1951
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1 January 1951 Chinese and North Korean forces begin a major offensive along the 38th Parallel.
The announcement comes from Buckingham Palace that William Walton (48) is to be made Knight Bachelor. Later, Walton will write to his father-in-law: “I should never have accepted the knighthood, only I wanted to make Sue a lady.”
3 January 1951 The South Korean government of Syngman Rhee flees Seoul for Pusan, beginning a mass exodus of about 300,000 people from the city.
The Eighty-second Congress of the United States convenes in Washington. President Truman’s Democratic Party continues to control both houses.
4 January 1951 Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul and Inchon.
The International Refugee Organization reports that 250,000 ethnic Turks have fled Bulgaria into Turkey since the border was opened to them last 2 December.
5 January 1951 Duo for violin and viola no.2 by Bohuslav Martinu (60) is performed for the first time, in New York.
7 January 1951 The first of ten weekly episodes of the radio play after Hardy The Mayor of Casterbridge with music by Ralph Vaughan Williams (78), is heard over the airwaves of the BBC Home Service.
The Israel Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein (32) opens its first North American tour in Washington. They will visit 41 cities.
8 January 1951 UN troops evacuate Wonju, 85 km southeast of Seoul.
The United States confirms that it has resumed military aid to Chiang Kai-shek.
In federal court in New York, Elizabeth Terrill Bentley, admitted espionage courier, testifies at the trial of William W. Remington that Remington gave her secret government information to transfer to the Soviets from 1942-44. Remington is on trial for lying to a grand jury about his communist affiliations.
9 January 1951 Press facilities for the United Nations are transferred from Lake Success to the permanent headquarters on the East River.
10 January 1951 A UN counterattack reenters Wonju, but withdraws within hours.
Sinclair Lewis dies in Rome at the age of 65.
Incidental music to Leach’s play The Wooden Bird by Harry Partch (49) and Ben Johnston (24) is performed for the first time, in Charlottesville, Virginia. The music was recorded last 8 November by Partch and Johnston for this performance.
11 January 1951 Arcadian Songs and Dances from “Louisiana Story” for orchestra by Virgil Thomson (54) is performed for the first time, at the Philadelphia Academy of Music.
12 January 1951 The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide goes into effect, 90 days after the 20th ratification. Genocide is now a crime under international law.
14 January 1951 Concerto for two violins and orchestra by Bohuslav Martinu (60) is performed for the first time, in Dallas.
15 January 1951 Ilse Koch, the wife of Buchenwald commandant Karl Koch, is sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor by a West German court for her inciting the murder of at least one German prisoner. Her original sentence of life imprisonment was commuted to four years by a US court.
Three Catholic bishops are found guilty of treason in a Bratislava court. Two are sentenced to life in prison, one receives 24 years.
Parvula corona musicalis for string trio by Ernst Krenek (50) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of Radio Italiana orginating in Rome.
17 January 1951 China turns down a second UN request for a cease-fire in Korea.
A Viet Minh offensive is stopped by the French 45 km north of Hanoi.
Projection 2 for flute, trumpet, violin, cello, and piano by Morton Feldman (25) is performed for the first time, in Millbrook, New York. Also premiered is Sixteen Dances for flute, trumpet, percussion, violin, cello, and piano by John Cage (38).
18 January 1951 Mt. Lamington in New Guinea erupts through 21 January causing 3,000 deaths.
20 January 1951 ¡Un home, San Antonio! for voice and piano by Joaquín Rodrigo (49) to words of Rosalía de Castro is performed for the first time, in Orense.
21 January 1951 A Gallup Poll shows that 66% of Americans favor pulling US troops out of Korea “as fast as possible.”
Duke Ellington (51) and His Orchestra play a benefit concert at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. They perform his Harlem for the first time.
25 January 1951 The United States orders Benny Saltsman expelled from the country. He is a house painter who immigrated from Russia in 1913 and belonged to the Communist Party in 1936-37. One of his sons was killed in World War II, another wounded.
A wildcat strike by 160,000 railroad workers is ended when President Perón drafts all of them into the army.
26 January 1951 UN forces recapture Suwon, 25 km south of Seoul.
Most wages and prices are frozen in the United States in an effort to control inflation.
When the pro-Perón News Vendors Union refuses to sell La Prensa, the leading opposition newspaper, it is forced to cease publication.
27 January 1951 The United States explodes three atomic weapons over the next week in the Nevada desert.
Serenade no.6 op.44 for trombone, viola, and cello by Vincent Persichetti (35) is performed for the first time, in Groton, Massachusetts.
31 January 1951 US occupation officials commute the death sentences of 21 German war criminals to life in prison or less. 33 other war criminals are set free.
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas replaces Enrico Gaspar Dutra as President of Brazil.
New espionage indictments are returned by a federal court in New York against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Martin Sobell, David Greenglass, and Anatoly Yakovlev, now in the USSR.
1 February 1951 The UN General Assembly votes 44-7 to brand mainland China as an aggressor in Korea.
Henry Cowell (53) is elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
2 February 1951 The US sets off two more atomic explosions today and on 6 February.
3 February 1951 Le chant de la nuit op.120 for chorus and orchestra by Florent Schmitt (80) to words of Nietzsche, is performed for the first time, in Paris.
Incidental music to Williams’ play The Rose Tattoo by David Diamond (35) is performed in New York for the first time, in the Martin Beck Theatre.
5 February 1951 A royal decree outlaws strikes in Egypt.
6 February 1951 Sonata for violin and piano no.3 by Otto Luening (50) is performed for the first time, in Carnegie Recital Hall, New York.
Four Two-Part Inventions for piano by Arthur Berger (38) are performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York.
7 February 1951 Former US Commerce Dept. economist William W. Remington is found guilty of perjury by a federal court in New York. The court ruled that he lied when he told a federal grand jury he was never a communist.
8 February 1951 The UN drive towards Seoul reaches close enough to shell the city.
The Gold Coast Colony holds its first election. The Convention People’s Party led by Kwame Nkrumah wins 34 of 38 seats contested. 46 other seats are appointed. Nkrumah wins a seat, although he is currently serving a prison term for sedition.
After six months of negotiations, France comes to an agreement with the Bey of Tunis. More self-government is promised for Tunisia, as a step toward autonomy within the French Union.
10 February 1951 UN troops capture Kimpo (Seoul) Airfield and the port of Inchon. Some units cross the Han River into the city.
11 February 1951 Piano Sonata by George Perle (35) is performed for the first time, in New York, by the composer.
4 Songs to ee cummings for soprano, cello and piano by Morton Feldman (25) is performed for the first time, in McMillin Theatre of Columbia University.
12 February 1951 Chinese forces attack in central Korea, capturing Hoengsong and advancing 30 km.
187 alleged collaborators are executed by South Korean authorities in Kochang.
13 February 1951 Two Pieces for the piano by Robert Ward (33) are performed for the first time, at the Peabody Institute, Baltimore. Also premiered is Ward’s Scherzo for piano.
14 February 1951 UN forces halt the Chinese offensive in central Korea.
UN commandos land at Wonsan on the northeast Korean coast, destroying port and other facilities.
President of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Pedro Albizu Campos is found guilty in San Juan of attempted murder during the nationalist uprising last October. He is found to have thrown bombs at police outside his house. Two other defendants are acquitted.
15 February 1951 King Tribhubana Bir Bikram of Nepal returns to Katmandu and is restored to power after three months exile in India.
Iron and steel are nationalized in Great Britain. 80 companies and 200 subsidiaries are transferred to government control.
A String Quartet by Anton Bruckner (†54) is performed for the first time, in Berlin, 89 years after it was composed.
The legislature of Georgia in the United States passes a budget including a provision that state funds be barred to public schools and colleges if any white school accepts a black student.
The legislature of Maryland in the United States repeals a 1904 law requiring segregation of races on trains and steamboats.
16 February 1951 The State Board of Regents of New York bans Roberto Rosselini’s film The Miracle as sacrilegious.
19 February 1951 A United Nations administration takes charge in Eritrea.
André Gide dies in Paris at the age of 81.
20 February 1951 UN forces counterattack along a 100 km front in central Korea.
Anthony Curtis Davis is born in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Charles T. Davis, an English teacher who, in 1955, will become the first African-American professor at Princeton University.
22 February 1951 Symphony no.2 by Charles Ives (76) is performed for the first time, in New York, conducted by Leonard Bernstein (32) 50 years after it was completed by the composer. See 4 March 1951.
26 February 1951 The 22nd amendment to the US Constitution is approved with the ratification of Nevada, the 36th state to do so. It limits the president to two terms.
From Here to Eternity by James Jones is published.
27 February 1951 Former Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Vladimir Clementis is arrested and charged with espionage.
Employees of La Prensa, the leading opposition newspaper in Buenos Aires, attempt to resume publication. It has been idle for a month due to a boycott by the pro-Perón News Vendors Union which refused to sell the paper. About 400 workers are set upon by armed gangs and police. One person is killed, four injured.
28 February 1951 Argentine police order workers out of the offices of La Prensa and seize the building.
Igor Stravinsky (68) is awarded the Gold Medal for Music by the National Institute and American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Suite archaïque for orchestra by Arthur Honegger (58) is performed for the first time, in Louisville.
Linus Pauling and Robert Carey publish a theoretical (and correct) description of the structure of proteins, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
1 March 1951 All government controls on agricultural products are ended by the government of Yugoslavia.
2 March 1951 A purge of 600,000 Czechoslovak Communist Party members begins.
The City of Hamburg awards the Bach Prize to Paul Hindemith (55).
4 March 1951 Charles Ives (76) hears a radio rebroadcast of the premiere of his Symphony no.2, at the home of a neighbor in West Redding, Connecticut. It is the first time he has heard the work which he completed in 1901. See 22 February 1951.
6 March 1951 The three western occupying powers allow West Germany to set up a foreign ministry. They are also allowed more control over the country’s economy and trade.
The trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Martin Sobell opens in federal court in New York.
William Grant Still (55) writes to Howard Taubman, music editor of the New York Times, informing him that the State Department has withrdrawn a recording of his opera Troubled Island from the Belgian National Radio (because it is “bad”) and replaced it with something by Gian Carlo Menotti (39). Taubman is sympathetic, but without proof he will not publish anything of it. See 15 April 1952.
7 March 1951 UN forces cross the Han River and establish a bridgehead south of Seoul.
Premier Ali Razmara of Iran is shot to death by Khalil Tahamsebi, a Moslem extremist, while attending a funeral in a Teheran mosque. Tahamsebi is captured.
Oscar Collazo, a Puerto Rican nationalist, is convicted of murder. He is the survivor of a two-man team that broke into Blair house, Washington, attempting to kill President Truman. One guard was killed in the unsuccessful attempt.
The Un-American Activities Committee of the US House of Representatives releases a list of 624 organizations and 204 publications cited as subversive.
8 March 1951 Tibetans in India report that a compromise has been reached between Tibet and China. Tibet is allowed internal autonomy while China is given control over Tibet’s borders.
9 March 1951 Henri Queuille of the Radical Party replaces René Pleven of the UDSR (liberals) as Prime Minister of France.
The government of El Salvador declares a State of Siege because of an alleged Communist plot to overthrow the government.
Symphony no.5 “Di tre re” by Arthur Honegger is performed for the first time, in Boston, the day before the composer’s 59th birthday.
10 March 1951 Archbishop Josef Beran, under house arrest since 19 June 1949, is exiled from Prague by Czechoslovak authorities.
11 March 1951 Piano Sonata no.5 op.37 by Vincent Persichetti (35) is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York.
13 March 1951 Chinese and North Korean troops begin an orderly retreat on a 225 km front across Korea.
Western Union demonstrates its High-Speed Fax in New York. It can transmit pictures or words over microwaves at 3,000 words per minute and can reproduce a 90-page magazine in an hour.
14 March 1951 UN troops retake Seoul without resistance.
Dr. William Perl, a physics professor at Columbia University, is arrested in New York and charged with perjury. It is alleged that he lied when he said he did not know Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Martin Sobell.
Seven Pieces for Three Pianos by Stefan Wolpe (48) is performed for the first time, at Yale University, along with his lecture “Spatial Relations, Harmonic Structures, and Shapes.”
15 March 1951 The lower house of the Iranian Parliament votes to nationalize the country’s oil industry.
16 March 1951 Sergey Prokofiev (59) wins a Stalin Prize for his suite Winter Bonfire and the oratorio On Guard for Peace.
17 March 1951 A general strike in Madrid ends when the government arrests strike leaders and orders employers to dock the wages of strikers.
18 March 1951 The second part of Emblems for male chorus and piano by Elliott Carter (43) to words of Tate is performed for the first time, at Harvard University.
Symphony no.4 “Autochthonous” by William Grant Still (55) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of the Mutual Radio Network, originating in Oklahoma City.
19 March 1951 The draft of a treaty creating the European Coal and Steel Community is initialed in Paris by representatives of Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. It eliminates trade restrictions on coal and steel within the six countries and establishes four bodies to oversee the treaty.
Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny is published. It will win the Pulitzer Prize.
Flourish for Three Trumpets by Ralph Vaughan Williams (78) is performed for the first time, in Stafford.
21 March 1951 UN forces capture Changchun, 12 km south of the 38th Parallel, without resistance.
The Bulgarian government ends rationing and lower prices on manufactured goods, along with increases in wages, pensions, and scholarships.
22 March 1951 34,000 transport workers in Paris go on strike for higher wages.
His appeals having failed, Alger Hiss surrenders to federal officials in New York to begin serving his five-year sentence for perjury.
24 March 1951 General Douglas MacArthur threatens military action against China and offers to meet with the opposing commander to bargain for peace in the field. The US State Dept. issues a statement to the effect that Gen. MacArthur has military directives governing his actions and political matters are left to them.
25 March 1951 25 people are executed in Peking for being “counterrevolutionaries.”
27 March 1951 US Defense Secretary George C. Marshall tells a press conference that UN troops may cross the 38th Parallel to safeguard their security, but may not push all the way to Manchuria.
28 March 1951 Notturno for strings and harp by Irving Fine (36) is performed for the first time, in Jordan Hall, Boston, conducted by the composer.
29 March 1951 A federal jury in New York finds Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Martin Sobell guilty of conspiracy to commit wartime espionage by passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
Rogers and Hammerstein’s The King and I opens in the St. James Theatre, New York.
30 March 1951 Primavera for voice and piano by Joaquín Rodrigo (49) to words of Fernández Shaw is performed for the first time, in Teatro Gran Via, Salamanca.
Symphony no.4 by Walter Piston (57) is performed for the first time, in Minneapolis.
31 March 1951 Advance elements of the UN force cross the 38th Parallel.
Dmitri Shostakovich (44) plays twelve of his 24 Preludes and Fugues at the Composers’ Union, Moscow. He has just finished composing them and has not had time to learn them. He is nervous, especially about the political atmosphere, and does not play well. Those who speak are not complimentary. The same thing happens with the second twelve tomorrow. See 18 November 1951.
The Group Areas Act comes into force in South Africa. It allows the Interior Minister to divide the country on racial lines.
UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) is accepted for use by the US Bureau of the Census. It was designed by American engineers John William Mauchly and John Presper Eckart and is the first computer to use magnetic tape.
The UN Security Council votes 8-0-3 to accept a new peace plan for Kashmir.
München: ein Gedächtniswalzer by Richard Strauss (†1) is performed for the first time, in Vienna.
Speaking in Los Angeles, US Ambassador-at-large John Foster Dulles explains the outlines of a peace treaty with Japan.
Los cuatro soles, a ballet by Carlos Chávez (51) to his own scenario, is staged for the first time, in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City. See 22 July 1930.
Fairy Tale op.48 for orchestra by Vincent Persichetti (35) is performed for the first time, in Philadelphia.
1 April 1951 The independent Córdoba newspaper La Voz del Interior is closed by the Argentine government.
2 April 1951 Most of the 34,000 Paris transport workers, on strike since 22 March, vote to go back to work.
The Metropolitan Opera, New York, announces it will seek sponsors for television.
Aeschylus and Sophocles, a song for solo voice, piano, and string quartet by Charles Ives (76) to words of Landor, is performed for the first time, at Wilshire Ebell Chamber Music Hall in Los Angeles.
3 April 1951 United Nations forces cross the 38th parallel in force.
Two songs for voice and piano by Otto Luening (50) to words of Byron are performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York: The Harp the Monarch Minstrel Swept and She Walks in Beauty.
4 April 1951 Kállai kettos for chorus and small orchestra by Zoltán Kodály (68) is performed for the first time, in Budapest.
5 April 1951 Israeli planes bomb Syrian fortifications on the border in retaliation of the killing of seven Israeli policemen by Syrians yesterday.
A federal judge in New York sentences Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death for espionage. A co-defendant, Martin Sobell, receives 30 years in prison. Judge Irving R. Kaufman calls them “worse than murderers.”
Symphony in B flat for winds by Paul Hindemith (55) is performed for the first time, in Washington, conducted by the composer.
6 April 1951 David Greenglass, who testified against his sister and her husband, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, is sentenced to 15 years in prison by a federal court in New York for his part in espionage.
Media outlets throughout the Western Hemisphere fly flags at half-mast in honor of the Argentine opposition newspaper La Prensa, shut down by the Argentine government.
7 April 1951 Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh broadcasts an order to begin guerrilla warfare rather than openly challenging major French forces in combat.
A “Declaration of Washington” is signed in that city by representatives of 21 Western Hemisphere nations. They pledge each other to mutual defense and economic cooperation.
8 April 1951 John Cage (38) meets Earle (24) and Carolyn Brown for the first time, in Denver.
10 April 1951 Dr. Stephen Brunauer, head of the high explosives division in the Research and Development Division of the US Navy Bureau of Ordnance, and his wife, Esther Caukin Brunauer, a liaison officer with UNESCO, are both suspended as security risks. They have been accused of being communists by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Both deny the charge.
Lilting Fancy for chorus by Henry Cowell (54) is performed for the first time, in Saugerties, New York.
11 April 1951 Three Glasgow University students hand over the Stone of Scone to Arbroath Abbey in Scotland, on the promise they will not be prosecuted. In two days, police will return the stone to Westminster Abbey from whence it was stolen last December.
President Truman removes General Douglas MacArthur from command of United Nations forces in Korea for his repeated public calls for a larger war against China, in spite of administration policy to the contrary.
Screenwriter Robert Lees and actor Will Geer refuse to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee whether they have ever been communists.
12 April 1951 Iranian troops fire on striking oil workers in Abadan. The workers have been protesting the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Three Britons and eight Iranians are killed in the violence.
Western Union reports that 125,000 telegrams have been delivered to the White House and Congress over the MacArthur firing.
The Congress of Argentina votes to expropriate the opposition newspaper La Prensa.
Variations for piano by Morton Feldman (25) is performed for the first time, for a dance by Merce Cunningham in Seattle.
13 April 1951 Silesian Tryptich for soprano and orchestra by Witold Lutoslawski (38) to folk texts is performed for the first time, in Warsaw.
14 April 1951 Hymn and Fuguing Tune no.3 for orchestra by Henry Cowell (54) is performed for the first time, in Los Angeles.
17 April 1951 Two works by Lejaren Hiller (27) are performed for the first time, in Waynesboro, Virginia: Piano Concerto and Suite for small orchestra. They are the first of Hiller’s music to be performed in public.
18 April 1951 A treaty for the European Coal and Steel Community is signed in Paris by representatives of Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
President António Oscar Frogoso Carmona of Portugal dies of uremia and influenza in Lisbon.
The city of San Francisco gives General Douglas MacArthur a parade with ceremonies at City Hall. An estimated 500,000 people view the festivities at the first stop in his triumphant return to the US.
19 April 1951 UN forces capture Hwachon town and dam, just north of the 38th Parallel.
General Douglas MacArthur, in the midst of a triumphant return to the United States, addresses a joint session of Congress. He defends his record and suggests that the US bomb Manchuria, blockade mainland China and help Chiang Kai-shek to invade the mainland from Taiwan. The speech is carried on radio and television.
20 April 1951 General Douglas MacArthur and his family are given an official welcome and parade through the streets of central and lower Manhattan.
The US State Dept. denies a visa to French actor Maurice Chevalier, alleging that he has “Communist associations.”
Dr. Moisés Lebenshohn, a leader of the Argentine Radical Party, is convicted of having slandered President Juan Perón.
Petite Suite for orchestra by Witold Lutoslawski (38) is performed for the first time, in Warsaw.
21 April 1951 The Parliament of Iran orders the nationalization of the oil industry.
Piano Sonata no.9 op.103 by Sergey Prokofiev (59) is performed for the first time, in Moscow.
Symphonie concertante (Symphony no.5) by Karl Amadeus Hartmann (45) is performed for the first time, in Stuttgart.
Aaron Copland (50) conducts his In the Beginning in a concert on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, two kilometers from the Syrian border.
22 April 1951 600,000 Chinese troops begin a massive offensive across a 150 km front against United Nations forces in Korea.
23 April 1951 Actor John Garfield, testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee, denies that he has ever been a Communist.
24 April 1951 Peter Sculthorpe (21) graduates from Melbourne University.
17,000 workers at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. in Abadan, on strike for two weeks, return to their jobs.
Radio Moscow announces the removal of I. P. Lebedev as chairman of the All-Union Fine Arts Committee and Alexander V. Solodovnikov as director of the Bolshoy Theatre. The Bolshoy produced Herman Zhukovsky’s opera From All Our Hearts with the approval of the arts committee. It was later denounced in Pravda.
25 April 1951 News of the executions of 12 February is made public.
26 April 1951 Sukiman Wirjosandjojo replaces Muhammad Natsir as Prime Minister of Indonesia.
Chinese forces capture Munsan, 16 km south of the 38th Parallel, threatening Seoul.
Public disgust over the executions of 12 February forces the resignation of the South Korean Home Minister, Justice Minister, and Defense Minister.
The Pilgrim’s Progress, a morality play by Ralph Vaughan Williams (78) to his own words after Bunyan, the Bible, and Wood, is performed for the first time, at Covent Garden. The audience is enthralled, the critics mixed.
John Alden Carpenter dies of heart failure in Chicago, aged 75 years, one month, and 29 days.
Piano Sonata no.6 op.39 by Vincent Persichetti (35) is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York.
Sacred Songs for Pantheists for piano and orchestra by Robert Ward (33) to words of Hopkins, Stephens, and Dickinson is performed for the first time, in Quincy, Illinois.
27 April 1951 A service in memory of John Alden Carpenter is held at his Chicago home one day after his death. His mortal remains will be buried near his summer home in Beverly, Massachusetts.
28 April 1951 The ruling Liberal-Country coalition of Prime Minister Robert Menzies wins majorities in both houses in parliamentary elections in Australia.
Robert A. Vogeler, representative of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corp., is released in Budapest after 17 months in prison, accused of spying for the US. In order to gain his release, the US allowed the reopening of Hungarian consulates in New York and Cleveland, lifted a ban on travel to Hungary and promised to return Hungarian property stolen by the Nazis, now in Germany.
29 April 1951 Mohammed Mossadegh becomes Prime Minister of Iran.
Diapason Concertino for tape by Pierre Schaeffer (40) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of Radio France IV.
30 April 1951 The 22 April Chinese offensive is effectively halted by United Nations troops in Korea.
The Iranian Parliament votes to nationalize the oil industry.
France requires Czechoslovakia to close its consulate in Marseille.
1 May 1951 A Chinese offensive is halted by UN troops north of Seoul.
2 May 1951 The name of Leonard Bernstein (32) is placed in the Prominent Individuals Subsection of the Security Index. These are American citizens who will be arrested without due process in the case of a national emergency.
Symphony in E by Ulysses Kay (34) is performed for the first time, in Rochester, New York, conducted by Howard Hanson (54).
Dark Waters, an opera by Ernst Krenek (50) to his own words after Melville, is performed for the first time, in Bovard Auditorium at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
3 May 1951 UN forces retake Uijongbu north of Seoul.
5 May 1951 Czechoslovakia requires France to close its consulate in Prague, in retaliation for the order of 30 April.
Miniatures for a Curious Child for orchestra by Vladimir Ussachevsky (39) is performed for the first time, at Columbia University conducted by the composer.
6 May 1951 A mass execution of “counterrevolutionaries” takes place in Soochow.
The Sons of Light, a cantata by Ralph Vaughan Williams (78) to words of Wood, is performed for the first time, in Royal Albert Hall, London.
L’oiseau RAI for tape by Pierre Schaeffer (40) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of Radio Paris IV.
7 May 1951 The Heart’s Assurance, a cycle for high voice and piano by Michael Tippett (46) to words of Keyes and Lewis, is performed for the first time, in Wigmore Hall, London by Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten (37).
8 May 1951 Das Vokaltuch der Kammersängerin Rosa Silber, a ballet by Hans Werner Henze (24), is performed for the first time, in a concert setting, in Titania-Palast, Berlin. See 15 October 1958.
Two works by Anton Webern (†5) are performed for the first time, in New York: Five Canons on Latin Texts op.16 for voice, clarinet, and bass clarinet, and Liebst Jungfrau op.17/2 for voice, clarinet, bass clarinet, and violin, to an anonymous text. See 16 March 1952.
Alleluia for Small Orchestra by Lou Harrison (33) is performed for the first time, in McMillin Theatre, Columbia University.
Short Suite for band by Ulysses Kay (34) is performed for the first time, at Baylor University, Waco, Texas.
10 May 1951 UN forces capture Munsan, 30 km north of Seoul, as well as Chunchon and Inje in the central part of the front.
A Cotswold Romance, a cantata drawn from music to Hugh the Drover by Ralph Vaughan Williams (78), is performed for the first time, in London. See 4 July 1924.
Imaginary Landscape no.4 for twelve radios by John Cage (38) is performed for the first time, in the McMillin Theatre of Columbia University, New York. The radios are borrowed from the G. Schirmer music shop on 43rd Street. As it is at the end of a lengthy program, the work does not go on until midnight, when many radio stations have signed off.
Three works by Charles Ives (76) are performed for the first time, in New York: Allegretto sombreoso from Set no.1 for chamber orchestra; Luck and Work from Set no.3 for chamber orchestra; and Largo for violin, clarinet, and piano. See 6 December 1962.
11 May 1951 26 of 29 Philippine communists on trial in Manila are found guilty of several crimes including murder, robbery, arson and engaging in armed rebellion. Six receive death sentences, nine are sentenced to life in prison.
21 Puerto Rican nationalists are found guilty of murder in Arecibo. They took part in an attack on the Jayuya police station in which one policeman died.
A US Congressman reports in Honolulu that he witnessed an atomic explosion at Eniwetok (Enewetak) which showed conclusively that “troops can follow up immediately over an area destroyed by an atomic blast with no fear of lingering radiation or other after-effects.”
12 May 1951 Enchiridion, a cycle of short pieces for piano by Bernd Alois Zimmermann (33), is performed for the first time, in Cologne.
13 May 1951 At least two movements of the Messe de la Pentecôte for organ by Olivier Messiaen (42) are performed for the first time, at the Trinité, Paris by the composer.
16 May 1951 Chinese forces counterattack in several places along the line in Korea, being most successful in the east.
A mass execution of “counterrevolutionaries” takes place in Shanghai.
Moslem extremist leader Abolghassem Rafiee is arrested and admits to an assassination plot against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.
Two Songs for baritone and piano by Thea Musgrave (22) to words of Pound are performed for the first time, in Paris, the composer at the keyboard.
17 May 1951 Song of Ahab, a cantata for baritone, tenor, and instruments by Ulysses Kay (34), is performed for the first time, in Quincy, Illinois.
18 May 1951 The United Nations General Assembly votes to embargo strategic materials to the Peoples Republic of China.
Two Fanfares for “Show Business” for brass by Arnold Bax (67) are performed for the first time, over the airwaves of the BBC.
Cantata from Proverbs op.310 for women’s chorus and chamber ensemble by Darius Milhaud (58) is performed for the first time, in Lawrence High School, New York.
19 May 1951 A North Korean attempt to take Seoul is beaten back with heavy casualties.
22 May 1951 30,000 Iranians march in Teheran against the UK and US and in favor of nationalization of the oil industry.
Songs About Spring, a cycle for soprano and piano by Dominick Argento (23) to words of cummings, is performed for the first time, at Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore, the composer at the keyboard. See 14 July 1960.
23 May 1951 An agreement is signed in Peking between the Chinese government, the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama and the communist Tibetan government. It allows the annexation of Tibet by China. The Dalai Lama is recognized as leader of the region with some local autonomy.
24 May 1951 UN forces go over to the offensive in Korea and recross the 38th Parallel.
Five Flower Songs op.47 for chorus by Benjamin Britten (37) to various authors is performed publicly for the first time, over the airwaves of BBC Midland Home Service. See 23 July 1950.
Concerto for violin and orchestra by Ross Lee Finney (44) is performed for the first time, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
25 May 1951 Great Britain transfers 4,000 paratroopers to Cyprus to warn Iran not to molest British interests.
Trois liturgies joyeuses op.116 for chorus and orchestra by Florent Schmitt (80) is performed for the first time, in Paris.
Mizmor L’David for tenor, chorus, and organ by David Diamond (35) is performed for the first time, in Park Avenue Synagogue, New York.
Piece for violin and piano by Morton Feldman (25) is performed for the first time, at the Artists’ Club, New York. Also premiered is Feldman’s Projection 4 for three flutes, trumpet, three cellos, and two pianos.
26 May 1951 Great Britain and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. take their dispute with Iran to the International Court of Justice.
28 May 1951 UN forces capture Inje in the west of Korea, and Hwachon and Yongchon in the center.
About 50,000 coloreds demonstrate outside Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa against separate voting lists based on race. They riot and clash with police. 28 people are seriously injured.
The Goon Show is broadcast on the BBC for the first time.
String Quartet no.2 by Roger Sessions (54) is performed for the first time, in Madison, Wisconsin.
Three Lieder for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, and string quartet by Ernst Krenek (50) to words of Verhaeren are performed for the first time, in Los Angeles City College Auditorium the composer conducting.
29 May 1951 100,000 Iranians march in Teheran against the UK and US and for the nationalization of the oil industry.
David Michel Torino, an editor of the independent El Intransigente in Salta, Argentina, is arrested for “disrespect of the police.”
30 May 1951 In Irish Parliamentary elections, the coalition leader Fine Gael increases its standing by nine seats but its partners falter. Fianna Fail forms a minority government with the support of some independents.
Olivier Messiaen (42) records his newly completed Quatre Études de rythme. It is the only recording of the composer as solo pianist.
Wedding Dance for chorus by György Ligeti (28) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of Hungarian Radio.
31 May 1951 By this day, UN forces have won back all territory lost in the recent Chinese and North Korean offensive.
After a three-day battle, Viet Minh forces are driven out of Ninhbinh, 100 km south of Hanoi, by the French.
Distance de Fée for violin and piano by Toru Takemitsu (20) is performed for the first time, in Yomiuri Hall, Tokyo.
President Theodor Heuss of the Federal Republic of Germany confers on Paul Hindemith (55) the Order of Merit, the country’s highest civilian honor, in ceremonies in Bonn.
1 June 1951 The Parliament of India passes 14 constitutional amendments, among them giving the government the right to place “reasonable restrictions” on the freedom of speech.
A newly restructured Musicians’ Association of the Hungarian Workers Party meets for the first time. Their president, Ferenc Szábo, attacks them for their “disloyalty, unprincipled careerism, and power-hungry attitude, under the aggravating influence of which our emerging professional and musicopolitical debate degenerated ideologically into unprincipled, superficial, and sterile bickering.” (Fossler-Lussier, 137)
A “composite system” of color television is unveiled by General Electric in New York, in competition with the existing CBS system.
4 June 1951 In the case of Garner v. City of Los Angeles Board of Public Works, the US Supreme Court allows any government in the country to fire employees who refuse to sign a loyalty oath.
Serge Koussevitzky dies in Boston at the age of 76.
Citizens of Puerto Rico vote to govern themselves and call a constitutional convention.
7 June 1951 Seven leaders of the SS are hanged by the United States in Landsberg Prison, Munich. Among them are Oswald Pohl, who oversaw the goods taken from those killed in the death camps (including gold teeth), and Otto Ohlendorf, who oversaw death squads in the occupied Soviet Union which accounted for 90,000 deaths, mostly Jews. They are the last Nazi war criminals executed by the United States. 600,000 Germans signed petitions that they be spared.
11 June 1951 The Colonies of Angola, the Cape Verde Islands, Säo Tomé & Príncipe, and Portuguese Guinea are made overseas provinces of Portugal.
12 June 1951 Monopartita for orchestra by Arthur Honegger (59), commissioned to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the entrance of the canton of Zürich into the Helvetic Confederation, is performed for the first time, in the Tonhalle, Zürich.
13 June 1951 UN forces capture Pyongyang for the second time, capping an offensive into the “iron triangle”, a staging area for Chinese offensives.
Eamon de Valera replaces John Aloysius Costello as Prime Minister of Ireland.
Stabat mater for soprano, chorus, and orchestra by Francis Poulenc (52) is performed for the first time, in Strasbourg.
14 June 1951 The first commercial computer, Univac 1, designed for the United States Bureau of the Census, is publicly demonstrated for the first time, in Philadelphia.
Joseph McCarthy, speaking on the floor of the US Senate, attacks Secretary of State George C. Marshall. He blames Marshall for everything from Pearl Harbor to the Korean War.
Six Metamorphoses after Ovid op.49 for oboe by Benjamin Britten (37) is performed for the first time, from a boat in the Meare, an artificial lake at Thorpeness.
Jackson Pollock, a film with music by Morton Feldman (25), is shown for the first time, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
15 June 1951 Canzona for band by Peter Mennin is performed for the first time, in New York.
17 June 1951 Chinese troops retake Pyongyang.
In French parliamentary elections, the Rally of the French People (conservative) wins the most seats while the Communists make a strong showing in third place (although they won the highest number of votes). But power remains with the four-party Socialist-led Third Force.
19 June 1951 Great Britain places an embargo on all strategic arms for mainland China in compliance with the General Assembly resolution of 18 May.
Cinq choeurs en vingt minutes op.117 for chorus and orchestra by Florent Schmitt (80) are performed for the first time, in Strasbourg.
20 June 1951 21 leaders of the US Communist Party are indicted in New York of violating the Smith Act by advocating the violent overthrow of the government. Four of those indicted are currently not in custody.
An orchestral version of Duke Ellington’s (52) Harlem is performed for the first time, in Lewisohn Stadium, New York.
21 June 1951 UN forces capture Kaesong, the last area held by the Chinese south of the 38th Parallel.
Theodor Körner replaces Karl Renner as President of Austria.
Iran occupies British oil installations in Abadan as part of the nationalization of the oil industry. The Iranian Parliament gives Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh a vote of confidence.
Great Britain, France, and the United States end talks with the Soviet Union at the deputy foreign minister level. They have been going on since 4 March with no progress towards a foreign minister conference on peace.
23 June 1951 A federal court in Charleston upholds racial segregation in the public schools of South Carolina.
Three Shakespeare Songs for chorus by Ralph Vaughan Williams (78) is performed for the first time, in Royal Festival Hall, London.
25 June 1951 The earthly remains of Pietro Mascagni (†5) and his wife are moved from the Campo Verano Cemetery in Rome to the Cimitero della Misericordia in Livorno and placed next to those of his parents and brothers.
The Columbia Broadcasting System broadcasts the first scheduled commercial color television program to Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Washington. Unfortunately, no one in the general public owns a color television set.
28 June 1951 Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh appeals to US President Truman for support in his nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
A British warship arrives at Abadan to oversee the evacuation of 3,000 British employees of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
Archbishop József Grösz is convicted of conspiring to overthrow the government of Hungary. He is sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Ferenc Vecer, a Paulician prior, is sentenced to death for killing a Soviet soldier. Seven other defendants receive sentences from eight to 14 years.
30 June 1951 A new non-Communist Socialist International is formed in Frankfurt-am-Main by 22 socialist parties from 21 countries. It also includes exile groups from Spain, Argentina, Yugoslavia, and seven Soviet satellites.
Dance for piano by Peter Maxwell Davies (16) is performed for the first time, by the composer over the airwaves of the BBC originating in Manchester.
1 July 1951 A revolt in Bangkok by elements of the Thai navy and marines is put down.
Legend for oboe and strings by Otto Luening (51) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of radio station WNYC, New York.
2 July 1951 Four leaders of the US Communist Party jump bail rather than begin serving their sentences. They were convicted 20 June.
Der Tanz um goldene Kalb from Arnold Schoenberg’s (76) opera Moses und Aron, is performed for the first time, in Darmstadt. See 12 March 1954 and 6 June 1957.
3 July 1951 Two days of voting for the Finnish Parliament leave the parties virtually unchanged.
4 July 1951 William Oatis, a correspondent for the Associated Press, receives a ten year prison sentence from a Czechoslovak court for spying.
112 people are approached in Madison, Wisconsin by a reporter for the Madison Capital Times. He asks them to sign a petition which consists of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence and seven amendments to the US Constitution. 111 of them refuse to sign the petition, fearing that they would be charged with supporting Communism.
5 July 1951 The opposing sides in Korea agree to begin cease-fire negotiations.
The International Court of Justice grants a temporary injunction to Great Britain. It allows the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. to continue operating while the court decides the issue of Iranian nationalization.
Bell Laboratories of Murray Hill, NJ announces the invention of the junction transistor by Dr. William Shockley. It will allow for the miniaturization of electronic control equipment, thus revolutionizing technology and culture.
Music of Changes part 1 for piano by John Cage (38) is performed for the first time, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Also premiered are Two Intermissions and Intermission 3 for piano by Morton Feldman (25). See 1 January 1952.
6 July 1951 Toute la lyre, a musique concrète opera by Pierre Schaeffer (40) and Pierre Henry (23), is performed for the first time, at Théâtre de l’Empire, Paris.
7 July 1951 Mexico ends its state of war with Germany.
8 July 1951 Sonata for violin solo by Bernd Alois Zimmermann (33) is performed for the first time, in Darmstadt.
9 July 1951 Great Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand declare that their state of war with Germany is ended.
The western allies transfer Tempelhof airfield, Berlin to civilian administration.
Io and Prometheus, a dance for piano by Lou Harrison (34), is performed for the first time, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. See 7 September 1985.
10 July 1951 Korean armistice negotiations begin at Kaesong.
Canada ends its state of war with Germany.
The western allies set up five new independent steel companies in the Ruhr in the final phase of the dissolution of German iron and steel cartels.
Polifonica-Monodia-Ritmica in its original setting for chamber group by Luigi Nono (27) is performed for the first time, in Darmstadt.
11 July 1951 Mozambique is made an overseas province of Portugal.
Luxembourg ends its state of war with Germany.
When a black man attempts to move his family into an apartment in Cicero, Illinois, 3,500 residents of the all-white suburb of Chicago riot.
Conservative rioters in Guatemala City attack the national orphanage and beat up the director, alleged to be a Communist. They also ransack the offices of the leftist newspaper Octubre.
12 July 1951 Korean truce talks break down when the Chinese bar 20 reporters from the site and the UN negotiator refuses to go without them.
The draft of a peace treaty between Japan and most of the Allies is published by the US and UK.
In an attempt to calm conservative riots in Guatemala City, troops fire on the mob, killing four and injuring 61.
A federal court in Buenos Aires orders the Argentine government to pay almost 19 million pesos (US$1,300,000) to the former owners of La Prensa for the expropriation of the newspaper. The owners claim that this is only a small part of its worth.
Parade, a suite for piano by Peter Maxwell Davies (16), is performed for the first time, by the composer over the airwaves of the BBC originating in Manchester.
The Illinois National Guard is sent into Cicero to disperse a mob of 3,500 whites. 17 people have been wounded and 99 arrested.
13 July 1951 Seven Czechoslovakians, including two Catholic priests, are sentenced to death in Jihlava for the murder of three Communist officials in Babice. The court said they were “inspired” by US agents.
President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala orders a suspension of civil liberties for 30 days to quell conservative violence.
Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg dies in Los Angeles, aged 76 years and ten months.
15 June 1951 Korean truce negotiations resume in Kaesong. The Chinese agree to stop trying to make the site look like a UN surrender. Reporters are now admitted to the site.
Anti-US demonstrators riot in Parliament Square, Teheran against the arrival of US envoy Averell Harriman. He is in Iran to try to negotiate a settlement of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. dispute. Four people are killed, 88 injured.
15 July 1951 Paul Hindemith (55) completes his book A Composer’s World: Horizons and Limitations. It is an expansion of his six Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University, given in the Autumn of 1949.
16 July 1951 Former Prime Minister of Lebanon Riad es-Solh is murdered in Amman by three members of the Syrian National Socialist Party. Two murderers die in the action, one escapes.
Prince-Royal Baudouin Albert Charles Léopold Axel Marie Gustave assumes the throne of Belgium as Baudouin I, after the formal abdication of his father, Leopold III.
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger is published by Little, Brown in Boston.
18 July 1951 Fire destroys the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, taking with it hundreds of manuscripts, including some by Yeats and O’Casey.
20 July 1951 King Abdullah ibn Hussein of Jordan is murdered as he enters the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem for Friday services. The attacker is immediately killed by the king’s bodyguards, two of whom are injured. The Jordanian government later charges that the murderer is an agent of Arab leader Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. In Egypt, the Mufti denies any involvement. King Abdullah is succeeded by his son, Talal ibn Abdullah, under regency. Talal is currently in Switzerland seeking medical treatment.
Japan is given full title to over $350,000,000 of Japanese assets in the US.
21 July 1951 The Chinese government expropriates the property of Standard Vacuum, Caltex, and Chinese-American, all US oil companies.
All Roman Catholic priests remaining in Hungary are required to swear allegiance to the government.
The British government announces that it has revoked the passports of atomic scientist WHS Burhop and an unnamed Foreign Office official to prevent them visiting Moscow.
23 July 1951 The permanent site of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE) is opened in Marly, 25 km west of Paris.
Henri-Philippe Pétain dies at the age of 95 at his villa on the island of Yeu off the west coast of France. He was confined there under house arrest after his death sentence was commuted.
Herbert Philbrick, FBI spy in the US Communist Party, gives the House Un-American Activities Committee the names of 50 people he claims are communists.
24 July 1951 The Harris-Seybold Co. of Cleveland announces the first five-color offset press.
26 July 1951 FBI agents arrest twelve “second-tier” officials of the US Communist Party in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
28 July 1951 In a ceremony in the Sparrow’s Nest Theatre, Benjamin Britten (37) is granted the Freedom of the Borough of Lowestoft, his birthplace.
30 July 1951 Elections to the Israeli Knesset take place. The leading Mapai Party once again receives the most seats. This sitting of the Knesset will produce four different governments.
The Bayreuth Festival opens for the first time since the war with a performance of Parsifal.
31 July 1951 A Viet Minh agent kills French General Charles Marie Chanson and Governor Thai Lap Thanh with a hand grenade 100 km south of Saigon. The attacker is also killed.
The US suspends tariff concessions to Czechoslovakia because they continue to imprison US reporter William Oatis.
1 August 1951 American tariff concessions to all communist governments are suspended.
Explosions damage Argentine railroads in 18 places at the beginning of a wildcat strike by the Brotherhood of Engineers and Firemen, an anti-Perón union.
2 August 1951 A Polish minesweeper, commandeered by mutinous sailors, is sailed into the Swedish port of Ystad. Twelve sailors ask for political asylum.
US negotiator Averell Harriman concludes an agreement for a conference between representatives of Iran and Great Britain to solve the dispute over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
3 August 1951 President Juan Perón of Argentina conscripts the striking members of the Brotherhood of Engineers and Firemen. Their three-day-old strike is broken.
5 August 1951 Senator Eduardo Chibas, presidential candidate of the People’s Party, shoots himself after his regular radio broadcast in Havana. Critically wounded, he says he did it to focus attention on the corruption of President Carlos Prío Socarrás and his administration.
6 August 1951 Flooding from a typhoon causes 4,800 deaths in Manchuria.
Talks between Great Britain and Iran over the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company resume in Teheran.
7 August 1951 Six more “second-tier” leaders of the US Communist Party are arrested in New York, Baltimore and Cleveland.
String Quartet no.6 by Ross Lee Finney (44) is performed for the first time, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
8 August 1951 René Pleven replaces Henri Queuille as Prime Minister of France.
At an East Berlin Youth Festival, 100 young people seek asylum in West Berlin.
9 August 1951 Francisco Higino Craveiro Lopes becomes President of Portugal, replacing António Oscar Frogoso Carmona who died in April.
The US Senate receives from Senator Joseph McCarthy the names of 26 present or former State Department officials suspected of disloyalty. He does so under the Senate’s immunity from civil suit or criminal prosecution.
11 August 1951 Argentine police arrest many top officials of the opposition Radical and Socialist parties.
Constitutional rights are restored in Guatemala.
Aboard the SS Constitution near the Azores, on his way to Italy for The Rake’s Progress, Igor Stravinsky (68) contracts pneumonia. He will survive, but rehearsals for the opera will be postponed.
13 August 1951 Nine Polish military officers are convicted of spying in a Warsaw court and sentenced to life in prison.
14 August 1951 The British restriction on wartime strikes and lockouts is ended.
William Randolph Hearst dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in Beverly Hills, California.
Le voyage en Amérique, a film with music by Francis Poulenc (52), is shown for the first time, in the Cinéma des Étoiles, Cannes.
15 August 1951 9,000 young people attending a communist youth festival in East Berlin attempt to stage an anti-US march through West Berlin. They are met by West Berlin police with clubs and water hoses. The youths retaliate with stones.
Four prominent Romanians are sentenced to death in a Bucharest court for spying for the US and UK. Four others receive long prison terms.
In a San Juan courtroom, Pedro Albizu Campos, leader of a revolt last November, is found guilty on twelve counts of attempting to overthrow the government of Puerto Rico by force.
Three Nocturnes for oboe and piano by Otto Luening (51) are performed for the first time, in Bennington, Vermont, the composer at the piano.
17 August 1951 The Dalai Lama returns to Lhasa from Yantung on the border with India.
Six more “second tier” Communist Party members are arrested by the FBI.
20 August 1951 Senator Pat McCarran announces that the United States has been invaded by 3,000,000-5,000,000 illegal communist aliens.
21 August 1951 The US Navy announces that it has awarded a contract to the Electric Boat Co. of Groton, Connecticut to build the first nuclear-powered submarine.
The Metropolitan Opera drops plans for a production of Die Fledermaus in Washington when the only theatre available refuses to lift its ban on blacks.
Dickinson Song Cycle for voice and piano by Otto Luening (51) is performed for the first time, privately, in Bennington, Vermont. See 11 December 1951.
22 August 1951 Incidental music to Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing by Peter Sculthorpe (22) is performed for the first time, in Launceston, Tasmania.
After 18 days of meetings in Teheran, negotiations between Iran and Great Britain over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. collapse.
The perjury conviction of William Remington is overturned by a federal court of appeals in New York. Once an official of the Commerce Dept., Remington was convicted of lying when he said that he had never been a communist.
President Juan Perón of Argentina announces he will run for reelection. His wife will be the vice-presidential candidate.
String Quartet no.18 by Darius Milhaud (58) is performed for the first time, in Aspen, Colorado.
23 August 1951 China and North Korea breaks off armistice negotiations, claiming a UN plane attacked the Kaesong neutral zone. The UN denies any such attack.
As the British negotiating team heads home from Teheran, the British government announces that it is prepared to use force to maintain British control over the Abadan oil refinery.
Intermezzo for piano and orchestra by Vladimir Ussachevsky (39) is performed for the first time, at Bennington College, Vermont conducted by Otto Luening (51).
24 August 1951 Peking radio announces that 237 people were executed by firing squad two days ago. These include “counterrevolutionaries,” “spies,” and “bad landlords.”
Burleska, a musical pantomime by Karlheinz Stockhausen (23), is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of WDR, the composer at the piano.
The Modern Jazz Quartet is founded in New York.
The Glyph, a multi-media presentation with music by Lou Harrison (34), is performed for the first time, at Black Mountain College, North Carolina.
25 August 1951 Five SS and Gestapo officers are sentenced to death by a court in Prague for atrocities during the war.
26 August 1951 India announces that it will not attend the upcoming Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco. The Indians disagree with several of its provisions.
28 August 1951 Six men are sentenced to death in Amman for plotting the murder of King Abdullah.
30 August 1951 A mutual defense treaty is signed by representatives of the Philippines and the United States in Washington.
In a speech in New York, Senator Joseph McCarthy charges that US Ambassador-at-large Philip C. Jessup belonged to five organizations “officially named” as communist fronts.
31 August 1951 Eva Perón withdraws her candidacy for Vice-President of Argentina, largely because of opposition from the military.
1 September 1951 The UN Security Council votes 8-0 to require Egypt to open the Suez Canal to ships bound to and from Israel. Egypt refuses.
A mutual defense treaty is signed between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand (ANZUS).
4 September 1951 A conference of 52 nations opens in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco to conclude a peace treaty with Japan.
The National Broadcasting Company expands to 61 stations in the first coast-to-coast television network in the United States. President Harry Truman makes the first coast-to-coast telecast across North America. Speaking from the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco he discusses the Japanese Peace Treaty.
5 September 1951 The Papal Internuncio is expelled from China.
Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh announces that he will expel all British oil workers unless the British government resumes negotiations within 15 days.
The Medium, a film with music by Gian Carlo Menotti (40) is shown for the first time, in the Sutton Theatre, New York.
6 September 1951 In the centennial year of his death, the Spontini Museum is opened in Maiolati.
8 September 1951 Jürgen Stroop, who commanded the SS troops which suppressed the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, is hanged on the site of the ghetto.
In San Francisco, Japan signs a peace treaty with 48 nations at war with it. The USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Poland refuse to sign. India and Burma do not attend the conference. In the treaty, Japan regains sovereignty and formally renounces war. It is reduced to the four home islands. Japan agrees to negotiate reparations agreements with the various allied powers.
Five hours after the Peace Treaty is signed, representatives of Japan and the United States sign a defense treaty calling for the stationing of US forces in Japan.
9 September 1951 Leonard Bernstein (33) marries Felicia Montealegre, an actress and daughter of businessman Roy Cohn, at Temple Mishkan Tefilah, Newton, Massachusetts.
10 September 1951 Great Britain freezes Iranian holdings of sterling in the country and outlaws exports to Iran.
11 September 1951 Frazek Jarda, a Czech railroad engineer, drives his train across the border into the US occupation zone of Germany at Selb-Ploeszberg. On board are Jarda’s family and 21 others fleeing the communist regime. They are granted sanctuary and the US refuses to return the train and 87 other passengers until the Czechoslovak government returns William Oatis.
The Rake’s Progress, an opera by Igor Stravinsky (69) to words of Auden and Kallman, is performed for the first time, at Teatro La Fenice, Venice conducted by the composer.
12 September 1951 Dirk Jan Struik, a mathematics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is indicted for conspiring to overthrow the governments of the United States and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He is suspended by MIT.
13 September 1951 77 passengers of a Czechoslovak train that was driven to Germany two days ago are allowed to return home. The rest choose to stay in the west.
14 September 1951 A riot in Leipzig involves 3,500 civilians and 400 police. Many injuries ensue and 100 people are arrested.
Albert Wilson and Rudolph Minkowski discover the asteroid Geographos with the Mt. Palomar Observatory in California.
17 September 1951 Msgr. Augustin Pacha, the Archbishop of Timosoara, is sentenced to 18 years in prison by a military court in Bucharest for spying for the United States.
Several members of the film industry testify in Washington before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming names of people who they say are communists. Several others refuse to testify.
19 September 1951 The South China Daily of Canton reports that 400,000 people have been arrested in South China over the last two years for political offenses.
Testifying before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, Lt. Gen. Albert Wedemeyer (Ret.) says that three State Department officials gave him advice during World War II that would have helped the Chinese Communists. He names the officials, saying he doesn’t know if they are disloyal or not.
A television tube that can receive both color and black and white pictures is demonstrated at Paramount Pictures Corp., New York. It was invented by Ernest Lawrence of the University of California.
Elia Kazan’s filmed version of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire starring Marlin Brando and Vivian Leigh is released in the United States.
20 September 1951 The Indian Parliament changes marriage laws limiting Hindus, Buddhists, Djins, and Sikhs to one wife. Women are granted the right to sue for divorce. The law does not apply to Moslems. There is so much opposition in the country that Prime Minister Nehru delays enactment of the measure until the next session of Parliament.
Yorick, a monkey, and eleven mice become the first Earth beings to fly in a rocket and survive. They reach a height of 70 km. The flight takes place in New Mexico.
The first shopping mall in history opens in Seattle.
23 September 1951 United Nations forces capture Heartbreak Ridge, north of Yanggu, Korea. They will lose it tomorrow.
Doctors perform an operation on King George VI at Buckingham Palace to remove part of a lung.
General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, the French High Commissioner for Indochina, completes a week of meetings in Washington. He has been promised the second highest amount of US military aid to East Asia, second only to Korea.
US President Truman releases three secret reports made by then Vice-President Henry Wallace to President Roosevelt after his 1944 mission to China. Wallace urged Roosevelt to support Chiang Kai-shek. Truman released the documents to counter charges before a Senate committee that Wallace was influenced by communists in the State Department.
24 September 1951 The offices of Hoy, a leftist newspaper in Havana, are ransacked by masked men, its equipment destroyed.
25 September 1951 The Iranian government orders all British technicians at the Abadan oil refinery to leave the country by 4 October.
Seven days of testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee end in Los Angeles. 78 members of the Screen Writers Guild have been accused of being Communists.
27 September 1951 Iranian troops take over the Abadan oil refinery. All but ten of the 300 British employees are forbidden to enter.
The Bundestag of West Germany unanimously votes to pay restitution to Jews for “unspeakable crimes perpetrated” by the Nazis. No specific sum is named.
A Council of State is appointed to rule Great Britain while King George VI recovers from the operation of 23 September.
Senator Joseph McCarthy appears before the Senate Foreign Relations committee and testifies that Ambassador-at-large Philip Jessup because he associated with “Red-front organizations”.
28 September 1951 CBS-Columbia color televisions go on sale for the first time, in New York.
American astronomer Seth Barnes Nicholson discovers Ananke, the twelfth moon of Jupiter to be observed from Earth, from the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, California. It is the fifth and last moon of Jupiter to be discovered by Nicholson.
1 October 1951 Large screen color television is demonstrated in Zürich. The Eidophor system was developed at the Swiss Institute of Technology by a team led by Ernst Baumann.
2 October 1951 Television begins in Denmark with three one-hour broadcasts per week. Television is also inaugurated in the Netherlands.
3 October 1951 With peace negotiations on hold, UN forces open a new offensive in central Korea.
French troops evacuate Binhlu, Indochina, near the border with China after it is attacked by Viet Minh.
Arthur Honegger (59) conducts for the last time, in a recording session of Le Roi David.
US Ambassador-at-large Philip Jessup testifies before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee that the charges against him by Senator Joseph McCarthy are “barefaced falsehoods, distortions, and misrepresentations.”
4 October 1951 The second shopping mall in history opens in Framingham, Massachusetts.
An American in Paris, a film with music by George Gershwin (†14), is released.
5 October 1951 The British government in Malaya announces strict controls on food in an attempt to starve out guerrillas.
6 October 1951 Henry Gurney, the British High Commissioner in Malaya, is killed when his three-car convoy is attacked by guerrillas north of Kuala Lampur.
Two works for small groups of instruments are performed for the first time, in Donaueschingen: Double Concerto for violin, piano, and small orchestra by Ernst Krenek (51), and Polyphonie X for 18 instruments by Pierre Boulez (26).
7 October 1951 UN forces complete the capture of Heartbreak Ridge, trapping many North Koreans on the summit.
Piano Concerto no.2 by Lukas Foss (29) is performed for the first time, in Venice the composer at the piano.
Symphony no.3 by Hans Werner Henze (25) is performed for the first time, in Donaueschingen.
8 October 1951 King Farouk of Egypt repudiates the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 and proclaims himself King of the Sudan.
9 October 1951 The opposing sides in the Korean War agree on a new site for truce talks: Panmunjom.
10 October 1951 Ten Poems on Texts by Revolutionary Poets for boys’ chorus and chorus by Dmitri Shostakovich (45) is performed for the first time, in Moscow Conservatory Bolshoy Hall.
11 October 1951 Duo no.2 for violin and piano by Arthur Berger (40) is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York.
15 October 1951 The Egyptian Parliament votes to end the 1936 defense treaty with Great Britain. This requires the British to pull out of Suez and Sudan.
Carl Djerassi perfects a synthetic progesterone pill in Mexico City. This is essentially a birth control pill, but no one, including Djerassi, wants to test it for that use.
16 October 1951 Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan of Pakistan is shot to death by an Afghan fanatic as he addresses a meeting at Rawalpindi Army headquarters. The assassin is killed by the spectators. Khwaja Nazimuddin is named Prime Minister.
British troops battle rioters in Port Said and Isamailiya, Egypt over the status of the canal. Twelve people are killed.
Charles Davis is convicted in Lausanne of political espionage. He admits to being a spy for US Senator Joseph McCarthy and was paid to gather damaging evidence about John Carter Vincent, the former US Minister to Switzerland. Davis is sentenced to eight months in prison but is released and expelled from the country for health reasons.
17 October 1951 The Egyptian government sends several hundred police into the canal zone and restores order.
Nine people, including four Catholic priests, are sentenced to death in a Lublin court for activity against the Polish government.
Argentine President Juan Perón orders that the annual 18 October Loyalty Day be honored as St. Evita’s Day in honor of his wife.
18 October 1951 Herbert Eimert, Werner Meyer-Eppler, and Robert Beyer resolve to “compose directly onto magnetic tape” at WDR, Cologne.
19 October 1951 Great Britain, France and the United States agree to allow West Germany to control foreign trade and govern its constitutional affairs.
US President Truman signs a congressional resolution that the state of war with Germany is ended, to take effect 24 October.
CBS agrees to postpone color TV after a request from the Defense Mobilization director to use strategic materials only for defense. Television makers will agree on 25 October.
The Board of Regents of the University of California vote to rescind the Loyalty Oath requirement. In the two years since its adoption, 56 faculty have refused to sign, eight of them were sacked. The move is not retroactive.
The first two movements of Gian-Carlo Menotti’s (40) symphonic poem Apocalypse is performed for the first time, in the Oakland Civic Center, Pittsburgh. See 18 January 1952.
Cumberland Concerto for orchestra by Roy Harris (53) is performed for the first time, in the Music Hall, Cincinnati.
20 October 1951 On a train between Amboise and Paris, in the “fog of a headache”, Pierre Schaeffer (41) works out his ideas for Symphonie pour un homme seul.
US President Truman nominates Mark Clark to be Ambassador to the Vatican. It is the first time a US envoy is to be resident at the Vatican. US Protestant leaders protest.
22 October 1951 British forces take control of Suez at the southern end of the canal.
Piano Concerto no.4 by Ernst Krenek (51) is performed for the first time, in Cologne, under the baton of the composer.
23 October 1951 After ten days of fighting, UN troops control, but do not occupy, Kumsong.
Great Britain suspends trade between the canal zone and Egypt.
24 October 1951 A new railroad is completed connecting Dammam with Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
25 October 1951 After two months, Korean truce negotiations resume at Panmunjom.
Brigadier General Conrad Snow says in Washington that in the four years he has been head of the State Department’s Loyalty Review Board, “not one case has been found of a present Communist working” in the department.
In British national elections, the Conservative Party gains 19 seats and a plurality in Parliament, even though Labour wins the most votes.
26 October 1951 Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill replaces Clement Richard Attlee as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the head of a Conservative government supported by the National Liberals.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Salah el-Din Bey calls on the 30,000 British subjects in Egypt to leave the country.
27 October 1951 Divagação for cello, piano, and drum by Heitor Villa-Lobos (64) is performed for the first time, in Rio de Janeiro.
28 October 1951 Incidental music to Adam de la Halle’s play Le jeu de Robin et Marion by Darius Milhaud (59) is performed for the first time, in the Hessiches Staats-Theater, Wiesbaden.
29 October 1951 Jean Léon François Marie de Raymond, French Commissioner in Cambodia, is stabbed to death while he sleeps in Phnom Penh, by a servant. The killer escapes but an accomplice is arrested.
Set of Two for violin and piano strings by Henry Cowell (54) is performed for the first time, in Carnegie Hall, New York.
30 October 1951 New British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sends another infantry division to the Suez.
The first Canadian deployment of troops to Europe in peacetime arrives at Rotterdam.
31 October 1951 The Communist candidate for President of Argentina, Rodolfo Ghioldi, is shot and seriously injured while campaigning in Paraná.
1 November 1951 Truce negotiators at Panmunjom agree to the eastern half of the truce line.
Nikolaos Plastiras replaces Sophoklis Eleftheriou Venizelos as Prime Minister of Greece.
Moroccans riot in Casablanca against the French on local election day. Six people are killed, 60 injured.
Ricercare and Toccata on a Theme from “The Old Maid and the Thief” for piano by Gian Carlo Menotti (40) is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York.
An orchestral suite from Stefan Wolpe’s (49) ballet The Man from Midian is performed for the first time, by the New York Philharmonic.
2 November 1951 4,000 more British troops are flown into Suez.
Television service begins in Argentina, broadcasting from Buenos Aires.
3 November 1951 The Egyptian government orders that all Egyptian employees of the British army quit their jobs by 30 November or face charges of treason. The British government sends 1,000 dependents home from Port Said.
A bomb goes off at the Buenos Aires factory printing Eva Perón’s new book La Razon de Mi Vida. There is little damage.
4 November 1951 British troops take over the Suez Customs House from Egyptian control.
5 November 1951 Ernest MacMillan (58) begins a weekly radio program of recorded music on CKEY, Toronto.
7 November 1951 The National Theatre, under new management, agrees to end racial segregation. This allows the resumption of legitimate stage plays. The theatre has been boycotted by Actors’ Equity for 2 ½ years.
Erosão (Origem do rio Amazonas), a symphonic poem by Heitor Villa-Lobos (64), is performed for the first time, in Louisville, Kentucky.
9 November 1951 String Quartet no.12 by Heitor Villa-Lobos (64) is performed for the first time, in Rio de Janeiro.
10 November 1951 French forces capture Chobenh, southwest of Hanoi.
Mayor M. Leslie Downing of Englewood, New Jersey calls Mayor Frank Osborne of Alameda, California. It is the first transcontinental direct dial telephone call.
Evensong at Brookside: A Father’s Lullaby for male chorus by Henry Cowell (54) is performed for the first time, in Carnegie Recital Hall, New York.
11 November 1951 Ronald Reagan is reelected President of the Screen Actors’ Guild.
John Mullin and Wayne Johnson demonstrate the video tape camera which they invented, in Beverly Hills, California.
National elections in Argentina held today result in victory for the Perónista Party in the presidential and congressional contests.
12 November 1951 Seven leaders of the Greek Left are released from prison by the government. They take their seats as Members of Parliament.
Paint Your Wagon by Lerner and Loewe opens in New York.
Brasilianischen Ouvertüre, part I of Alagoana, Caprichos Brasileiros for orchestra by Bernd Alois Zimmermann (33), is performed for the first time, in the Stadttheater Bielefeld. See 25 April 1954.
13 November 1951 100,000 demonstrators in Cairo peacefully protest the presence of Great Britain in Egypt.
After three-weeks of talks with Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Washington, the US State Department announces its failure to find any basis to restart Anglo-Iranian negotiations.
Aaron Copland delivers his first lecture as Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard University, on the eve of his 51st birthday. His six lectures will be published in 1952 as Music and Imagination.
14 November 1951 French forces capture Hoabinh, southwest of Hanoi.
The United States and Yugoslavia sign a military assistance agreement.
200,000 demonstrators in Cairo peacefully protest the presence of Great Britain in Egypt.
Over 60% of France’s coal miners heed calls by the Communist and Socialist parties to strike.
Six Adagios for orchestra by Willem Pijper (†4) are performed for the first time, in Utrecht. A premiere was being planned in 1940 when the Germans invaded the Netherlands.
16 November 1951 Joie de vivre, a ballet by Toru Takemitsu (21) and Hiroyoshi Suzuki to a scenario by Akiyama, is performed for the first time, in Hibiya Public Hall, Tokyo.
17 November 1951 17 people are killed over the next two days in fighting between British troops and Egyptian police in Isamailiya.
President Truman allows Jean Sibelius (85) to renew US copyrights on his music which lapsed during World War II.
Fantasia for saxophone (soprano or tenor) by Heitor Villa-Lobos (64) is performed for the first time, in the Auditório do Ministério da Educação e Cultura, the composer conducting.
18 November 1951 Joaquín Rodrigo (49) is invested into the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, in Madrid. For the occasion he plays the premiere of his Sonatas de Castilla for piano.
Gypsy Fantasy op.127 for orchestra from Sergey Prokofiev’s unperformed ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower is performed for the first time, in Moscow. See 12 February 1954.
Four of the 24 Preludes and Fugues op.87 for piano by Dmitri Shostakovich (45) are performed for the first time, in Leningrad Glinka Hall by the composer. The entire cycle will be performed on 23 and 28 December 1952.
Sonatina for piano by Conlon Nancarrow (39) is performed for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
19 November 1951 Oscar Torp replaces Einar Gerhardsen as Prime Minister of Norway.
Flying from Munich to Belgrade, a United States Air Force transport plane is forced down by Soviet fighters over Hungary.
At the Harwell atomic center in Great Britain, the first atomic heating plant begins operation. It heats an 80-room office building.
A recording of Hans Werner Henze’s (25) radio opera after Kafka Ein Landarzt is performed for the first time, in Hamburg. See 29 November 1951 and 30 November 1965.
Le buisson ardent (part 1) op.203 and (part 2) op.171, symphonic poems by Charles Koechlin (†0), are performed for the first time, in Paris.
Concertino d’été op.311 for viola and orchestra by Darius Milhaud (59) is performed for the first time, in Charleston, South Carolina.
20 November 1951 UN command in Korea confirms that 365 US servicemen were killed by the other side when they were prisoners-of-war. Their bodies have been discovered.
Emperor Hirohito signs the Japanese ratifications of the San Francisco Peace Treaty and Security Treaty in Tokyo.
21 November 1951 Igor Stravinsky (69) boards a plane in Rome for his first transatlantic flight. With several stops, he will arrive in New York 30 hours later.
22 November 1951 Korean truce negotiators agree in Panmunjom that if the issues separating them are not resolved within a month, the current battle front will serve as a truce line.
An agreement on the ending of the occupation of West Germany is reached in Paris by representatives of France, Great Britain, the US, and West Germany.
Animal Folk Songs for Children by Ruth Crawford Seeger (50) is released by Doubleday.
24 November 1951 Gigi by Anita Loos opens in New York.
25 November 1951 Seven Pastorales for chamber orchestra by Lou Harrison (34) is performed completely for the first time, in New York.
27 November 1951 Negotiators in Panmunjom set a cease-fire line at the current battle front. They give themselves 30 days to work out all other issues. If that can not be done, the line agreement will be nullified.
The former Vice-Premier of Czechoslovakia, Rudolf Slansky, is arrested and charged with “Titoism.”
28 November 1951 I Am a Camera by John van Druten after Christopher Isherwood opens in New York.
Excerpts from King Oedipus for solo voices, chorus, and original instruments by Harry Partch (50) to his own words after Yeats after Sophocles, are performed for the first time, privately, at Mills College, Oakland, California. See 14 March 1952.
29 November 1951 For the first time, the United States detonates a nuclear bomb underground. It happens at Frenchman Flats, Nevada.
Hans Werner Henze’s (25) radio opera after Kafka Ein Landarzt is broadcast live for the first time. See 19 November 1951 and 30 November 1965.
Chorales for Spring for piano by Lou Harrison (34) is performed for the first time, at Black Mountain College, North Carolina.
30 November 1951 The American Medical Association approves the treatment of public drinking water with fluoride.
Horizontes for violin, cello, a microtonal zither-harp, and orchestra by Julián Carrillo (76) is performed for the first time, in Pittsburgh.
1 December 1951 Billy Budd op.50, an opera by Benjamin Britten (38) to words of Forster and Crozier after Melville, is performed for the first time, at Covent Garden, conducted by the composer.
3 December 1951 Gun battles over the next two days between Egyptian civilians and police and British troops causes 65 deaths in Suez City.
4 December 1951 The Pied Piper, a ballet to Aaron Copland’s (51) Clarinet Concerto choreographed by Jerome Robbins, is performed for the first time, at New York City Center.
5 December 1951 The Yugoslav government frees Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac, provided he act only as a parish priest, not issuing pastoral letters.
The Triumph of Saint Joan Symphony by Norman Dello Joio (38) is performed for the first time, in Louisville. While writing the work, the composer was contacted by Martha Graham who had a commission for a solo ballet and she wanted Dello Joio to write the music. He told her it was impossible as he was in the middle of writing a symphony. She said she would dance to that. Dello Joio remembers the premiere as a disaster for Ms. Graham (“she spent much of her time just running around the stage”) but she will turn it into Seraphic Dialogue, with three dancers taking the part of Joan. It will become one of her more successful works.
7 December 1951 The offices of nine newspapers in Teheran are attacked and ransacked by rioters.
Three Symphonic Essays for orchestra by Roy Harris (53) is performed for the first time, at the Juilliard School, New York.
8 December 1951 15 newspaper editors and 15 anti-Mossadegh members of the Iranian Parliament take refuge in the Parliament building in Teheran, fearing death at the hands of nationalist extremists. They will remain there until the 13th.
An article in Izvestia attacks Dmitri Shostakovich (45) and his 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano as a backward step from the “realistic position” he took in 1948.
9 December 1951 The first of the Two Pastorales for prepared piano by John Cage (39) is performed for the first time, at the 92nd Street Y, New York, to a dance by Merce Cunningham. See 10 February 1952.
10 December 1951 Great Britain’s King George VI, having recovered from his operation of 23 September, dissolves the Council of State which ruled in his place and resumes his powers.
11 December 1951 A session of the Iranian Parliament dissolves into fist fights between pro and anti-Mossadegh legislators.
Dickinson Song Cycle for voice and piano by Otto Luening (51) is performed publicly for the first time, in Carnegie Recital Hall, New York. See 21 August 1951.
12 December 1951 Egypt recalls its ambassador to Great Britain.
Wedding Suite op.126 for orchestra from Sergey Prokofiev’s unperformed ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower is performed for the first time, in Moscow. See 12 February 1954.
13 December 1951 With the ratification of Colombia, the 14th nation to do so, the Charter of the Organization of American States goes into effect.
The French National Assembly ratifies the European Coal and Steel Community.
President Getulio Vargas of Brazil drafts 16,000 striking airline workers into the armed forces to stop a five-day-old strike.
Incidental music to de Musset’s play On ne badine pas avec l’Amour by Arthur Honegger (59) is performed for the first time, in the Théâtre Marigny, Paris.
Piano Sonatina no.2 by Vincent Persichetti (36) is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York.
14 December 1951 The first honorary DMus granted by Bristol University is conferred on Ralph Vaughan Williams (79) by its Chancellor, Winston Churchill.
16 December 1951 El mondo novo, a ballet by Gian Francesco Malipiero (69) to his own story after Tiepolo, is performed for the first time, in a concert setting in Teatro Argentina, Rome.
Introït, récit et congé for cello and orchestra by Florent Schmitt (81) is performed for the first time, in Paris.
18 December 1951 British and Egyptian foreign ministers meet in Paris but reach no agreement in their dispute over Suez.
19 December 1951 Concertino d’automne op.309 for two pianos and orchestra by Darius Milhaud (59) is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York.
20 December 1951 The independence of the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman is recognized by Great Britain.
Baja California becomes the 29th state of Mexico.
The atomic reactor at Arco, Idaho becomes the first one to produce useable amounts of electricity.
Two of Les chants de Nectaire for flute op.200 by Charles Koechlin (†0) are performed for the first time, at the Schola Cantorum, Paris.
21 December 1951 Several western allies repudiate clauses in the Italian Peace Treaty limiting the Italian armed forces.
23 December 1951 John Huston’s film The African Queen is shown for the first time, in Los Angeles.
24 December 1951 The Kingdom of Libya is declared independent under King Idris I and Prime Minister Mahmud al-Muntasir.
Amahl and the Night Visitors, an opera by Gian-Carlo Menotti (40) to his own words, is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of the NBC television network. See 21 February 1952.
25 December 1951 A bomb explodes at the home of Harry Moore, secretary of the Florida NAACP, in Mims, Florida killing Moore and his wife Harriette.
26 December 1951 La Tour de Babel, a film with music by Arthur Honegger (59), is performed for the first time, in Paris.
27 December 1951 Truce negotiators at Panmunjom fail to meet today’s deadline and therefore nullify the agreement of 27 November.
28 December 1951 Four members of the US Air Force detained in Hungary since their plane was forced down 19 November are sent across the border into Austria. The US paid $120,000 for their release.
29 December 1951 Karlheinz Stockhausen (23) marries Doris Andreae, a pianist and daughter of an industrialist, in Hamburg.
30 December 1951 La Rédemption de François Villon, a radio play by José Bruyr and music by Arthur Honegger (59), is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of Radio France originating in Paris. The recording was made on 12 December.
©2004-2011 Paul Scharfenberger
21 December 2011
Last Updated (Tuesday, 27 December 2011 10:46)