1949

1949

1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1949th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini ( AD) designations, the 949th year of the 2nd millennium, the 49th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1940s decade.
 * January 9–January 12 – The Los Angeles area is hit with a massive snowstorm.
 * Belgian astronomer Jean Meeus asserts that the orbits of all the planets of the Solar System are within the same 90° arc of the Solar System, on this date. The next time it is thought this will occur is on May 6, 2492.
 * English astronomer Fred Hoyle coins the term Big Bang during a BBC Third Program  radio broadcast.
 * May 6 – EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer, runs its first program at Cambridge University.
 * June 14 – Albert II, a rhesus monkey, becomes the first primate to enter space, on U.S. Hermes project V-2 rocket Blossom IVB, but is killed on impact at return.
 * The Vatican announces that bones uncovered in its subterranean catacombs could be those of the apostle Peter ; 19 years later, Pope Paul VI announces confirmation that the bones belong to this first Pope.
 * The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, RDS-1 ("Joe 1"). Its design imitates the American plutonium bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
 * Project Armadillo trains the 100th Xeno-Investigator . The secret agency is conducting psionic experiments.
 * A Soviet spy accidentally stumbles across the Freon Secret and reports the existence of extraterrestrial aliens and societies to Moscow.
 * The Vrill assist the Siegfried Group to rescue and secretly evacuate several high ranking Nazis.
 * The Glocke is re-built in the Granit Schloss in the Himalayas.