Shah Assassination Attempt Fails
Feb 4 Failed assassination attempt on Shah of Persia Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
- Feb 5 Huaso sets official world equestrian high-jump record, 2.47 m, Chic
1st 100,000 Yankees Player
Feb 7 Joe DiMaggio becomes 1st $100,000 a year baseball player for the New York Yankees
- Feb 8 Hungarian cardinal József Mindszenty sentenced to life in prison
Death of a Salesman
Feb 10 Arthur Miller's stage drama "Death of a Salesman", starring Lee J. Cobb and Arthur Kennedy, and directed by Elia Kazan, opens at Morosco Theatre, NYC; runs for 742 performances, winning 6 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize
Lovesick Blues
Feb 11 "Lovesick Blues" single released by Hank Williams (Cashbox "Best Hillbilly Record of the Year", Billboard Song of the Year 1949)
- Feb 11 Willie Pep recaptures world featherweight boxing title
- Feb 12 "Annie Get Your Gun" closes at Imperial Theater NYC after 1147 performances
Radio History
Feb 12 Panic in Quito, Ecuador, after "War of the Worlds" played on radio
- Feb 12 Team Canada beats Denmark 47-0 in hockey
- Feb 14 1st session of Knesset (Jerusalem Israel)
- Feb 14 Dutch Drees government presents plan for the building of 30,000 houses
- Feb 16 Revival of Sidney Howard's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1924 stage drama "They Knew What They Wanted", opens at the Music Box Theatre, NYC; runs for 61 performances
- Feb 17 Chaim Weitzman elected 1st president of Israel
- Feb 17 Ice Pairs Championship at Paris won by Andrea Kekesy and Ede Kiraly of Hungary
- Feb 17 Ladies' Figure Skating Champions in Paris won by Alena Vrzanova of CZE
- Feb 17 Men's Figure Skating Championship in Paris won by Richard Button of the USA
- Feb 19 "Inside USA" closes at Century Theater, NYC, after 339 performances
Event of Interest
Feb 19 1st Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Ezra Pound
- Feb 19 Mass arrests of communists in India
- Feb 20 1st International Pancake Race held (Liberal Ks)
- Feb 21 US TV soap opera "A Woman to Remember" is 1st broadcast on DuMont Television Network
- Feb 24 Israel & Egypt sign an armistice agreement
- Feb 24 V-2/WAC-Corporal rocket 1st object to reach 5x the speed of sound at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico
- Feb 25 WAC Corporal rocket achieves height of 400k (record)
- Feb 26 USAF plane began 1st nonstop around-the-world flight
First Israeli President
Feb 27 Chaim Weizmann becomes 1st President of Israel
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists