1950 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1950 in the United Kingdom.
Contents |
[edit] Incumbents
- Monarch - George VI of the United Kingdom
- Prime Minister - Clement Attlee Labour Party
[edit] Events
- 26 January - India becomes a republic, severing all ties with the United Kingdom.[1]
- 24 February - Clement Attlee wins the general election, giving Labour a second term in government after their election triumph in 1945.[2]
- 1 March - Klaus Fuchs convicted of supplying nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.[3]
- 6 March–8 March - The 1950 World Figure Skating Championships are held in London.
- 8 March - Carmaker Rover tests a revolutionary new turbine-powered concept car. [1]
- 12 March - 75 of the 78 people on board an Avro Tudor V aircraft are killed when it crashes at Llandow in Glamorgan, making it the world's worst air disaster for the time.
- 13 May - First Grand Prix held at Silverstone.[4]
- 26 May - Motor fuel rationing comes to an end after 11 years, marking another phasing-out of rationing that was introduced in the wake of the Second World War.[5]
- 29 August - 4,000 British troops are sent to Korea.[6]
- 8 September - 116 miners trapped underground in a landslide at Knockshinnoch Castle colliery at New Cumnock in Ayrshire, Scotland.[7]
- 25 December - The Stone of Scone, the traditional coronation stone of Scottish monarchs, English monarchs and more recently British monarchs, was stolen from London's Westminster Abbey by a group of four Scottish students. It later turned up in Scotland on 11 April 1951.
[edit] Undated
- The Festival Ballet, later to become the English National Ballet founded by Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin[8]
- Cecil Frank Powell wins the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method".[9]
- Bertrand Russell wins the Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought".[10]
- Alan Turing's paper Computing machinery and intelligence proposes the Turing test.[8]
[edit] Births
- 4 February - Pamela Franklin, actress
- 13 February - Peter Gabriel, musician
- 16 February - Peter Hain, politician
- 19 February - Andy Powell, musician (Wishbone Ash)
- 22 February - Julie Walters, actress
- 27 March - Terry Yorath, footballer and football manager
- 30 March - Robbie Coltrane, actor and comedian
- 3 April - Sally Thomsett, actress
- 22 April - Peter Frampton, musician
- 1 May - Danny McGrain, footballer
- 3 May - Mary Hopkin, singer
- 17 May - Alan Johnson, politician
- 22 May - Bernie Taupin, songwriter
- 22 May - Mary Tamm, actress
- 1 June - Tom Robinson, singer and musician
- 13 June - Nick Brown, politician
- 14 June - Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
- 18 July - Richard Branson, entrepreneur
- 19 July - Simon Cadell, actor
- 26 July - Susan George, actress
- 30 July - Harriet Harman, politician
- 15 August - Anne, Princess Royal
- 14 September - Paul Kossoff, guitarist (Free) (died 1976)
- 21 September - Charles Clarke, politician
- 6 December - Helen Liddell, politician
[edit] Deaths
- 21 January - George Orwell, author (born 1903)
- 9 March - Timothy Evans hanged by Albert Pierrepoint for the murder of his baby daughter and later pardoned (b. 1924)
- 19 March - Walter Haworth, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1883)
- 30 March - Joe Yule, Scottish-born comedian (b. 1894)
- 6 September - Olaf Stapledon, author and philosopher (b. 1886)
- 21 September - Arthur Milne, physicist (b. 1896)
- 28 November - James Corbitt hanged for murder by Albert Pierrepoint (b c. 1913)
[edit] References
- ^ India becomes a republic
- ^ Labour wins slim majority
- ^ Communist spy jailed for 14 years
- ^ The Lost Decade Timeline, BBC
- ^ UK drivers cheer end of fuel rations
- ^ British troops arrive in Korea
- ^ Miners trapped underground by landslide
- ^ a b (1999) The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
- ^ The Nobel Prize in Physics 1950
- ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950
