1951 Prime Minister: Clement Attlee [Labour]; Winston Churchill [Conservative]
World Events: Color television introduced, South Africans Forced to Carry ID Cards Identifying Race, Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII, Winston Churchill Again Prime Minister of Great Britain1 January: Production run of the series
The Archers begins on the BBC Light Programme
30 January: Phil Collins, musician and producer, is born
20 February: Gordon Brown, future Prime Minister, is born
21 February: An English Electric Canberra becomes the first jet to make an unrefuelled Transatlantic flight, taking 4 hours 37 minutes from RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland to Gander in Newfoundland
26 February: Film noir
Pool of London is released, the first British film with a major role for a black actor, Bermuda-born Earl Cameron
17 April: The Peak District is established as the first of the national parks of England and Wales
22–25 April: Korean War - Battle of the Imjin River: The 29th Infantry Brigade of the British Army serving with the United Nations put up brave but ultimately unsuccessful resistance to the Chinese advance, with 141 UN troops killed
28 April: Newcastle United wins the FA Cup for the fourth time with a 2–0 win over Blackpool at Wembley Stadium
3 May: George VI opens the Festival of Britain in London
28 May: First broadcast of
The Goon Show radio series
17 July: New Port Talbot Steelworks opened at Margam, South Wales
15 August: The first Miss World beauty pageant is held as part of the Festival of Britain
23 September: George VI has an operation to remove part of his lung
31 October: Zebra crossings, a type of pedestrian crossing, introduced for the first time
20 November: More than 1,000 families of British servicemen begin to move out of the Suez Canal Zone of Egypt after a shooting, which claimed the lives of five British soldiers as well as nine Egyptian civilians
Publications:
They Came to Baghdad, Prince Caspian, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes,First English Workbook, The Good Food Guide1952Prime Minister: Winston Churchill [Conservative]
World Events: Car Seat Belts Introduced, The Great Smog of 1952, Jacques Cousteau Discovers Ancient Greek Ship, Polio Vaccine Created 10 January: An Aer Lingus Douglas DC-3 aircraft on a London–Dublin flight crashes in Wales due to vertical draft in the mountains of Snowdonia, killing twenty passengers and the three crew
30 January:British troops remain in Korea, where they have spent the last 18 months, after a breakdown of talks that were aimed at ending the Korean War
6 February: George VI dies at Sandringham House aged 56. It is revealed that he had been suffering from lung cancer. He is succeeded by his 25-year-old daughter, The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh
8 February: Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at St James's Palace
15 February: The funeral of King George VI takes place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. His body has been lying in state in Westminster Hall since 11 February
21 February: Compulsory identity cards, issued during World War II, abandoned
11 March: Douglas Adams, author, is born
7 June: Liam Neeson, Northern Irish actor, is born
5 July: The last of the original trams runs in London; the citizens of London turn out in force to say farewell
19 July–3 August: Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Olympics in Helsinki and win 1 gold, 2 silver and 8 bronze medals
5 October: Tea rationing ends, after thirteen years, as announced by the government two days earlier
28 October: Billy Hughes, Welsh-descended Prime Minister of Australia, dies
November – Royal College of General Practitioners established
4–9 December: Great Smog blankets London, causing transport chaos and, it is believed, around 4,000 deaths
25 December: The Queen makes her first Christmas speech to the Commonwealth
Publications:
Love for Lydia, Mrs McGinty's Dead, They Do It with Mirrors, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Borrowers, Men at Arms1953Prime Minister: Winston Churchill [Conservative]
World Events: DNA Discovered, Hillary and Norgay Climb Mt. Everest, Joseph Stalin Dies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed for Espionage31 January/1 February: The North Sea flood of 1953 kills hundreds of people on the east coast of Britain
5 February: The rationing of sweets, introduced during World War II, ends
28 February: James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce that they have discovered the structure of the DNA molecule
24 March: Queen Mary, consort of the late George V dies in her sleep at Marlborough House
24 March: The 10 Rillington Place murders are uncovered in London
31 March: The funeral of Queen Mary takes place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
13 April: Ian Fleming publishes his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale
24 April: Winston Churchill receives a knighthood from the Queen
6 May: Tony Blair, future Prime Minister, is born
2 June: Public holiday! The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II takes place at Westminster Abbey
23 June: Prime minister Winston Churchill, 78, suffers a stroke at a dinner for the Italian prime minister Alcide De Gasperi (On 27 June the public is told that he is suffering from fatigue)
30 June: First roll-on/roll-off ferry crossing of the English Channel, Dover–Boulogne
15 July: John Christie is hanged at Pentonville Prison, where a crowd of some 200 people stand to wait for the notice of execution to be posted
26 September: End of post-War sugar rationing
December: Matchbox toy vehicles are introduced by Lesney Products of London
Publications:
After the Funeral, A Pocket Full of Rye, Casino Royale, The Silver Chair, The Kraken Wakes1954Prime Minister: Winston Churchill [Conservative]
World Events: Britain Sponsors an Expedition to Search for the Abominable Snowman,First Atomic Submarine Launched, Jonas Salk's Polio Vaccine Given to Children in Massive Trial, Report Says Cigarettes Cause Cancer, Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S. 10 January: A British Overseas Airways Corporation de Havilland Comet jet airliner on BOAC Flight 781 from Singapore to London crashes in the Mediterranean Sea following fatigue failure, killing all 35 on board
12 February: United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority founded.
12 February: British Medical Committee report suggests the existence of a link between smoking and lung cancer
2 April: BBC Television broadcasts the opening episode of
The Grove Family, the first British TV soap opera
3 April: Oxford wins the 100th Boat Race
6 May: Roger Bannister becomes the first person to break the four-minute mile, at the Iffley Road Track of the University of Oxford
29 May: Diane Leather becomes the first woman to break the five-minute mile, at the Alexander Sports Ground in Birmingham
6 June: J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings first published (first volumes)
7 June: Alan Turing, mathematician, logician and cryptographer, dies
4 July: Fourteen years of rationing during and following World War II comes to an end when meat officially comes off ration
19 October: Britain agrees to end its military occupation of the Suez Canal
3 November: BBC Television broadcasts the opening episode of
Fabian of the Yard, the first British TV police procedural
30 November: Winston Churchill becomes the first (and as of 2017 the only) British Prime Minister to reach his 80th birthday while still in office
Publications:
Destination Unknown, Live and Let Die, Lord of the Flies, The Horse and His Boy, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers1955Prime Minister: Winston Churchill [Conservative], Anthony Eden [Conservative]
World Events: Disneyland Opens,James Dean Dies in Car Accident, Montgomery Bus Boycott Begins, Emmett Till Murdered,Ray Kroc Opens His First McDonald's, Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus, Warsaw Pact Signed1 January: The U.K's first atomic bomber unit, No. 138 Squadron RAF, is formed, flying Vickers Valiants from RAF Gaydon in Warwickshire
6 January: Rowan Atkinson, comedian and actor, is born
23 January: Sutton Coldfield rail crash: an express train takes a sharp curve too fast and derails at Sutton Coldfield railway station: 17 killed, 43 injured
24 February: A big freeze across Britain results in more than 70 roads being blocked with snow, and in some parts of the country rail services have been cancelled for several days. The Royal Air Force works to deliver food and medical supplies to the worst affected areas
5 April: Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister due to ill-health at the age of 80
6 April: Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden is named as the new Prime Minister
21 April: National newspapers published for the first time after a month-long strike by maintenance workers
4–6 May: A severe gale strips topsoil across Norfolk
27 May: Anthony Eden wins the general election for the Conservative Party with a majority of 31 seats
29 May: Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) calls a strike which continues until 14 June, leading to a state of emergency being declared on 31 May
Summer: Heat wave and associated drought
13 July: Ruth Ellis becomes the last woman to be hanged in the UK, at HM Prison Holloway, for shooting dead a lover, David Blakely, outside a pub in Hampstead
27 August:
Guinness Book of Records first published
22 September: The Independent Television Authority's first ITV franchise begins broadcasting the UK's first commercial television in London ending the 18-year monopoly of the BBC
31 October: Princess Margaret announces that she does not intend to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend
7 December: Clement Attlee resigns as leader of the Labour Party after twenty years
14 December: Hugh Gaitskell becomes leader of the Labour Party
20 December: Cardiff becomes the official capital of Wales
Publications:
Brothers in Law, Hickory Dickory Dock, Moonraker, The Genius and the Goddess, The Magician's Nephew, The Return of the King, Officers and GentlemenFor more information, check out
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