1952 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1952 in the United Kingdom.
Contents |
[edit] Incumbents
- Monarch - King George VI of the United Kingdom (until 6 February), Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
- Prime Minister - Winston Churchill Conservative Party
[edit] Events
Image:3Queens.jpg
The 3 Queens in mourning- Queen Elizabeth II, her grandmother Queen Mary and mother Queen Elizabeth at the funeral of King George VI.
Image:Op hurricane.jpg
The UK's first nuclear bomb
- 5 January - Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in the United States for an official visit and talks with President Harry S. Truman. [1]
- 1 February - The first TV Detector van is commissioned in Britain, as the beginning of a clampdown on the estimated 150,000 British households which have unlicenced televisions.[2]
- 6 February - King George VI dies of cancer aged 56. He is succeeded by his 25-year-old daughter, The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, who ascends to the throne as Queen Elizabeth II.[3] The new Queen was on a Royal visit to Kenya at the time of her father's death.
- 8 February - Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at St James's Palace.[3]
- 15 February - Funeral of King George VI takes place.
- 21 February - Compulsory identity cards, issued during World War II, abandoned.[3]
- 2 May - The De Havilland Comet becomes the world's first jet airliner, with a maiden flight from London to Johannesburg
- 16 August - 34 people killed in a flood in Lynmouth, Devon.[4]
- 6 September - 31 people killed in an air crash at the Farnborough Air Show.[5]
- 3 October
- The government announces an end to tea rationing after 13 years.[6]
- Operation Hurricane- the UK explodes its first atomic bomb in the Monte Bello Islands, Australia.[7]
- 8 October - A rail crash in North London claims the lives of 108 people.[8]
- 25 November - Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap starts its run at the New Ambassadors Theatre in London, where it is still showing. [9]
- 4 December - Great Smog of 1952: fog speads across London.[10]
- 9 December - The Great Smog in London finishes after five days of chaos which are believed to have caused around 4,000 deaths.
- 25 December - The Queen makes her first Christmas speech to the Commonwealth.[11]
[edit] Undated
- Geoffrey Dummer proposes the integrated circuit.[12]
- Archer John Porter Martin and Richard Laurence Millington Synge win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for their invention of partition chromatography".[13]
[edit] Births
- 10 January - George Turpin, English boxer
- 1 February - Andrew Smith, politician
- 25 February - Joey Dunlop, Northern Irish motorcycle racer (died 2000)
- 11 March - Douglas Adams, author (died 2001)
- 22 March - Des Browne, politician
- 28 March - Tony Brise, racing driver (died 1975)
- 11 April - Peter Windsor, sports reporter
- 3 May - Allan Wells, Scottish athlete
- 7 June - Liam Neeson, Northern Irish actor
- 17 June - Estelle Morris, politician
- 21 August - Joe Strummer, musician (The Clash) (died 2002)
- 30 September - Jack Wild, actor (died 2006)
[edit] Deaths
- 6 February - King George VI (born 1895)
- 4 March - Charles Scott Sherrington, physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1857)
- 21 April - Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer (born 1889)
- 30 September - Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, businessman and politician (b. 1879)
- 23 October - Windham Wyndham-Quin, 5th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, politician (born 1857)
- 28 October - William Morris Hughes, Welsh-descended Prime Minister of Australia (born 1862)
- 15 December - Sir William Goscombe John, sculptor (born 1860)
[edit] References
- ^ "Churchill renews 'special relationship'" BBC On This Day. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ "Test drive for TV detector vans", BBC On This Day. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ a b c (2006) Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. ISBN 0-141-02715-0.
- ^ "Flood devastates Devon village" BBC On This Day. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ "Dozens die in air show tragedy" BBC On This Day. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ "Tea rationing to end" BBC On This Day. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ The Lost Decade Timeline, BBC. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ "Many die as three trains crash at Harrow" BBC On This Day. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ New Ambassadors Theatre website. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ "London fog clears after days of chaos" BBC On This Day. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ "Queen makes first Christmas speech" BBC On This Day. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ (1999) The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
- ^ The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1952. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
