]
• February 15 - Melissa Manchester, singer
• February 15 - Jane Seymour, actress
• February 20 - Gordon Brown, British politician
• March 4 - Kenny Dalglish footballer and football manager
• March 4 - Chris Rea[?], British singer and musician
• March 17 - Kurt Russell, actor
• March 24 - Tommy Hilfiger[?], fashion designer
• April 7 - Janis Ian, singer and songwriter
• April 29 - Dale Earnhardt, stock car racer (NASCAR)
• May 15 - Jonathan Richman, musician
• May 23 - Anatoly Karpov, chess world champion
• May 26 - Sally Ride, astronaut
• May 30 - Stephen Tobolowsky[?], actor
• August 20 - Greg Bear, science fiction author
• August 24 - Orson Scott Card, science fiction author
• October 6 - Manfred Winkelhock, auto racing driver
• November 19 - Lord Falconer, British lawyer and politician

Deaths

• January 10 - Sinclair Lewis, writer
• February 9 - Eddy Duchin, musician
• February 13 - Lloyd C. Douglas[?], author
• February 19 - André Gide, author
• March 6 - Ivor Novello, actor, musician, composer
• March 25 - Oscar Micheaux, pioneer African-American, filmmaker/author
• April 4 - Al Christie, early Hollywood director/producer
• May 7 - Warner Baxter, actor
• June 13 - Ben Chifley, Australian Prime Minister
• July 13 - Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian composer
• July 29 - Hozumi Shigeto, Japanese author
• August 15 - Artur Schnabel, pianist
• Robert Broom, paleontologist

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Sir John Douglas Cockcroft[?], - Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton[?]
• Chemistry - Edwin Mattison McMillan, Glenn Theodore Seaborg[?]
• Medicine - Max Theiler[?]
• Literature - Pär Fabian Lagerkvist
• Peace - Léon Jouhaux[?]