1952

1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events of 1952

January

• January 8 – West Germany has 8 million refugees inside its borders.
• January 14 – Today premieres on NBC, becoming one of the longest-running television series in America.
• January 24
  • A sudden heavy snowfall hits Algeria.
  • Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canada-born Governor General of Canada.

February

The 3 Queens in mourning- Queen Elizabeth II, her grandmother, Queen Mary and her mother, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at the funeral of King George VI.

• February 2 – A tropical storm forms just north of Cuba moving northeast. The storm makes landfall in southern Florida the next day. It is the earliest reported landfall from a tropical storm, and the earliest formation of a tropical storm on record in the Atlantic basin.
• February 6
  • Elizabeth II becomes Queen upon the death of her father George VI. She is simultaneously proclaimed Queen of Canada at Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Ontario.
  • In the United States, a mechanical heart is used for the first time in a human patient.
• February 7 – Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom at St. James's Palace, London, England.
• February 14 – February 25 – The Winter Olympics held in Oslo, Norway.
• February 15 – The funeral of King George VI takes place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
• February 18 – Turkey joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
• February 20
  • Emmett Ashford becomes the first African American umpire in organized baseball, by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.
  • Winston Churchill scraps UK compulsory national Identity Cards.
• February 21 – In Dhaka, East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) police open fire on a procession of students, killing 4 people and starting a country-wide protest which leads to the recognition of Bengali as one of the national languages of Pakistan. The day is later declared "International Mother Language Day" by UNESCO.
• February 26 – United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that the United Kingdom has an atomic bomb.

March

• March 10 – General Fulgencio Batista re-takes power in Cuba.
• March 15 – March 16 – 73 inches (1,870 mm) of rain falls in Cilaos, Réunion, the most rainfall ever in one day.
• March 20 – The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
• March 21
  • The last two executions in The Netherlands take place.
  • Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is elected Prime Minister of the Gold Coast.
  • Tornadoes ravage the lower Mississippi River Valley, leaving 208 dead, through March 22.
• March 22 – Wernher von Braun publishes the first in his series of articles entitled Man Will Conquer Space Soon!, including ideas for manned flights to Mars and the Moon.
• March 27 – Konrad Adenauer survives an assassination attempt.
• March 29 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces that he will not seek reelection.

April

• April 4
  • In the Hague Tribunal, Israel demands reparations worth $3 billion from Germany.
  • West Ice accidents: During a severe storm in the West Ice, east of Greenland, 78 seal hunters on 5 Norwegian seal hunting vessels perish without a trace.
• April 8 – Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer: The U.S. Supreme Court limits the power of the President to seize private business, after President Harry S. Truman nationalizes all steel mills in the United States, just before the 1952 steel strike begins.
• April 9 – Hugo Ballivián's government is overthrown by the Bolivian National Revolution, which starts a period of agrarian reform, universal suffrage and the nationalization of tin mines.
• April 11 – Battle of Nanri Island: The Republic of China seizes the island from the Peoples' Republic of China.
• April 15 – The United States B-52 Stratofortress flies for the first time.
• April 18
  • Bolivia National Revolution: A universal vote enables indigenous peoples and women to vote, nationalizes mines and enacts agrarian reform.
  • West Germany and Japan form diplomatic relations.
• April 23 – A nuclear test is held in the Nevada desert.
• April 28 - The Treaty of San Francisco goes into effect, formally ending the war between Japan and the Allies, and simultaneously ending the occupation of the four main Japanese islands.
• April 29 – Lever House officially opens at 390 Park Avenue in New York City, heralding a new age of commercial architecture in the United States. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, it is the first International Style skyscraper.

May

• May 1 – East Germany threatens to form its own army.
• May 2 – The first passenger jet flight route between London and Johannesburg.
• May 3 – U.S. lieutenant colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict land a plane at the geographic North Pole.
• May 6 – Farouk of Egypt has himself announced as a descendant of prophet Muhammad.
• May 13 – Pandit Nehru forms his first government in India.
• May 15 – Diplomatic relations are established between the governments of Israel and Japan at the level of legations.
• May 18 – Ann Davison becomes the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean.

June

• June 1
  • The Roman Catholic Church bans the books of André Gide.
  • Navigation opens on the Volga-Don Canal, connecting the Caspian Sea basin with that of the Black Sea.
• June 14
  • The keel is laid for the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
  • Myxomatosis introduced to Europe on the French estate of Dr. Paul Armand Delille.
• June 15 – The Diary of Anne Frank is published.
• June 19 – The Special Forces (United States Army) are created
• June 21 – The Philippine School of Commerce, through a government act, is converted to the Philippine College of Commerce (later the Polytechnic University of the Philippines).
• June 26 – The Pan-Malayan Labour Party is founded in Malaya, as a union of statewise labour parties.
• June 29 – Finnish contestant Armi Kuusela wins the title of Miss Universe.

July

France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands form the European Coal and Steel community, the foundation organization which would become the European Union.

• July 3 - The ocean liner SS United States makes her maiden crossing of the Atlantic.
• July 13 – East Germany announces the formation of its National People's Army.
• July 19–26 – Washington D.C. is "buzzed" by several alleged UFOs tracked on multiple radars. Jets scramble on several occasions and the objects take evasive action, only to return after the jets leave the area.^[1]
• July 19 – August 3 – The 1952 Summer Olympics are held in Helsinki, Finland.
• July 21 – A magnitude 7.5 earthquake (Richter scale) strikes Tehachapi, California, destroying unreinforced brick buildings.
• July 23
  • The European Coal and Steel Community is established.
  • General Mohammed Naguib leads The Free Officers (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser – the real power behind the coup) in the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt.
• July 25 – Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.
• July 26– In Argentina, Maria Eva Duarte de Perón, known as "Evita", dies of cancer at the age of 33. She was Perón's wife and a recognized union and social activist, promulgating the female vote in 1951.

August

• August 5 - The Treaty of Taipei between Japan and the Republic of China goes into effect, to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War.
• August 11 – The Jordanian army forces King Talal to resign due to mental illness; he is succeeded by his son Hussein of Jordan.
• August 13 – Japan joins the IMF.
• August 14 – West Germany joins the IMF and the World Bank.
• August 16 – Lynmouth, North Devon, England is devastated by floods; 34 die.
• August 26 – A British passenger jet makes a return crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the same day.
• August 27 – Reparation negotiations between West Germany and Israel end in Luxembourg: Germany will pay 3 billion Deutsche Marks.
• August 29 – John Cage's 4' 33" premieres in Woodstock, New York.
• August 30 – The last Finnish war reparations are sent to the Soviet Union.
• August 31 – The Grenzlandring racetrack closes in Wegberg, Germany.

September

• September 2 – Dr. C. Walton Lillehei and Dr. F. John Lewis perform the first open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota.
• September 6 – Television debuts in Canada as the CBC in Montreal, Quebec airs.
• September 8 – CBC Toronto debuts.
• September 10 – European Parliamentary Assembly (from Mar 1962, European Parliament) opens.
• September 18 – The Soviet Union vetoes Japan's application for membership in the United Nations.

October

• October 8
  • Negotiations for a ceasefire in Korea are postponed.
  • A three-train crash at Harrow railway station in England kills 112 people.
• October 12 – The Gamma Sigma Sigma National Service Sorority is founded in New York City at Panhellenic Tower.
• October 14 – The United Nations begins work in the new United Nations building in New York City, designed by Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer.
• October 16 – Limelight opens in London; writer/actor/director/producer Charlie Chaplin arrives by ocean liner; in transit his re-entry permit to the USA is revoked by J. Edgar Hoover.
• October 17 – Indonesian troops led by General Nasution surround the presidential palace, seeking the dismissal of the People's Representative Council; Sukarno avoids confrontation.
• October 19
  • Alain Bombard begins to sail from the Canary Islands to Barbados in 65 days; he reaches them December 23.
  • John Bamford, aged 15, rescues victims of a house fire and becomes the youngest person to have been awarded the George Cross.
• October 20 – Martial law is declared in Kenya due to the Mau Mau uprising.

November

• November 1 – Nuclear testing: Operation Ivy: The United States successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike", at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, with a yield of 10.4 megatons.
• November 4
  • An 8.25 Richter scale earthquake hits the Kamchatka Peninsula.
  • United States presidential election, 1952: Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson (correctly predicted by the UNIVAC computer).
  • The U.S. National Security Agency is founded.
  • The Pace-Finletter MOU 1952: Memorandum of understanding is signed between "...Air Force Secretary Finletter and Army Secretary Pace that established a fixed wing weight limit [for the Army] of five thousand pounds empty, but weight restrictions on helicopters were eliminated..."(Pushing the Envelope, p. 196)
• November 18 – Jomo Kenyatta is arrested in Kenya for an alleged connection to the Mau Mau uprising.
• November 20
  • Slánský trials: A series of Stalinist and largely anti-Semitic show trials are held in Czechoslovakia.
  • A fireball crashes in a backyard in Havelock North, New Zealand.
  • The first official passenger flight over the North Pole is made from Los Angeles to Copenhagen.
• November 21 – A show trial in Czechoslovakia sentences 11 ex-communist officials (all of them Jews) to death.
• November 25 – Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London; as of 2007, it continues next door at the St. Martin's Theatre, and remains the longest continuously running production of a play in history.
• November 29 – Korean War: U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a political campaign promise, by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict.

December

• December 1
  • Adolfo Ruiz Cortines takes office as President of Mexico.
  • The New York Daily News carries a front page story announcing that Christine Jorgensen, a transsexual woman in Denmark, has become the recipient of the first successful sexual reassignment operation.
• December 4 – Great Smog of 1952: A "killer fog" descends on London (in the process coining the word "Smog", for "smoke" and "fog").
• December 14 – The first successful surgical separation of Siamese twins is conducted in Mount Sinai Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio.
• December 20 – The crash of a U.S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster at Moses Lake, WA kills 86 servicemen.
• December 25 – One West German soldier is killed in a shooting incident in West Berlin.
• December 26 – Joseph Ivor Linton, the first Israeli Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan, presents his credentials to the Japanese Emperor.

Undated

• Nearly 58,000 cases of polio are reported in the U.S.; 3,145 die and 21,269 are left with mild to disabling paralysis.^[2]
• The Nordic Council agrees to the unrestricted transport of people, goods and services throughout the Nordic Countries.
• The National Prohibition Foundation is incorporated in Indiana.
• Saynatsalo Town Hall in Finland, designed by Alvar Aalto, is completed.
• The influential multistorey residential building, Unité d'Habitation in Marseille, France, designed by Le Corbusier, is completed.
• The American Embassy School of New Delhi is founded.
• The Swedish paratrooper training school Fallskärmsjägarna(FJS) is created.
• Twelve-year-old Jimmy Boyd's record of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus is released, selling 3 million records
• Capitol Wrestling Coorporation, the professional wrestling promotion that would later evolve into the modern day (World Wrestling Entertainment) is founded by Vince McMahon, Sr.
• During the Mau Mau Uprising, the poisonous latex of the African milk bush was used kill cattle in an incident of Biological warfare.^[3]

Ongoing

• Cold War
• First Indochina War
• Korean War

Fictional

The following are references to year 1952 in fiction: (unknown).

Births

January–February

• January 1 – Jury Zacharanka, Belarusian politician abducted and probably killed in 1999
• January 2 – Makoto Nakajima, Japanese bureaucrat, Commissoner of the Japan Patent Office
• January 2 – Ng Man Tat, Hong Kong actor
• January 3 – Jim Ross, American wrestling announcer
• January 7 – Sammo Hung, Hong Kong martial arts superstar, producer and director
• January 12
  • Charles Faulkner, American life coach, motivational speaker, trader and author
  • Walter Mosley, American author
• January 14 – Maureen Dowd, American journalist
• January 15 – Boris Blank, Swiss musician
• January 16 – H.R.H. Prince Ahmed Fuad Farouk (Fuad II), the last King of Egypt & Sudan, Nubia, Kordofan and Darfur
• January 17 – Ryuichi Sakamoto, Japanese musician, composer, producer, and actor (Yellow Magic Orchestra)
• January 21
  • Marco Camenisch, Swiss environmental activist
  • Louis Menand, American writer and critic
• January 22 – Ace Vergel, Filipino actor (d. 2007)
• January 24 - Raymond Domenech, French football player and manager
• January 25
  • Edward Fialkowski, Polish political activist
  • Sara Mandiano, French singer and songwriter
• January 28 – Tomokazu Miura, Japanese actor
• February 1 – Stan Kasten, American baseball executive, currently President of the Washington Nationals
• February 3 – Dermot Morgan, Irish actor and comedian (d. 1998)
• February 7 – Tony Liu, Chinese actor
• February 8 – Nora Miao, Hong Kong actress
• February 14 – Nancy Keenan, American president of NARAL
• February 19 – Amy Tan, American novelist
• February 22 – William Frist, U.S. Senator and heart surgeon
• February 24 – Maxine Chernoff, American poet, novelist, editor
• February 25 – Joey Dunlop, Northern Irish motorcycle racer (d. 2000)
• February 29
  • Gary The Retard, American member of The Wack Pack (The Howard Stern Show)
  • Sharon Dahlonega Raiford Bush, American television's first female African-American primetime weather anchor

March–April

• March 1
• March 2 – Laraine Newman, American comedian (Saturday Night Live)
• March 4
• Scott Hicks, Australian movie director
• Ronn Moss, American actor
• Umberto Tozzi, Italian singer
• March 7 – Viv Richards, West Indian cricketer
• March 11 – Douglas Adams, English author (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) (d. 2001)
• March 13
• Wolfgang Rihm, German composer
• Agnes Rapai, Hungarian writer
• March 22 – Bob Costas, American sports announcer
• March 23 – Kim Stanley Robinson, American author
• March 25
• Jung Chang, Chinese-born author and historian
• Antanas Mockus, Colombian mathematician and politician
• March 29 – Teofilo Stevenson, Cuban boxer
• March 30 – Peter Knights, Australian footballer and coach
• March 31 – Vanessa del Rio, American actress
• April 1 – Bernard Stiegler, French philosopher
• April 4 – Rosemarie Ackermann, German athlete
• April 5 – Mitch Pileggi, American actor
• April 6 – Marilu Henner, American actress and author
• April 7 – Nichita Danilov, Romanian writer
• April 11 – Peter Windsor, British sports reporter
• April 12 – Ralph Wiley, American sports journalist (d. 2004)
• April 14 – Mickey O'Sullivan, Irish sportsman
• April 16
• Billy West, American voice actor
• Bill Belichick, American football coach
• April 17 – Željko Ražnatović, Serbian mobster and paramilitary leader (d. 2000)
• April 19 – Alexis Arguello, Nicaraguan boxer and politician (d. 2009)
• April 22 – Marilyn Chambers, American porn actress (Behind The Green Door) (d. 2009)
• April 25 - Ketil Bjørnstad, Norwegian pianist
• April 27 – George Gervin, American basketball player
• April 28 – Mary McDonnell, American actress

May–June

• May 2
  • Campbell McComas, Australian impersonator and broadcaster
  • Isla St Clair, Scottish singer
• May 3
  • Allan Wells, Scottish athlete
  • Leonid Khachiyan, Russian-born mathematician
• May 4 – Michael Barrymore, British comedian and TV presenter
• May 6 – Michael O'Hare, American actor
• May 10 – Manuel Mora Morales, Spanish director and writer
• May 11
  • Renaud Séchan, French composer
  • Shohreh Aghdashloo, Iranian actress
  • Mike Lupica, American sports journalist
• May 14
  • David Byrne, Scottish-born rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist (Talking Heads)
  • Robert Zemeckis, American film director
• May 18
  • George Strait, American country musician
  • Diane Duane, American writer
• May 19 – Bert van Marwijk, Dutch football manager
• May 20 – Roger Milla, Cameroonian footballer
• May 21 – Mr. T, American actor (The A-Team)
• May 26 – David Meece, American Christian musician
• May 28 – Victoria Cunningham, American actress and Playboy Playmate
• June 4 – Scott Wesley Brown, American Christian musician
• June 7
  • Hubert Auriol, French racing driver
  • Orhan Pamuk, Turkish writer, Nobel Prize winner
  • Liam Neeson, Northern Irish actor (Schindler's List)
• June 9 – Yukihiro Takahashi, Japanese musician and singer (Yellow Magic Orchestra)
• June 16 – Georgios Papandreou, Greek politician
• June 17
  • Mike Milbury, American ice hockey player, coach and executive
  • Sarbjit Singh Chadha, Indian enka singer
• June 18 – Isabella Rossellini, Italian actress
• June 20
  • John Goodman, American actor
  • Vikram Seth, Indian novelist
• June 21
  • Kazi Zulkader Siddiqui, Pakistani businessman, academician
  • Jeremy Coney, New Zealand cricket captain
  • Kôichi Mashimo, Japanese anime director
• June 22
  • Alastair Stewart, British newsreader
  • Graham Greene (actor), Canadian (First Nations) actor
• June 24 – Stephen Pusey, British-born artist
• June 25 – Tim Finn, New Zealand singer-songwriter
• June 27
  • Douglas Unger, American novelist
  • Madan Kumar Bhandari, Nepalese politician (d. 1993)
• June 28 – Pietro Mennea, Italian athlete
• June 29 – Joe Johnson, English snooker player

July–August

• July 1 – Dan Aykroyd, Canadian actor (Saturday Night Live)
• July 4 - Alvaro Uribe, President of Colombia
• July 8 – Ahmed Nazif, Prime Minister of Egypt
• July 9 – John Tesh, American composer, musician, and television host (Entertainment Tonight)
• July 12
  • Philip Taylor Kramer, American rock musician (Iron Butterfly) (d. 1995)
  • Voja Antonić, Serbian inventor and writer
• July 14 – Franklin Graham, American evangelist
• July 16 – Stewart Copeland, American rock musician (The Police)
• July 19 – Allen Collins, American rock musician (Lynyrd Skynyrd) (d. 1990)
• July 20 – Keiko Matsuzaka, Japanese actress
• July 24 – Gus Van Sant, American film director
• July 27 – Hannu-Pekka Hänninen, Finnish sports commentator
• July 31
  • Chris Ahrens, American ice hockey player
  • João Barreiros, Portuguese author
• August 1 – Zoran Djindjic, Serbian politician (d. 2003)
• August 3 – Osvaldo Ardiles, Argentine footballer
• August 4 – Moya Brennan, Irish singer
• August 5 – Louis Walsh, Irish music producer and reality TV show judge
• August 6 – Wojciech Fortuna, Polish ski jumper
• August 7 – Alexei Sayle, English comedian
• August 8
  • Jostein Gaarder, Norwegian author
  • Robin Quivers,African-American radio personality (The Howard Stern Show)
• August 9 – Vicki Morgan, American model (d. 1983)
• August 10 – Daniel Hugh Kelly, American actor
• August 13 – Herb Ritts, American photographer (d. 2002)
• August 14 – Carl Lumbly, American actor
• August 16 – Reginald VelJohnson, American actor
• August 18 – Patrick Swayze, American actor and dancer (d. 2009)
• August 19 – Jonathan Frakes, American actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
• August 21 – Joe Strummer, British rock musician (The Clash) (d. 2002)
• August 24 – Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jamaican-born musician and poet
• August 26 – Bryon Baltimore, Canadian ice hockey player
• August 27 – Paul Reubens, American actor, writer and comedian (Pee-Wee Herman)
• August 28 – Wendelin Wiedeking, German businessman
• August 29 – Jimmy Connors, American tennis player

September–October

• September 8 – Patrick Prosser, Scottish computer scientist
• September 9 - Angela Cartwright, British-American child actress, photographer and painter
• September 12
  • Sergei Karaganov, Russian political scientist
  • Neil Peart, Canadian rock drummer (Rush)
• September 16 – Fatos Nano, Albanian Prime Minister
• September 18 – Dee Dee Ramone, American rock bassist (The Ramones) (d. 2002)
• September 22 – Bob Goodlatte, U.S. Congressman from Virginia
• September 23 – Jim Morrison (baseball), American baseball player
• September 24
  • Mark Sandman, American rock musician and artist (Morphine) (d. 1999)
  • Joseph Patrick Kennedy II, son of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy
  • Christopher Reeve, American actor and activist (Superman) (d. 2004)
  • Jimmy Garvin, American professional wrestler
• September 26 – Predrag Miletić, Serbian actor
• September 27 – Didier Dubois, French mathematician
• September 29 – Max Sandlin, American politician
• September 30 – Jack Wild, English actor (H.R. Pufnstuf) (d. 2006)
• October 5
  • Duncan Regehr, Canadian actor
  • Clive Barker, British author
• October 7 – Vladimir Putin, Russian president
• - Mary Badham, American Actress
• October 9 – Sharon Osbourne, British wife and manager of Ozzy Osbourne
• October 13 – John Lone, Hong Kong actor
• October 14 – Nikolai Andrianov, Soviet gymnast
• October 16 – Ron Taylor, American actor (d. 2002)
• October 19 – Floyd Mayweather Sr., American professional boxer and trainer
• October 22 – Jeff Goldblum, American actor
• October 26 – Andrew Motion, English poet
• October 27 – Topi Sorsakoski, Finnish singer
• October 28 – Annie Potts, American actress

November–December

• November 3
  • Roseanne Barr, American actress and comedian
  • David Ho, Taiwanese-American AIDS researcher
• November 5 – Bill Walton, American basketball player and commentator
• November 6 – Michael Cunningham, American writer
• November 7 - David Petraeus, an American General
• November 8 – Jan Raas, Dutch professional cyclist
• November 13 – Art Malik, Pakistani-born British actor
• November 15 – Randy Savage, American professional wrestler
• November 16
  • Shigeru Miyamoto, Japanese game designer
  • Roger Bisby, English journalist
• November 17 – Ties Kruize, Dutch field hockey player
• November 25 – Imran Khan, Pakistani cricketer and politician
• November 28 – S. Epatha Merkerson, African-American actress (Law and Order)
• November 30 – Keith Giffen, American comic book writer and artist
• December 6 – Rick Charlesworth, Australian cricketer, politician, hockey player and coach
• December 9 – Michael Dorn, African-American actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
• December 12 – Harbance Singh (Herb) Dhaliwal, Canadian politician
• December 15 – Julie Taymor, American film, theater, and opera director and costume designer
• December 15 – Hwang Woo-Suk, South Korean biomedical scientist
• December 16 – Joel Garner, West Indian cricketer
• December 27 – Jay Hill, Canadian politician
• December 28 – Arun Jaitley, Indian politician
• December 30 – June Anderson, American soprano

Deaths

January–June

• January 5 – Hristo Tatarchev, Bulgarian revolutionary (b. 1869)
• January 11 – Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, French general, posthumous Marshal of France (b. 1889)
• January 18 – Curly Howard, American actor and comedian (The Three Stooges) (b. 1903)
• January 25 – Polly Moran, American actress (b. 1883)
• January 27 – Fannie Ward, American actress (b. 1872)
• February 2 – Charles de Rochefort, French actor (b. 1879)
• February 3 – Harold L. Ickes, United States Secretary of the Interior (b. 1874)
• February 6 – King George VI of the United Kingdom (b. 1895)
• February 7 – Philip G. Epstein, American screenwriter (b. 1909)
• February 19 – Knut Hamsun, Norwegian author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1859)
• March 1 – Gregory La Cava, American film director (b. 1892)
• March 5 – Charles Scott Sherrington, English physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1857)
• March 7 – Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (b. 1893)
• March 9 – Alexandra Kollontai, Russian revolutionary (b. 1872)
• March 12 – Hugh Herbert, American actor and comedian (b. 1887)
• March 22
  • Uncle Dave Macon, American musician (b. 1870)
  • Don Stephen Senanayake, Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) Prime Minister (b. 1884)
• March 26 – J.P. McGowan, Australian actor and director (b. 1880)
• March 31
  • Wallace H. White, Jr., U.S. Senator from Maine (b. 1877)
  • Walter Schellenberg, German Nazi intelligence official (b. 1910)
  • Roland West, American film director (b. 1885)
• April 1 – Ferenc Molnar, Hungarian novelist and dramatist (b. 1878)
• April 3 – Miina Sillanpää, Finnish politician (b. 1866)
• April 5 – Charles Collett, British chief mechanical engineer (Great Western Railway) (b. 1871)
• April 8 – Tadeusz Estreicher, cryogenics pioneer (b. 1871)
• April 21
  • Leslie Banks, English actor (b. 1890)
  • Sir Stafford Cripps, British Chancellor of the Exchequer (b. 1889)
• April 23 – Julius Freed, American inventor and banker (b. 1887)
• May 6 – Maria Montessori, Italian educator (cerebral hemorrhage) (b. 1870)
• May 8 – William Fox, Austro-Hungarian-born film producer (b. 1879)
• May 9 – Canada Lee, American actor (b. 1907)
• May 15 – Albert Bassermann, German actor (b. 1867)
• May 21 – John Garfield, American actor (b. 1913)
• June 1
  • John Dewey, American philosopher (b. 1859)
  • Malcolm St. Clair, American filmmaker (b. 1897)
• June 13 – Emma Eames, American soprano (b. 1865)
• June 17 – Krystyna Skarbek, Polish-born British agent in World War II (b. 1915)
• June 19 – Heinrich Schlusnus, German baritone (b. 1888)
• June 27 – Elmo Lincoln, American actor (b. 1889)

July–December

• July 4 – Walter Long, American character actor (b. 1879)
• July 5 – Alison Skipworth, English actress (b. 1863)
• July 26 – Eva Perón, Argentine political leader, and First Lady to and partner in power of President Juan Perón (b. 1919)
• August 2 – J. Farrell MacDonald, American actor and director (b. 1875)
• August 5 – Sameera Moussa, Egyptian nuclear scientist (b. 1917)
• August 18 – Ralph Byrd, American actor (b. 1909)
• September 6 – Gertrude Lawrence, English actress (b. 1898)
• September 16 – Hugo Raudsepp, Estonian playwright (b. 1883)
• September 22 – Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, 1st President of Finland (b. 1865)
• September 23 – Ray Mala, Native American actor (b. 1906)
• September 26 – George Santayana, Spanish-born writer (b. 1863)
• September 30 – Viscount Waldorf Astor, American-born businessman and politician (b. 1879)
• October 11 – Jack Conway, American film producer and director (b. 1887)
• October 20 – Basil Radford, English actor (b. 1897)
• October 22 – Ernst Rüdin, Swiss psychiatrist, geneticist, and eugenicist (b. 1874)
• October 23 – Susan Peters, American actress (b. 1921)
• October 26 – Hattie McDaniel, American actress (b. 1895)
• October 28 – Billy Hughes, 7th Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1862)
• November 1 – Dixie Lee, American actress and singer (b. 1911)
• November 3 – Louis Verneuil, French playwright, screenwriter (b. 1893)
• November 8
  • Harold Innis, Canadian communications scholar (b. 1894)
  • Hugh Prosser, American actor (b. 1900)
• November 9 – Chaim Weizmann, first President of Israel (b. 1874)
• November 18 – Paul Eluard, French poet (b. 1895)
• November 20 – Benedetto Croce, Italian critic, philosopher, and politician (b. 1866)
• November 21 – William D. Upshaw, American temperance movement leader (b. 1866)
• November 26 – Sven Hedin, Swedish explorer, geographer and geopolitician (b. 1865)
• November 28 – Elena of Montenegro, Queen of Italy, consort of Victor Emmanuel III (b. 1869)
• December 1 – Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1860)
• December 8 – Charles Lightoller, British sailor, second officer of the RMS Titanic. (b. 1874)
• December 12 – Bedrich Hrozný, Czech orientalist and linguist (b. 1879)
• December 19 – Pehr G. Holmes, American politician
• December 28 – Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Queen consort of Christian X of Denmark (b. 1879)
• December 28 – Fletcher Henderson, American musician (b. 1897)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics – Felix Bloch, Edward Mills Purcell
• Chemistry – Archer John Porter Martin, Richard Laurence Millington Synge
• Medicine – Selman Abraham Waksman
• Literature – François Mauriac
• Peace – Albert Schweitzer

Ship events

• List of ship commissionings in 1952
• List of ship decommissionings in 1952

Notes