WORLD HISTORY · 1949 日本語
Events of 1949Showa 24 (Japan) · Year of the Ox
What happened in 1949?
In 1949, the yen's exchange rate was fixed at 360 yen to the dollar, and Yukawa Hideki was chosen as the first Japanese Nobel Prize winner. Abroad, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed and the People's Republic of China was founded.
- Twelve Western nations sign North Atlantic TreatyNorth America
- Yen fixed at 360 to the dollarAsia
- Japanese National Railways launched as public corporationAsia
- Shimoyama Incident: railway chief found deadAsia
- Soviet Union tests its first atomic bombEurope
- People's Republic of China foundedAsia
- German Democratic Republic establishedEurope
- Yukawa Hideki awarded Nobel Prize in PhysicsAsia
Tap an event to jump to it in the timeline below.
1949 at a glance
| Japanese era | Showa 24 |
|---|---|
| Chinese zodiac | Year of the Ox |
| Age of people born in 1949 | Turn 77 in 2026 |
| Previous / next year | 1948 (Showa 23) ／ 1950 (Showa 25) |
| Events | 80 |
| AP World History | Unit 8 (Cold War and Decolonization) |
| AP U.S. History | Period 8 |
Famous people born in 1949
Our birthday pages list 754 people born in 1949. Here are some of them.
- Meryl StreepBorn June 22 · turns 77 this year · American actress who has won three Academy Awards, for Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophi…
- Bruce SpringsteenBorn September 23 · turns 77 this year · American rock singer-songwriter called "the Boss," known for Born to Run, Born…
- Richard GereBorn August 31 · turns 77 this year · American actor known for Pretty Woman, An Officer and a Gentleman, and Chicago,…
- George ForemanBorn January 10 · turns 77 this year · American heavyweight boxing champion and Olympic gold medalist who later became…
- Gregg PopovichBorn January 28 · turns 77 this year · American basketball coach who led the San Antonio Spurs to five NBA championshi…
- Jessica LangeBorn April 20 · turns 77 this year · American actress who won Oscars for Tootsie and Blue Sky, plus Emmy and Tony Aw…
- Billy JoelBorn May 9 · turns 77 this year · American singer, songwriter, and pianist known as the Piano Man, whose hits inc…
- Ken FollettBorn June 5 · turns 77 this year · Welsh novelist known for the thriller Eye of the Needle and the cathedral-build…
- Lionel RichieBorn June 20 · turns 77 this year · American singer and songwriter famous for the Commodores and solo hits like Hel…
- Vera WangBorn June 27 · turns 77 this year · New York fashion designer best known for elegant wedding gowns and a brand span…
- Larry HolmesBorn November 3 · turns 77 this year · American boxer nicknamed "the Easton Assassin" who reigned as world heavyweight…
- Bonnie RaittBorn November 8 · turns 77 this year · American singer and slide guitarist known for blending blues, rock, and pop on…
Show 28 more
- Jeff BridgesBorn December 4 · turns 77 this year · American actor known for The Big Lebowski and True Grit who won an Oscar for Cr…
- Don JohnsonBorn December 15 · turns 77 this year · American actor best known as Detective Sonny Crockett on Miami Vice and as the…
- Eikichi YazawaBorn September 14 · turns 77 this year
- Benjamin NetanyahuBorn October 21 · turns 77 this year
- Haruki MurakamiBorn January 12 · turns 77 this year
- Frank BeardBorn June 11 · turns 77 this year
- Billy GibbonsBorn December 16 · turns 77 this year
- Borys TarasyukBorn January 1 · turns 77 this year
- Christopher DurangBorn January 2 · turns 77 this year
- Iris Marion YoungBorn January 2 · turns 77 this year
- Sylvia LikensBorn January 3 · turns 77 this year
- Bwanga TshimenBorn January 4 · turns 77 this year
- Mick MillsBorn January 4 · turns 77 this year
- Carolyn D. WrightBorn January 6 · turns 77 this year
- Mike BoitBorn January 6 · turns 77 this year
- Lawrence RoweBorn January 8 · turns 77 this year
- Shadia Abu GhazalehBorn January 8 · turns 77 this year
- Kemal DervişBorn January 10 · turns 77 this year
- Linda LovelaceBorn January 10 · turns 77 this year
- Chris FordBorn January 11 · turns 77 this year
- Daryl BraithwaiteBorn January 11 · turns 77 this year
- Mohammad Reza RahimiBorn January 11 · turns 77 this year
- Hamadi JebaliBorn January 12 · turns 77 this year
- Kentarō HanedaBorn January 12 · turns 77 this year
- Ottmar HitzfeldBorn January 12 · turns 77 this year
- Brandon TartikoffBorn January 13 · turns 77 this year
- Rakesh SharmaBorn January 13 · turns 77 this year
- İlyas SalmanBorn January 14 · turns 77 this year
Events of 1949 (timeline · 80)
Tip: the PC view is best for studying
On a computer, each region has its own vertical line, so you can follow the flow of events and see what was happening in different parts of the world at the same time.
United Nations cease-fire takes effect in Kashmir from one minute before midnight. War between India and Pakistan stops accordingly.
Luis Muñoz Marín is inaugurated as the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines, is established.
In his State of the Union address, United States President Harry S. Truman unveils his Fair Deal program.
The first "networked" television broadcasts took place as KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania goes on the air connecting the east coast and mid-west programming.
Chinese Civil War: The Communist forces take over Tianjin from the Nationalist government.
The first Emmy Awards are presented in the United States; the venue is the Hollywood Athletic Club.
The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory sees first light under the direction of Edwin Hubble, becoming the largest aperture optical telescope (until BTA-6 is built in 1976).
These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera, is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago, United States.
The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada. The strike marks the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.
Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves, where they will eventually discover the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
Ezra Pound is awarded the first Bollingen Prize in poetry by the Bollingen Foundation and Yale University.
The Armistice Agreements are signed, to formally end the hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
President of France Vincent Auriol and ex-Vietnamese emperor Bảo Đại sign the Élysée Accords, giving Vietnam greater independence from France and creating the State of Vietnam to oppose Viet Minh-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Hanns Albin Rauter, a chief SS and Police Leader in the Netherlands, is convicted and executed for crimes against humanity.
More than 92,000 kulaks are suddenly deported from the Baltic states to Siberia.
Cold War: A riot breaks out in Austurvöllur square in Reykjavík, when Iceland joins NATO.
The Dominion of Newfoundland joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada.
Cold War: Twelve nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
A fire in a hospital in Effingham, Illinois, kills 77 people and leads to nationwide fire code improvements in the United States.
The Republic of Ireland Act comes into force, declaring Éire to be a republic and severing Ireland's "association" with the Commonwealth of Nations.
Amethyst incident: The People's Liberation Army attacks HMS Amethyst (F116) travelling to the British embassy in Nanjing during the Chinese Civil War.
The Hukbalahap are accused of assassinating former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, while she is en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and ten others are also killed.
The entire Torino football team (except for two players who did not take the trip: Sauro Tomà, due to an injury and Renato Gandolfi, because of coach request) is killed in a plane crash.
EDSAC, the first practical electronic digital stored-program computer, runs its first operation.
Aeroflot Flight 17 crashes on approach to Severny Airport in Novosibirsk, killing 25.
In the United States, the Armed Forces Security Agency, the predecessor to the National Security Agency, is established.
Cold War: The Western occupying powers approve the Basic Law and establish a new German state, the Federal Republic of Germany.
Thailand elects Orapin Chaiyakan, the first female member of Thailand's Parliament.
George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in the United States
Albert II, a rhesus monkey, rides a V-2 rocket to an altitude of 134 km (83 mi), thereby becoming the first mammal and first monkey in space.
The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, starring William Boyd, is aired on NBC.
The merger of two princely states of India, Cochin and Travancore, into the state of Thiru-Kochi (later re-organized as Kerala) in the Indian Union ends more than 1,000 years of princely rule by the Cochin royal family.
The Israel–Syria Mixed Armistice Commission brokers the last of four ceasefire agreements to end the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League finalize the merger that would create the National Basketball Association.
In Montana, 12 smokejumper firefighters and a US Forest Service fire guard are killed in the Mann Gulch Fire.
An amendment to the National Security Act of 1947 enhances the authority of the United States Secretary of Defense over the Army, Navy and Air Force, and replaces the National Military Establishment with the Department of Defense.
Matsukawa derailment: Unknown saboteurs cause a passenger train to derail and overturn in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, killing three crew members and igniting a political firestorm between the Japanese Communist Party and the government of Occupied Japan that will eventually lead to the Japanese Red Purge.
The 6.7 Ms Karlıova earthquake shakes eastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), leaving 320–450 dead.
Kemi strike: Two protesters die in the scuffle between the police and the strikers' protest procession in Kemi, Finland.
Hungary adopts the Hungarian Constitution of 1949 and becomes a People's Republic.
The Queen Charlotte earthquake is Canada's strongest since the 1700 Cascadia earthquake.
Soviet atomic bomb project: The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.
The retreat of the Democratic Army of Greece into Albania after its defeat on Gramos mountain marks the end of the Greek Civil War.
Paul Robeson performs a second concert in Peekskill, New York eight days after the Peekskill riots.
The Canadian steamship SS Noronic burns in Toronto Harbour with the loss of over 118 lives.
WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta.
The Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders in the United States convicts eleven defendants of conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the federal government.
The Greek Communist Party announces a "temporary cease-fire", thus ending the Greek Civil War.
An Air France Lockheed Constellation crashes in the Azores, killing all 48 people on board.
All 55 people on board Eastern Air Lines Flight 537 are killed when the Douglas DC-4 operating the flight collides in mid-air with a Bolivian Air Force Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft over Alexandria, Virginia.
The Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference ends with the Netherlands agreeing to transfer sovereignty of the Dutch East Indies to the United States of Indonesia.
The first oil was taken in Oil Rocks (Neft Daşları), the world's oldest offshore oil platform.
The Iva Valley Shooting occurs after the coal miners of Enugu in Nigeria go on strike over withheld wages; 21 miners are shot dead and 51 are wounded by police under the supervision of the British colonial administration of Nigeria.
The Constituent Assembly of India adopts the constitution presented by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.
Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others is adopted.
Sir Duncan George Stewart, governor of the Crown Colony of Sarawak, was fatally stabbed by a member of the Rukun 13.
Chinese Civil War: The Government of the Republic of China moves from Nanjing to Taipei, Taiwan.
Chinese Civil War: The People's Liberation Army begins its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China, forcing President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan.
Indonesian National Revolution: The Netherlands officially recognizes Indonesian independence. End of the Dutch East Indies.
Source: Wikipedia date pages ("January 1" … "December 31") / CC BY-SA 4.0. Regions are assigned by the site editors.
FAQ
What year was 1949 in the Japanese calendar?
1949 was Showa 24 in the Japanese era system.
What Chinese zodiac animal is 1949?
1949 is the Year of the Ox.
How old is someone born in 1949?
They turn 77 on their birthday in 2026.
What happened in 1949?
In 1949, the yen's exchange rate was fixed at 360 yen to the dollar, and Yukawa Hideki was chosen as the first Japanese Nobel Prize winner. Abroad, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed and the People's Republic of China was founded.
Dates and events are based on Wikipedia and other references. Summaries and regions are written by the site editors.