1952 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1952 in the United Kingdom.
Contents |
[edit] Events
![The 3 Queens in mourning- Queen Elizabeth II, her grandmother Queen Mary and mother Queen Elizabeth at the funeral of King George VI.](../../../upload/1/16/3Queens.jpg)
- January 5- Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in the United States for an official visit and talks with President Harry S. Truman. [1]
- February 6- King George VI dies, his eldest daughter, The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, succeeds as Queen Elizabeth II. [2]
- February 8- Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at St James's Palace. [2]
- February 15- Funeral of King George VI takes place.
- 21 February - Compulsory identity cards, issued during World War II, abandonded. [2]
- May 2- The De Havilland Comet becomes the world's first jet airliner, with a maiden flight from London to Johannesburg
- August 16- 34 people killed in a flood in Lynmouth, Devon. [3]
- September 6- 31 people killed in an air crash at the Farnborough Air Show. [4]
- October 3-
- The government announces an end to tea rationing. [5]
- Operation Hurricane- the UK explodes its first atomic bomb in the Monte Bello Islands, Australia. [6]
- October 8- Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash- 108 people killed when 3 trains collide in North London. [7]
- 25 November - Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap starts its run at the New Ambassadors Theatre in London, where it is still showing. [8]
- December 4- Great Smog of 1952- Fog causes chaos and at least 4,000 deaths in London. [9]
- December 25- The Queen makes her first Christmas speech to the Commonwealth. [10]
[edit] Unknown dates
- Geoffrey Dummer proposes the integrated circuit. [11]
- Archer John Porter Martin and Richard Laurence Millington Synge win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for their invention of partition chromatography". [12]
[edit] Births
- January 10 - George Turpin, English boxer
- February 25 - Joey Dunlop, Northern Irish motorcycle racer (d. 2000)
- March 11 - Douglas Adams, author (d. 2001)
- March 28 - Tony Brise, racing driver (d. 1975)
- April 11 - Peter Windsor, sports reporter
- May 3 - Allan Wells, Scottish athlete
- June 7 - Liam Neeson, Northern Irish actor
- August 21 - Joe Strummer, musician (The Clash) (d. 2002)
- September 30 - Jack Wild, actor (d. 2006)
[edit] Deaths
- 6 February - King George VI (b. 1895)
- 4 March - Charles Scott Sherrington, physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1857)
- 21 April - Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer (b. 1889)
- 30 September - Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, businessman and politician (b. 1879)
[edit] References
- ^ "Churchill renews 'special relationship'" BBC On This Day
- ^ a b c (2006) Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. ISBN 0-141-02715-0.
- ^ "Flood devastates Devon village" BBC On This Day
- ^ "Dozens die in air show tragedy" BBC On This Day
- ^ "Tea rationing to end" BBC On This Day
- ^ The Lost Decade Timeline, BBC
- ^ "Many die as three trains crash at Harrow" BBC On This Day
- ^ New Ambassadors Theatre website
- ^ "London fog clears after days of chaos" BBC On This Day
- ^ "Queen makes first Christmas speech" BBC On This Day
- ^ (1999) The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
- ^ The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1952