January: Businessman Ben Pon imports first VW Type 1 to America. Lack of interest convinces VW chairman it has no future in America.

February: Grady, a cow owned by Bill & Alyne Mach becomes trapped in a silo. The story & her eventual rescue captures public imagination.

March: After 25 successful title defenses, Joe Louis World Heavyweight Champion 1937 to 1949, announces his retirement.

April: 12 nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty, creating the NATO defense alliance against a possible attack by the Soviet Union.

May: After success of the Berlin Airlift, Soviet Union lifts its blockade of Berlin, leading to creation of 2 separate German states.

June: George Orwell's novel 1984 is published. Introducing doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak & Big Brother to the world.

July: Prototype of the de Havilland Comet, the first commercial jetliner makes its maiden flight. Metal fatigue will later prove fatal.

August: Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb. It copies the design of the U.S. plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

September: Due to public pressure Iva Toguri D'Aquino is tried & found guilty of broadcasting for Japan as 'Tokyo Rose' during the war.

October: The Chinese Civil War is drawing to a close & the communists are in control. Mao Zedong proclaims the People's Republic of China.

November: Despite clemency pleas by his sons, Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse & conspirator Narayan Apte are executed.

December: Robert Menzies, founder of the Liberal Party of Australia, becomes Prime Minister a role he will hold until he retires in 1966.