Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events of 1949

January

January 17: Beetle in U.S.

• January 2 - Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
• January 4 - RMS Caronia of the Cunard Line departs Southampton for New York on her maiden voyage.
• January 4 - February 22 - Series of winter storms in Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Utah, Colorado and Nevada - winds of up to 72 mph - tens of thousands of cattle and sheep perish.
• January 5 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman unveils his Fair Deal program.
• January 10 - Gordon percy Fritz was born.
• January 11 - Los Angeles, California receives its first recorded snowfall.
• January 11 - KDKA-TV, Becomes the first local, on-air television station.
• January 17 - The first Volkswagen Beetle to arrive in the United States, a 1948 model, is brought over to New York by Dutch businessman Ben Pon. Unable to interest dealers or importers in the Volkswagen, Pon sells the sample car to pay his travel expenses. Only two 1949 models will be sold in America that year, convincing Volkswagen chairman Heinrich Nordhoff that the car has no future in the U.S. (The VW Beetle goes on to become the greatest automobile phenomenon in American history.)

• January 19 - The Poe Toaster first appears at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.
• January 20 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman begins his full term.

• January 25 - Forces from the Communist Party of China enter Beijing.
• January 25 - The first Emmy Awards are presented at the Hollywood Athletic Club.
• January 25 - In the first Israeli election, David Ben-Gurion becomes Prime Minister.
• January 26 - Australian citizenship comes into being.

February

• February 1 - Rationing of clothes ends in Britain.
• 13 February - António Óscar Carmona is re-elected president of Portugal for lack of an opposing candidate.
• February 19 - Ezra Pound is awarded the first Bollingen Prize in poetry by the Bollingen Foundation and Yale University.
• 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.

March

• March 1 - World heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis retires.
• March 1 - Indonesia seizes Yogyakarta from the Dutch.
• March 2 - The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II under Captain James Gallagher lands in Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight(it was refueled in flight 4 times).
• March 17 - The Shamrock Hotel in Houston, Texas, owned by oil tycoon Glenn McCarthy, has its grand opening.
• March 20 - The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Denver & Rio Grande Western and Western Pacific railroads inaugurate the California Zephyr passenger train between Chicago and Oakland, California, as the first long distance train to feature Vista Dome cars as regular equipment.
• March 25 - An extensive deportation campaign is conducted in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Soviet authorities deport more than 92,000 people from the Baltics to remote areas of the Soviet Union.
• March 26 - The first half of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida, conducted by legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini, and performed in concert (i.e. no scenery or costumes), is telecast by NBC, live from Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center. The second half is telecast a week later. This is only complete opera that Toscanini ever conducts on television.
• March 28 - United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal resigns suddenly.
• March 29 - The 21st Academy Awards ceremony is held.
• March 31 - The former British colony of Newfoundland and Labrador joins Canada as its 10th province.

April

• April 1 - Éire leaves the British Commonwealth and becomes the Republic of Ireland.
• April 1 - The Tokyo Stock Exchange is founded.
• April 4 - The North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., creating the NATO defense alliance.
• April 7 - Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, starring Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, opens on Broadway and goes on to become R&H's second longest-running musical. It becomes an instant classic of the musical theatre. The score's biggest hit is the song Some Enchanted Evening.
• April 14 - The day the N'Ko alphabet is held to have been completed by Solomana Kante.
• April 18 - Éire formally becomes the Republic of Ireland.
• April 20 - The Royal Navy frigate HMS Amethyst (U16) goes up the Yangtze River to evacuate British Commonwealth refugees escaping the advance of Mao's communist forces. Under heavy fire it runs aground off Rose Island. After an aborted rescue attempt on April 26 it anchors 10 miles upstream. Negotiations with the communist forces to let the ship leave drag on for weeks.
• April 23 - Chinese communist troops take Nanking.
• April 28 - India issues the London Declaration, enabling it (and, thereafter, any other nation) to remain in the British Commonwealth despite becoming a republic, creating the position of 'Head of the Commonwealth', and renaming the organisation as the 'Commonwealth of Nations'.
• April 28 - Former Philippine First Lady Aurora Quezon, 61, is assassinated while en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and 10 others are also killed.
• April 29 - The News Review reveals that neither Selhurst College nor its headmaster H. Rochester Sneath exist.

May

• May 1 - Nereid, a moon of Neptune, is discovered by Gerard P. Kuiper.
• May 5 - The Council of Europe is founded by the signing of the Treaty of London.
• May 9 - Rainier III of Monaco becomes Prince of Monaco, upon the death of his maternal grandfather Louis II.
• May 11 - Israel is admitted to the U.N. as its 59th member.
• May 11 - Siam officially changes its name to Thailand, a name in use since 1939.
• May 12 - Cold War: The Soviet Union lifts its Blockade of Berlin.
• May 20 - The AFSA (predecessor of the NSA) is established.
• May 20 - The Kuomintang regime declares Taiwan under martial law.
• May 22 - After two months in Bethesda Naval Hospital, James Forrestal commits suicide, under circumstances that seem suspicious to many.
• May 23 - The Federal Republic of Germany is established.
• EDSAC, the first stored-program computer, begins operation at Cambridge University.

June

• June 2 - Transjordan becomes the Kingdom of Jordan.
• June 6 - With the passage of the Bodh Gaya Temple Act by the Indian government, Mahabodhi Temple is restored to partial Buddhist control.
• June 8 - Red Scare: Such celebrities as Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.
• June 8 - George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.
• June 19 - Glenn Dunnaway wins the inaugural NASCAR race at Charlotte Speedway, a 3/4 mile oval in Charlotte, North Carolina, but is disqualified due to illegal springs. Jim Roper is declared the official winner.
• June 24 - The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, airs on NBC.
• June 29 - The last U.S. troops withdraw from South Korea.
• June 29 - Dock workers strike in the UK.
• June 29 - Apartheid: The South African Citizenship Act suspends the granting of citizenship to British Commonwealth immigrants after 5 years and imposes a ban on mixed marriages.

July

• July 20 - Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their 19-month war.
• July 27 - The de Havilland Comet, the first jet-powered airliner, makes its first flight.
• July 30 - Birth of legal aid http://www.legalservices.gov.uk
• July 31 - Captain Kerans of the HMS Amethyst decides to make a break after nightfall, under heavy fire from the Chinese People's Liberation Army on both sides of the Yangtze River, and successfully rejoins the fleet at Woosung the next day.

August

• August 5 - A 6.75 Richter scale earthquake in Ecuador kills 6,000 and destroys 50 towns.
• August 8 - Bhutan becomes independent
• August 12 - The Fourth Geneva Convention is agreed to.
• August 14 - The Salvatore Giuliano Gang explodes mines under a police barracks outside Palermo, Sicily.
• A military coup in Syria ousts the president.
• August 21 - Deportivo Saprissa enters Costa Rica - soccer's first division.
• August 22 - The Queen Charlotte earthquake is Canada's largest earthquake since the 1700 Cascadia earthquake.
• August 28 - The last 6 surviving veterans of the American Civil War meet in Indianapolis.
• August 29 - The Council of Europe meets for the first time.
• August 29 - The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, code named "Joe 1." Its design imitates the American plutonium bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.

September

• September 5 - A former sharpshooter in World War II, Howard Unruh kills 13 neighbors in Camden, New Jersey with a souvenir Luger to become America's first single-episode mass murderer.
• September 6 - Allied military authorities relinquish control of former Nazi Germany assets back to Germany.
• September 7 - The Federal Republic of Germany is officially founded. Konrad Adenauer is the first federal chancellor.
• September 9 - Albert Guay affair: A dynamite bomb destroys Canadian Pacific Airlines Douglas DC-3 in Quebec.
• September 9 - Notorious World War II veteran Edwin Alonzo Boyd commits his first career bank robbery in Toronto.
• September 13 - The Soviet Union vetoes United Nations membership for Ceylon, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Jordan and Portugal.
• September 17 - The Canadian steamship SS Noronic burns in Toronto Harbour with the loss of over 118 lives.
• September 19 - The United Kingdom government devalues the pound sterling from $4.03 to $2.80, leading to many other currencies being devalued.
• September 24 - Laszlo Rajk, ex-foreign minister of Hungary, is sentenced to death.
• September 29 - The First Plenary Session of the National People's Congress approves a design for the Flag of the People's Republic of China.
• September 29 - Mrs. Iva Toguri D'Aquino is found guilty of broadcasting for Japan as "Tokyo Rose" during World War II.
• September - Mervyn's reveals their first logo, used until 1994.

October

October 1: People's Republic of China founded.

• October 1 - The People's Republic of China is officially proclaimed.
• October 7 - The Democratic Republic of Germany DDR is established officially
• October 13 - Severe flooding hits Guatemala.
• October 16 - Civil war ends in Greece with a communist surrender.
• October 17 - Chinese communist troops take Canton, China
• October 27 - Chinese communist troops fail to take Kinmen in the Battle of Kuningtou; their advance towards Taiwan is halted.
• October 27 - An airliner flying from Paris to New York crashes in the Azores island of São Miguel. Among the victims are violinist Ginette Neveu and boxer Marcel Cerdan.

November

December 15: Typhoon at Korea.

Dec. 16: Sukarno, first President of Indonesia.

• November 15 - Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte are executed for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi.
• November 24 - The ski resort in Squaw Valley, California officially opens.
• November 26 - The Indian Constituent Assembly adopts India's constitution. [1]

December

• December 8 - The government of the Republic of China finishes its evacuation to Taiwan.
• December 10- Robert Menzies elected prime minister of Australia.
• December 14 - Traicho Kostov, ex-vice prime minister of Bulgaria, is sentenced to death.
• December 15 - A typhoon strikes a fishing fleet off Korea, killing several thousand.
• December 16 - Sukarno is elected president of the Republic of Indonesia.
• December 17 - Burma recognizes the People's Republic of China.
• December 27 - Queen Juliana of the Netherlands grants Indonesia sovereignty.
• December 30 - India recognizes the People's Republic of China.

Undated

• Pamir is the last commercial sailing ship to sail round Cape Horn.
• The Malta Labour Party is founded.
• The Vatican announces that bones uncovered in its subterranean catacombs could be the apostle Peter; 19 years later, Pope Paul VI announces confirmation that the bones belong to this first saint.^[1]
• The first 20mm M61 Vulcan Gatling gun prototypes are completed.
• Samuel Putnam publishes his new translation of Don Quixote, the first in what we would consider modern English. It is instantly acclaimed and, in 2008, is still in print.
• 1949 was the first year in which no African-American was lynched in the USA. ^[2]
• Joseph Stalin launches a savage verbal attack on Soviet Jews, accusing them of being pro-Western and antisocialist.

Ongoing

• Marshall Plan
• First Indochina War

Births

January-February

• January 2 - Christopher Durang, American playwright
• January 3 - Sylvia Likens, American murder victim (d. 1965)
• January 7 - Steven Williams, American actor
• January 7 - Chavo Guerrero, American wrestler
• January 8 - Wolfgang Puck, Austrian chef
• January 10 - George Foreman, American boxer
• January 10 - James Lapine, American stage director and librettist
• January 10 - Linda Lovelace, American actress (d. 2002)
• January 11 - Kalev Ots, Estonian statesman
• January 12 - Haruki Murakami, Japanese author
• January 12 - Michael W. Vannier, American radiologist
• January 12 - Wayne Wang, Hong Kong-born film director
• January 13 - Brandon Tartikoff, American television executive (d. 1997)
• January 14 - Nadezhda Ilyina, Soviet athlete
• January 14 - Lawrence Kasdan, American director and screenwriter
• January 14 - Mary Robison, American writer
• January 17 - Andy Kaufman, American comedian and actor (Taxi) (d. 1984)
• January 18 - Philippe Starck, French designer
• January 19 - Robert Palmer, English musician (Addicted To Love) (d. 2003)
• January 19 - Dennis Taylor, Irish snooker player
• January 20 - Göran Persson, former Prime Minister of Sweden
• January 22 - Steve Perry, American rock singer (Journey)
• January 24 - John Belushi, American actor (Saturday Night Live) (d. 1982)
• January 28 - Gregg Popovich, American basketball coach
• January 30 - Peter Agre, American biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• January 31 - Johan Derksen, Dutch footballer and sports journalist
• January 31 - Ken Wilber, American philosopher
• February 2 - Brent Spiner, American actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
• February 2 - Duncan Bannatyne, Scottish entrepreneur
• February 3 - Hennie Kuiper, Dutch cyclist
• February 9 - Jim Sheridan, Irish film director
• February 10 - Michael Weiss, jazz pianist and composer
• February 10 - Maxime Le Forestier, French singer
• February 10 - Harold Sylvester, American actor
• February 15 - Ken Anderson, American NFL player
• February 16 - Lyn Paul, English female singer
• February 17 - Dennis Green, American football coach
• February 18 - Gary Ridgway, American serial killer
• February 19 - Dan Bunten, American computer game designer (d. 1998)
• February 21 - Jerry Harrison, American new wave guitarist/keyboardist (Talking Heads)
• February 21 - Ronnie Hellström, Swedish footballer
• February 22 - Niki Lauda, Austrian race car driver
• February 25 - Ric Flair, American professional wrestler

March-April

• March 2 - Gates McFadden, American actress
• March 2 - Eddie Money, American rock singer (or March 21)
• March 2 - JPR Williams, Welsh rugby player
• March 3 - Jesse Jefferson, American baseball player
• March 6 - Shaukat Aziz, Prime Minister of Pakistan
• March 6 - Martin Buchan, Scottish footballer
• March 7 - Ghulam Nabi Azad, Indian politician
• March 9 - Tapani Kansa, Finnish singer
• March 10 - Larry Wall, American computer programmer
• March 12 - Bill Payne, American rock musician (Little Feat)
• March 12 - Natalia Kuchinskaya, Soviet gymnast
• March 13 - Julia Migenes, American soprano
• March 14 - Michael Stedman, British World War I historian and author
• March 16 - Erik Estrada, Puerto Rican actor
• March 16 - Victor Garber, Canadian actor (Godspell)
• March 17 - Patrick Duffy, American actor (Dallas)
• March 17 - Pat Rice, Irish footballer and football manager
• March 18 - Alex Higgins, Irish snooker player
• March 21 - Eddie Money, American rock singer
• March 22 - Fanny Ardant, French actress
• March 23 - Ric Ocasek, American rock musician (The Cars)
• March 24 - Nick Lowe, English musician
• March 26 - Patrick Süskind, German writer
• March 26 - Vicki Lawrence, American comedienne and game show hostess (The Carol Burnett Show)
• March 29 - Michael Brecker, American jazz musician (d. 2007)
• March 30 - Marcia Ball, American musician
• March 30 - Lene Lovich, American singer
• March 30 - Naomi Sims, African-American model and businesswoman
• March 30 - Elijah Harper, Canadian Aboriginal activist
• April 1 - Gérard Mestrallet, French businessman
• April 1 - Sammy Nelson, Irish footballer
• April 1 - Gil Scott-Heron, American musician and composer
• April 3 - Richard Thompson, English musician and songwriter
• April 6 - Horst Ludwig Störmer, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• April 7 - John Oates, American rock singer and guitarist (Hall & Oates)
• April 14 - John Shea, American actor
• April 15 - Alla Pugacheva, Russian musical performer
• April 15 - Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm, Polish born writer
• April 16 - Sandy Hawley, Canadian jockey
• April 18 - Geoff Bodine, American race car driver
• April 21 - Patti Lupone, American actress
• April 24 - Veronique Sanson, French singer and songwriter
• April 28 - Bruno Kirby, American actor (d. 2006)

May-June

• May 2 - Alan Titchmarsh, English gardener
• May 3 - Leopoldo Luque, Argentine soccer player
• May 4 - John Force, American race car driver
• May 9 - Billy Joel, American musician (Piano Man)
• May 13 - Zoë Wanamaker, English-American actress
• May 18 - Rick Wakeman, English rock musician and songwriter (Yes)
• May 18 - Bill Wallace, Canadian rock musician (The Guess Who)
• May 19 - Enrique Aguirre, Spanish gynecologist who discovered cervical cancer
• May 19 - Archie Manning, American football player
• May 20 - Dave Thomas, Canadian actor and comedian (SCTV)
• May 24 - Toma- Pisanski, Slovenian mathematician
• May 25 - Prahladananda Swami, ISKCON religious leader
• May 26 - Philip Michael Thomas, African-American actor (Miami Vice)
• May 26 - Hank Williams Jr., American country singer
• May 29 - Francis Rossi, English rock guitarist/singer (Status Quo)
• May 31 - Tom Berenger, American actor (Platoon)
• June 2 - Heather Couper, British astronomer
• June 4 - Mark B. Cohen, Pennsylvania legislative leader
• June 8 - Emanuel Ax, Polish-born pianist
• June 11 - Benjamin Vasserman, Estonian artist
• June 13 - Ann Druyan, American writer
• June 14 - Jimmy Lea, English rock musician (Slade)
• June 14 - Harry Turtledove, American historian and novelist
• June 15 - Jim Varney, American actor (Ernest Goes To Camp) (d. 2000)
• June 17 - Andrei Fursenko, Russian politician, scientist and businessman
• June 18 - Chris Van Allsburg, American author and illustrator
• June 18 - Lech Kaczy-ski, President of Poland
• June 18 - Jaros“aw Kaczy-ski, Polish Prime Minister
• June 18 - Prince Lincoln Thompson, Jamaican musician (d. 1999)
• June 21 - John Agard, British writer
• June 21 - Jane Urquhart, Canadian author
• June 22 - Alan Osmond, American pop singer
• June 22 - Meryl Streep, American actress (Kramer vs. Kramer)
• June 27 - Vera Wang, American fashion designer

July-August

• July 2 - David Eaton, American composer/conductor/producer
• July 3 - Jan Smithers, American actress
• July 3 - Johnnie Wilder, Jr., African-American R&B singer (Heatwave) (d. 2006)
• July 7 - Shelley Duvall, American actress (Popeye)
• July 11 - Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
• July 11 - Émerson Leão, Brazilian footballer
• July 15 - Carl Bildt, Prime Minister of Sweden
• July 15 - Trevor Horn, British singer and producer
• July 16 - Dennis Young, American skier
• July 17 - Charlie Steiner, American sportscaster
• July 22 - Alan Menken, American composer
• July 26 - Roger Taylor, English rock musician (Queen)
• August 4 - John Riggins, American football player
• August 6 - Alan Campbell, Northern Irish clergyman
• August 7 - Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Lebanese Druze
• August 12 - Mark Knopfler, British rock guitarist (Dire Straits)
• August 12 - Fernando Collor de Mello, President of Brazil
• August 15 - Richard Deacon, Welsh sculptor
• August 15 - Beverly Lynn Burns, American pilot, first woman in the world to captain the Boeing 747
• August 20 - Philip Lynott, Irish rock musician (Thin Lizzy) (d. 1986)
• August 21 - Loretta Devine, African-American actress (Woman, Thou