1949

"Berlin Airlift" ends
First Soviet atomic bomb
Start of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
German Federal Republic (West Germany) established
Communist People's Republic of China established
Independence for Indonesia
South Africa institutionalizes apartheid
Americans buy 100,000 TV sets a week
RCA introduces the 45 rpm phonograph record
Rotary blade lawn mowers introduced
Volkswagen "Beetle" introduced in US
George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman"
1st jet airliner - the DeHavilland "Comet"
Silly Putty
Broadway - "South Pacific"
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis' 1st film - "My Friend Irma"
Song - "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer"
TV show - "Hopalong Cassidy" - 1st Western hit TV show
Meryl Streep, Tom Watson, and Bruce Jenner born
Margaret Mitchell and Solomon Guggenheim die