Top News Stories from 1949

World Events

World Statistics

Population: 4.378 billion
population by decade
Nobel Peace Prize: Lord John Boyd Orr (Scotland)
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U.S. Events

U.S. Statistics

President: Harry S Truman
Vice President: Alben W. Barkley
Population: 149,188,130
Life expectancy: 68.0 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 5.4
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Economics

US GDP (1998 dollars): $267.8 billion
Federal spending: $38.84 billion
Federal debt $252.6 billion
Consumer Price Index: $23.8
Unemployment: 3.8%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.03

Sports

World Series
NY Yankees d. Brooklyn Dodgers (4-1)
NBA Championship
Minneapolis Lakers d. Washington Capitols
Stanley Cup
Toronto d. Detroit
Wimbledon
Women: Louise Brough d. M. duPont (10-8 1-6 10-8)
Men: Ted Schroeder d. J. Drobny (3-6 6-0 6-3 4-6 6-4)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Ponder
NCAA Basketball Championship
Kentucky d. Oklahoma A&M
NCAA Football Champions
Notre Dame (10-0-0)

Entertainment

Entertainment Awards

Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: Guard of Honor, James Gould Cozzens
Music: Louisiana Story music, Virgil Thomson
Drama: Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
Academy Award, Best Picture: Hamlet (British) (J. Arthur Rank-Two Cities; Universal-International)
Nobel Prize for Literature: William Faulkner (US)
Miss America: Jacque Mercer (AZ)
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Events

  • The first Emmy Awards are handed out on January 25, with Pantomime Quiz Time earning top honor as the Most Popular Television Program.
  • Cable television debuts, bringing better reception to rural areas where the conventional television signal is weak.
  • Milton Berle hosts the first telethon, which benefits cancer research.
  • 45 rpm records are sold in the U.S.

Movies

  • All the King's Men, Twelve O'Clock High, Sands of Iwo Jima, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Third Man

Music

  • "Some Enchanted Evening"
  • "Ghost Riders in the Sky"
  • "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer"
  • "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"
  • Kiss Me Kate soundtrack
  • Samuel Barber, Piano Sonata
  • Ernest Bloch, Scherzo Fantasque
  • Vaughn Monroe, Vaughn Monroe Sings

Books

Science

Nobel Prizes in Science

Chemistry: William Francis Giauque (US), for research in thermodynamics, especially effects of low temperature
Physics: Hideki Yukawa (Japan), for mathematical prediction, in 1935, of the meson
Physiology or Medicine: Walter Rudolf Hess (Switzerland), for research on brain control of body; and Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz (Portugal), for development of brain operation
More Nobel Prizes in 1998...

Death

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