1952 Events

1952 Agatha Christie publishes They Do It with Mirrors
They Do It With Mirrors is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1952 under the title of Murder with Mirrors and in UK ...
1952 Coretta Scott Meets Martin Luther King Jr.
"I always believed that there was a purpose for my life, and that I had to seek that purpose, and that if I discovered that purpose, then I believed that I would be successful in what I wa..." —Coretta Scott King
1952 Ford Country Sedan is First Produced
The Ford Country Sedan was a full-size station wagon built by the Ford Motor Company from 1952 until 1974. It was based on the Ford full-size car line available in each year. The Country...
1952 Ford Crestline is First Produced
The Ford line of cars was again refreshed for 1952, although remaining similar to the all-new 1949 Fords. This time, curved one-piece windshield glass joined a new "Mileage Maker" straigh...
1952 Ford Mainline is First Produced
The Ford Mainline was a car available from 1952 to 1956. It was the base model below the Customline and the Fairlane. There were two major versions of the Mainline: the 1952–1954 version ...
1952 Ford Ranch Wagon is First Produced
The Ford Ranch Wagon was a station wagon built by Ford Motor Company from 1952 to 1977. The Ranch Wagon was a full-size model, except in 1963 and 1964, when it was part of the intermediat...
1952 'Invisible Man' is Published
Invisible Man is a remarkable first novel that gives 38-year-old Ralph Ellison a claim to being the best of U.S. Negro writers.*It makes him, for that matter, an unusual writer by any sta...
1952 Kellogg's Frosted Flakes Introduced
Frosted Flakes is a cereal first introduced by Kellogg's. consisting of corn flakes "frosted" or coated with sugar. The "Frosted Flakes" name is used by Kellogg's in United States and Can...
1952 Kellogg's Sugar Smacks Introduced
Honey Smacks is a sweetened puffed wheat breakfast cereal made by Kellogg's. In a 2008 comparison of the nutritional value of 27 cereals, U.S. magazine Consumer Reports found that Hone...
1952 Lotus Cars is Founded
Lotus Cars is a British manufacturer of sports and racing cars based at Hethel, Norfolk, England. The company designs and builds race and production automobiles of light weight and high h...
1952 Malcolm Little changes surname to "X"
In 1952, after his release from prison, Little visited Elijah Muhammad in Chicago, Illinois. Then, like many members of the Nation of Islam, he changed his surname to "X". In his autobiog...
1952 Mercedes-Benz 300SL is First Produced
The Mercedes-Benz 300SL was introduced in 1954 as a two-seat, closed sports car with distinctive gull-wing doors. Later it was offered as an open roadster. It was the fastest production c...
1952 Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo open first black legal firm in South Africa
By 1952 Mandela and Tambo had opened the first black legal firm in the country, and Mandela was both Transvaal president of the ANC and deputy national president. A petition by the Tra...
1952 "Othello" Is Released
Othello is a 1952 drama film based on the Shakespearean play, made by Mercury Productions Inc. and Les Films Marceau and distributed by United Artists (1955). It was directed and produced...
1952 OXO, the First Video Game Using a Graphical Display
OXO (also known as Noughts and Crosses) is a tic-tac-toe computer game made for the EDSAC computer in 1952. It was written by Alexander S. Douglas as an illustration for his Ph.D. thesis ...
1952 The American Cancer Society Founds "Reach to Recovery" to Promote Breast Cancer Treatment and Advocacy
Although doctors have been fighting breast cancer for centuries, it was not until the 20th century that movements to increase breast cancer awareness as well as cancer awareness in genera...
1952 The Mau Mau Uprising Begins
By 1950, mounting frustration over land distribution and political inequality in Kenya had led to the formation of the Mau Mau movement of civil disobedience and violent resistance to Bri...
1952 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader published
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. Written in 1950, it was published in 1952 as the third book of The Chronicles of Narnia. Current editions of...
1952 Jan 3 Robert Byrd Elected as a Member of the United States House of Representatives for West Virginia's 6th Congressional District
Prior to his time in the Senate, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1952-1958, and also served in the West Virginia legislature as both State Senator and D...
1952 Jan 10 "The Greatest Show On Earth" Is Released
The Greatest Show on Earth is a 1952 drama film set in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The film was produced, directed, and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille, and won the Academ...
1952 Jan 12 Ronald Reagan Appears as Jeff Williams in "Hong Kong"
On the Hong Kong waterfront, as a tailor sews his torn pants, American Jeff Williams anxiously awaits his departure from the island and recalls the events of the previous week: In a rural...
1952 Jan 22 American Airlines Flight 6780 Crashes
Flight 6780 originated at Buffalo, New York, for Newark, New Jersey, with stops scheduled at Rochester, New York, and Syracuse, New York. The first two legs of the flight were uneventful....
1952 Jan 23 "Cry, The Beloved Country" Is Released
Cry, the Beloved Country is a 1951 drama film directed by Zoltan Korda. Based on the novel of the same name by Alan Paton, it stars Canada Lee and Charles Carson. It was entered into the ...
1952 Feb Agatha Christie publishes Mrs McGinty's Dead
Poirot, disillusioned by the “senseless cruel brutality” of modern crime, pays no attention to the sad case of Mrs. McGinty, an old woman apparently struck dead by her lodger for thirty p...
1952 Feb "The Marrying Kind" Is Released
The Marrying Kind (1952) is a film directed by George Cukor, starring Aldo Ray and Judy Holliday. Other cast members include John Alexander, Charles Bronson, Peggy Cass, Barry Curtis, Tom...
1952 Feb 6 A Local Puerto Rican Constitution Is Approved
A local constitution was approved by a Constitutional Convention on February 6, 1952, ratified by the U.S. Congress, approved by President Truman on July 3 of that year, and proclaimed by...
1952 Feb 14
to 1952 Feb 25
 VI Olympic Winter Games Held in Oslo, Norway
The 1952 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VI Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1952 in Oslo, Norway. A total of 30 nations sent athl...
1952 Feb 20 "The African Queen" Is Released
The African Queen is an American 1951 drama film adapted from the 1935 novel by C. S. Forester. The film was directed by John Huston and produced by Sam Spiegel and John Woolf. The screen...
1952 Mar 4 Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis Get Married
During her career as an actress, Nancy Davis dated actors in Hollywood; she later called Clark Gable, whom she dated briefly, the nicest of the stars she had met. On November 15, 1949, sh...
1952 Mar 10 Joseph Stalin Drafts The 'Stalin Note'
In a 1952 exchange of notes between the Soviet Union and the Western occupation powers, Stalin proposed new negotiations for a peace treaty in which German unification would be coupled wi...
1952 Mar 20 24th Academy Awards
The 24th Academy Awards is an event that honored the Greatest Films of 1951. The single film which came out with the largest number of honors was An American in Paris, which received s...
1952 Mar 26 Kansas Beats St. John's in Final Four
The 1952 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 16 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball....
1952 Mar 27 "Singin' In The Rain" Is Released
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreogr...
1952 Apr 3
to 1952 Apr 6
 Sam Snead wins the 16th Masters Tournament
Battling strong winds the final two days, Sam Snead won his second Masters title, this one by four strokes over Jack Burke. Ben Hogan hosted the first Masters Club dinner (popularly known...
1952 Apr 15 Detroit Red Wings win Stanley Cup
The 1952 Stanley Cup Final NHL championship series was contested by the Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Canadiens in the first of the four Detroit-Montreal Final series of the 1950s. T...
1952 Apr 28 Pan Am's Clipper Good Hope Crashes, Killing 50
Flight 202 originated at Buenos Aires, destination New York, with en route stops scheduled at Montevideo, Uruguay; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Port of Spain, Trinidad. The flight departed...
1952 May 9 "Forbidden Games"
Forbidden Games (French: Jeux interdits), is a 1952 French language film directed by René Clément and based on François Boyer's novel, Jeux interdits. The film recounts the death of fi...
1952 Jun 26 The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is released
Young Robin Hood, in love with Maid Marian, enters an archery contest with his father at the King's palace. On the way home his father is murdered by hench men of Prince John. Robin takes...
1952 Jun 28 American Airlines Flight 910 Collides with a Single Engine Temco Swift
American Flight 910 took off from San Francisco at 23:05 for a flight to Dallas. At 06:56 the following morning, a Temco Swift airplane (N3858K, cn 3558) departed Denton for Dallas-Love F...
1952 Jun 28 Ronald Reagan Appears as Grover Cleveland Alexander in "The Winning Team"
In 1908, in rural Nebraska, telephone linemen Grover Cleveland Alexander is saving to buy a farm, so that he and sweetheart Aimee Arrants can marry, but his neighbors know that he would r...
1952 Jul 12
to 1952 Jul 29
 1952 Washington D.C. UFO Incident
On July 29, 1952, International News Service (INS) announced that the Air Force had ordered its jets to shoot down any flying saucers. The order was confirmed by an AF spokesperson. The...
1952 Jul 12 Ronald Reagan Appears as Professor John Palmer in "She's Working Her Way Through College"
She's Working Her Way Through College is a completely depoliticized remake of the liberal-minded comedy The Male Animal (1942). Virginia Mayo plays an exotic dancer, Angela Gardner, who d...
1952 Jul 19
to 1952 Aug 3
 Games of the XV Olympiad Held in Helsinki, Finland
The 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Helsinki, Finland in 1952. Helsinki had been earlier given the ...
1952 Jul 21 "The Quiet Man" Is Released
The Quiet Man is a 1952 American romantic drama film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen and Barry Fitzgerald. It was based on a 1933 Saturday E...
1952 Jul 24 Carson Sink UFO Incident
In a matter of seconds the three aircraft were close enough to the B-25 to be clearly seen. They were not F-86's. They were three bright silver, delta wing craft with no tails and no pilo...
1952 Jul 24 "High Noon" Is Released
High Noon is an American 1952 western film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The film tells the story of a town marshal who is forced to face a gang of ...
1952 Jul 30 Nelson Mandela was arrested and convicted of contravening the Suppresion of Communism Act
In 1949, the Programme of Action was written by the ANCYL and adopted by the ANC which advocated boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience and noncooperation to achieve its goals. Mandela al...
1952 Aug 6 "The Big Sky" Is Released
The Big Sky is a 1952 Western film directed by Howard Hawks, based on the novel of the same name. The cast includes Kirk Douglas, Arthur Hunnicutt, Dewey Martin and Elizabeth Threatt. ...
1952 Aug 7 Malcolm X is paroled and released from prison
On February 27, Little began serving his sentence at the Massachusetts State Prison in Charlestown. While in prison, Little earned the nickname of "Satan" for his hostility toward religio...
1952 Aug 18 Patrick Wayne Swayze is born
Patrick Wayne Swayze (pronounced /ˈsweɪziː/; August 18, 1952 – September 14, 2009) was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best-known for his roles as romantic leading...