January 21: USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine
January 14 – Marilyn Monroe marries baseball player Joe DiMaggio at San Francisco City Hall.
January 20
The U.S.-based National Negro Network is established with 40 charter member radio stations.
Rogers Pass, Montana, records the coldest temperature in the contiguous United States of −70 °F (−56.7 °C).
January 21 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut, by First Lady of the United StatesMamie Eisenhower.
January 25 – The foreign ministers of the United States, United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union meet at the Berlin Conference.
February[]
February 2 – New York City Ballet co-founder and balletmaster George Balanchine's production of The Nutcracker is staged for the first time in New York, becoming an annual tradition there, still being performed there as of 2008.
February 10 – After authorizing $385,000,000 over the $400,000,000 already budgeted for military aid to Vietnam, U.S. PresidentDwight Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.
February 23 – The first mass vaccination of children against polio begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
March[]
March 1
U.S. officials announce that a hydrogen bomb test has been conducted on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
U.S. Capitol shooting incident: Four Puerto Rican nationalists open fire in the United States House of Representatives chamber and wound five people; they are apprehended by security guards.
March 9 – Journalists Edward Murrow and Fred W. Friendly produce a 30-minute See It Now documentary, entitled A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy.
March 19 – Joey Giardello knocks out Willie Tory at Madison Square Garden, in the first televisedboxing prizefight to be shown in color.
March 25 – The 26th Academy Awards ceremony is simultaneously held at RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood (hosted by Donald O'Connor) and at NBC Century Theatre (hosted by Fredric March). Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity wins and receives the most respective awards and nominations, with eight (matching Gone with the Wind's record) and thirteen, including Best Motion Picture and Best Director for Zinnemann.
March 28 – Puerto Rico's first television station, WKAQ-TV, goes on the air.
April[]
April 1 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
April 7 – Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference.
April 16 – Vice President Richard Nixon announces that the United States may be "putting our own boys in Indochina regardless of Allied support."
April 22 – SenatorJoseph McCarthy begins hearings investigating the United States Army for being "soft" on Communism.
May[]
May 14 – The Boeing 707 is released after about two years of development.
May 17 – Brown v. Board of Education (347 US 483 1954): The United States Supreme Court rules that segregated schools are unconstitutional.[1]
June[]
June 9 – McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at SenatorJoseph McCarthy, during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army, saying, 'Have you, at long last, no decency?'.[1]
June 14 – The words "under God" are added to the United States Pledge of Allegiance.
June 17 – A CIA-engineered military coup occurs in Guatemala.
June 27 – Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán steps down in a CIA-sponsored military coup, triggering a bloody civil war that continues for more than thirty-five years.
July[]
July 1 – The United States officially begins using the international unit of the nautical mile, equal to 6,076.11549 ft. or 1,852 meters.
July 15 – The maiden flight of the Boeing 367-80 (or Dash 80), a prototype of the Boeing 707 series.
July 19 – Elvis Presley's first single, "That's All Right", is released by Sun Records (recorded July 5 in Memphis, Tennessee).
August[]
August 16 – The first issue of Sports Illustrated magazine is published.
September[]
September 3 – The last new episode of The Lone Ranger is aired on radio, after 2,956 episodes over a period of 21 years.
September 8 – The original Sunshine Skyway Bridge opens to traffic.
September 11 – The Miss America Pageant is broadcast on television for the first time.
September 16 – Lewis Strauss, chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, in a speech to the National Association of Science Writers claims: "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter".[2]
September 29 – The Catch (baseball): A notable defensive play is made by New York Giants center fielder Willie Mays on a ball hit by Cleveland Indians batter Vic Wertz during Game 1 of the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan.
September 30 – The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-poweredsubmarine, is commissioned by the US Navy.
October[]
October 2 – The New York Giants (baseball) defeat the Cleveland Indians, 4 games to 0, to win their 5th World Series Title.
October 15 – Hurricane Hazel makes U.S. landfall; it is the only recorded Category 4 hurricane to strike as far north as North Carolina.
October 18 – Texas Instruments announces the development of the first transistor radio.
November[]
November 10 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima memorial) in Arlington National Cemetery.
November 12 – The main immigration port of entry in New York Harbor at Ellis Island closes.
November 23 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average rises 3.27 points, or 0.86%, closing at an all-time high of 382.74. More significantly, this is the first time the Dow has surpassed its peak level reached just before the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
November 30 – In Sylacauga, Alabama, a 4 kg piece of the Hodges Meteorite crashes through the roof of a house and badly bruises a napping woman, in the first documented case of an object from outer space hitting a person.
December[]
December 1 – The first Hyatt Hotel, The Hyatt House Los Angeles, opens. It is the first hotel in the world built outside of an airport.
December 2
Red Scare: The U.S. Senate votes 67–22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."[1]
The Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty between the U.S. and Republic of China is signed.[3]
December 4 – The first branch of Burger King opens in Miami, Florida, USA.
December 21 – The 6.5 MLEureka earthquake affects the north coast of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). Several people are injured and one killed, with $2.1 million in damage.
December 23 – The first successful kidney transplant is performed by Joseph E. Murray, MD in Boston from one identical twin to his brother. Murray will later share the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his "[discovery] concerning organ and cell transplantation in the treatment of human disease".[4]
Undated[]
Mongolian gerbils are brought to the U.S. by Dr. Victor Schwentker.
The Boy Scouts of America desegregates on the basis of race.[citation needed]
The TV dinner is introduced by entrepreneur Gerry Thomas.
Ongoing[]
Cold War (1947–1991)
Second Red Scare (1947–1957)
Births[]
January–March[]
January 1 – Bob Menendez, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 2006
January 14 – Tom Cheney, cartoonist
January 17 – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., socialite and environmental activist
January 19 – Clifford Tabin, geneticist and academic
January 20 – Ken Page, actor and singer
January 23
Richard Finch, bass player, songwriter and producer (KC and the Sunshine Band)
Greg Guidry, singer, songwriter (died 2003)
January 29
Bill Evers, baseball player, coach and manager
Terry Kinney, actor
February 7– Joe Maddon, baseball coach and manager
February 9 – Chris Gardner, African-American businessman, investor, stockbroker, motivational speaker, author, and philanthropist