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The World in 1949 the year the cold war drew its lines

About 540 million people lived in the new People's Republic of China, more than three times the number of Americans. The country had been at war, with Japan or with itself, for most of the previous twenty years.

Life back then

New houses went up in the potato fields of Long Island, and a place in Levittown cost $7,990 with a mortgage the government backed for veterans. Record shops began stocking small 45 rpm discs next to the heavy 78s, and buyers had to work out which player they needed. In June a London publisher brought out George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, written on a Scottish island by a man dying of tuberculosis. Berliners had spent the winter on food and coal flown in over their heads, and the planes did not stop until May.

The year in 8 events

• 📺Jan 20 Harry Truman is sworn in for a full term. The ceremony is the first shown live on television.
• ✈️Mar 2 The bomber Lucky Lady II lands in Texas after circling the world without stopping, refueled in mid air.
• 🕊️Apr 4 Twelve countries sign the treaty that creates NATO and promise to defend one another.
• 🚚May 12 The Soviet Union lifts the Berlin blockade. Trucks and trains reach the western half of the city again.
• 💥Aug 29 The Soviet Union tests an atomic bomb, four years after the United States.
• 🏛️Oct 1 Mao Zedong proclaims the People's Republic of China in Beijing.
• 📜Nov 26 India adopts the constitution that turns it into a republic, the longest written constitution in the world.
• 🌏Dec 27 The Netherlands signs away its rule over Indonesia after four years of fighting.

Who Was in Charge?

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