1950

1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1950th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 950th year of the 2nd millennium, the 50th year of the 20th century, and the 1st year of the 1950s decade..

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1920s  1930s  1940s  – 1950s –  1960s  1970s  1980s
Years:	1947 1948 1949 – 1950 – 1951 1952 1953

Events

• January 5 – U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver introduces a law asking for the government to study crime in the U.S.
• January 9 – The Israeli government say's that the People's Republic of China is a country
• January 11 – Huk guerrillas attack the town of Hermosa in Bataan, Philippines.
• January 12 – British submarine Truculent crashes into a Swedish oil tanker in River Thames – 64 people died.
• January 13 – Finland is friendly with the People's Republic of China
• January 15 – Volcanic cloud kills 5000 in Mount Lamington, New Guinea
• January 17 – The Great Brinks Robbery – 11 thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car in Boston, Massachusetts
• January 23 – The Knesset passes an agreement that says Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
• January 24 – Cold War: Klaus Fuchs tells about his wartime espionage at Los Alamos to British interrogators – formally charged February 2
• January 28 – Somaliland is put under Italian rule
• January 29 – Lord Balfour disagrees with the fact that rationing is still in force in Britain
• January 31 – President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb
• January 31 – Last Kuomintang troops surrender in continental China
• June 5- The Korean War begins
• October 2 – Charles M. Schulz publishes the first Peanuts comic strip.

Births

• January 3 – Victoria Principal, Japanese-American actress
• January 17 – Richard L. Anderson, American sound editor
• February 25 - Neil Jordan, Irish director
• March 20 - Carl Palmer, English drummer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
• March 27 - Tony Banks, English keyboardist (Genesis)
• April 5 - Agnetha Fältskog, Swedish singer-songwriter and musician (ABBA)
• April 12 – Maia Danziger, American actress
• April 12 - Larry Kemp, American sound editor
• May 9 - Tom Petersson, American bass guitarist (Cheap Trick)
• May 10 - Emeric-László Kiss, Hungarian Musician
• May 13 – Stevie Wonder, American musician
• May 13 - Danny Kirwan, English guitarist (Fleetwood Mac) (d. 2018)
• May 17 - Howard Ashman, American playwright and lyricist (d. 1991)
• May 22 – Bernie Taupin
• June 19 - Ann Wilson, American singer (Heart)
• June 21 - Joey Kramer, American drummer (Aerosmith)
• July 28 - Tom Cotcher, Scottish actor
• September 10 - Joe Perry, American guitarist (Aerosmith)
• September 28 - John Sayles, American filmmaker
• October 1 – Randy Quaid, American actor
• October 2 - Mike Rutherford, English singer-songwriter and musician (Genesis)
• October 2 - Lucas Fuego, Slovak politician and doctor
• October 3 - John Curulewski, American guitarist (Styx) (d. 1988)
• October 25 - David Kaye, former American rabbi and convicted sex offender
• October 31 – John Candy, Canadian actor (d. 1994)
• December 18 - Gillian Armstrong‏‎, Australian director
• December 29 - László-Braun Rátót, Hungarian politician of German ethnicity

Deaths

• January 21 – George Orwell, English writer (b. 1903)
• April 7 - Walter Huston, Canadian actor (b. 1883)
• November 2 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer (b. 1856)
• December 30 – Arthur Davidson, American business man (b. 1881)
• June 22 – Lonnie Moon

Movies released

• All About Eve
• Annie Get Your Gun
• Cinderella
• King Solomon's Mines
• Sunset Boulevard

Hit songs

• "A-Razz-A-Ma-Tazz" – Georgia Gibbs
• "All My Love (Bolero)" – Patti Page
• "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" – Al Jolson
• "Ballin' The Jack" – Georgia Gibbs
• "Ballin' The Jack" – Danny Kaye
• "Be My Love" – Mario Lanza
• "Bewitched" – Doris Day
• "Black Lace" – Frankie Laine
• "Boo-Hoo" – Guy Lombardo & The Lombardo Trio
• "A Bushel And A Peck" – Perry Como & Betty Hutton
• "Can Anyone Explain? (No, No, No!)" – The Ames Brothers
• "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy" – Red Foley
• "Cry Of The Wild Goose" – Frankie Laine
• "Daddy's Little Girl" – The Mills Brothers
• "Dear, Dear, Dear" – Frankie Laine
• "Dream A Little Dream Of Me" – Frankie Laine
• "A Dreamer's Holiday" – Buddy Clark & The Girlfriends
• "Enjoy Yourself" – Guy Lombardo (Kenny Gardner& The Lombardo Trio vocals)
• "Goodnight, Irene" – The Weavers with Gordon Jenkins
• "Harbor Lights" – Sammy Kaye
• "Here Comes Santa Claus" – Andrews Sisters
• "L'Hymne A L'Amour (Hymn To Love)" – Édith Piaf
• "I Can Dream, Can't I?" – The Andrews Sisters
• "I Love You For That" – Patti Page & Frankie Laine
• "I Wanna Be Loved" – The Andrews Sisters
• "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake" – Eileen Barton
• "I'm Moving On" – Hank Snow
• "It Isn't Fair" – Sammy Kaye (Don Cornell vocal)
• "Let's Go West Again" – Al Jolson
• "A Man Gets Awfully Lonesome" – Frankie Laine
• "Mona Lisa" – Nat King Cole
• "Music, Maestro, Please" – Frankie Laine
• "Music! Music! Music!" – Teresa Brewer
• "My Heart Cries For You" – Guy Mitchell
• "Nevertheless" – The Mills Brothers
• "No Other Love" – Jo Stafford
• "The Old Piano Roll Blues" Al Jolson & The Andrews Sisters
• "Patricia" – Perry Como
• "Play A Simple Melody" – Gary Crosby & Friend (Bing Crosby)
• "Rag Mop" – The Ames Brothers
• "Red Hot Mama" – Georgia Gibbs
• "The Roving Kind" – Guy Mitchell
• "Sentimental Me" – The Ames Brothers
• "Sleepy Ol' River" – Frankie Laine
• "Someday" – The Mills Brothers
• "Someday" – Vaughn Monroe
• "Sometime" – The Mariners
• "Stars & Stripes Forever" – Frankie Laine
• "Swingin' In A Hammock" – Guy Lombardo (Don Rodney & The Lombardo Trio vocals)
• "The Tennessee Waltz" – Patti Page
• "There's No Tomorrow" – Tony Martin
• "The Thing" – Phil Harris
• "The Third Man Theme" – Anton Karas
• "The Third Man Theme" – Guy Lombardo
• "With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming" – Patti Page

New books

• Across the River and Into the Trees – Ernest Hemingway
• The Adventurer – Mika Waltari
• Beetlecreek – William Demby
• Cabbagetown – Hugh Garner
• The Cardinal – Henry Morton Robinson
• The Child Who Never Grew – Pearl S. Buck
• The Disenchanted – Budd Schulberg
• The Door in the Wall – Marguerite de Angeli
• The Town and the City – Jack Kerouac
• Floodtide – Frank Yerby
• Florence Nightingale – Cecil Woodham-Smith
• The Grass Is Singing – Doris Lessing
• I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
• Joy Street – Frances Parkinson Keyes
• Jubilee Trail – Gwen Bristow
• Kon-Tiki – Thor Heyerdahl
• The Liberal Imagination – Lionel Trilling
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
• The Little World of Don Camillo – Giovanni Guareschi
• The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
• Parade's End – Ford Madox Ford
• The Parasites – Daphne du Maurier
• Reading and Criticism – Raymond Williams
• Scenes from Provincial Life – William Cooper
• Star Money – Kathleen Winsor
• Summer In The Country – Edith Templeton
• La vida breve (A Brief Life) – Juan Carlos Onetti
• The Voyage of the Space Beagle – A. E. van Vogt
• The Wall – John Hersey