d if North Korea attacked.
31/7/1953, Robert Taft, US Conservative politician, died aged 63.
20/6/1953, The Jewish funeral service of Ethel and Julius Rosenburg was held at Brooklyn (see 19/6/1953). The estimated 10,500 who attended were supportive of the Rosenburgs, who were seen as resisters of American imperialism.
19/6/1953. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg went to the electric chair in Sing Sing prison, 30 miles north of New York, guilty of spying for the USSR. They were the first US civilians to be executed for espionage. They had been condemned on 30/3/1951. Sing Sing prison was built between 1825 and 1828, and took its name from the local village. However the village soon changed its native-American derived name to Ossining to avoid association with the prison.
11/4/1953, The US Department of Health and Human Services was established.
5/2/1953, Walt Disney’s film Peter Pan went on general release.
2/12/1952, US President Eisenhower visited Korea.
31/10/1952, The USA exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 5 to 7 megatons (million tons of TNT) and left a hole a mile in diameter and 175 feet deep. A 5 megaton bomb would devastate about 150 square miles by blast and subject about 800 square miles to searing heat. See 9/9/2003.
25/10/1952, The USA blocked the entry of China to the United Nations for the third year running. See 25/10/1971.
24/10/1952, In the US, Eisenhower described Korea as ‘the burial place of twenty thousand Americans’ and promised that if he was elected President he would end the Korean War. Meanwhile the United Nations remained deadlocked over the issue of the return of North Korean prisoners of War. The USSR and China wanted them all returned to North Korea, but some PoWs insisted they had been forcibly drafted into the North Korean forces and wanted to settle in South Korea.
19/9/1952, The comedian Charlie Chaplin was labelled ‘subversive’ by Right-wingers in the USA.
24/7/1952, Charles Copeland, US educationalist, died in Massachusetts.
25/6/1952, In the US the Immigration Bill was passed, despite Resident Truman’s veto and a Democrat majority of ten in the Senate. This Bill established immigration quotas by nationalist, something Truman considered racist.
2/6/1952, In Youngstown vs Sawyer, the US Supreme Court ruled that President Truman had gone beyond his powers in ordering the State seizure of the steel industry during a strike.
8/4/1952, In the USA, President Truman ordered the State seizure of the steel industry in response to a strike. The output of the steel mills was considered vital for the US forces fighting in Korea. The strike ended in 2/5/1952, but the seizure continued until after the Supreme Court decision of 2/6/1952..
29/3/1952, In the USA, President Truman announced he would not be standing for the elections that year.
27/2/1952, The United Nations Building in New York saw its first session.
1/11/1951, The US tested an atom bomb over the Nevada desert.
5/10/1951, The US House of representatives approved the US$ 56.9 billion Armed Forces appropriation Bill.
8/9/1951, The San Francisco Treaty of Friendship between the US and Japan was signed.
10/7/1951, Ceasefire talks between North and South Korea began.
9/7/1951, Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon, was jailed for 6 months for contempt of court after refusing to give testimony that would have helped trace Communists accused of conspiring against the US.
15/6/1951, The Korean front line between Northern and Southern forces was stabilised at around the 38th parallel, where it had been originally. See 10/7/1951.
11/4/1951. General MacArthur was relieved of his command by President Truman, after disagreeing over the conduct of the Korean War. MacArthur wanted to carry the war over into Communist China, and bomb Chinese bases in Manchuria. MacArthur returned to a heroes welcome in Washington, but did not realise his hopes of nomination for the US Presidential elections.
2/4/1951, NATO Allied Command Europe came into being.
30/3/1951. In the USA, the Rosenbergs (Julius and