Plus ça change.
It’s been extensively reported that the Queen reigned for 70 years, and how different things were when she ascended the throne.
This prompted me to investigate what was going on in the world during 1952, and I wonder if you will reach the same conclusion I have.
- February 6 – Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the British Dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon. The princess, who is on a visit to Kenya when she hears of the death of her father, King George VI, aged 56, takes the title Elizabeth II.[1]
- February 21 – In Dhaka, East Pakistan 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.
- February 25 – The Parícutin active volcano in Michoacán, west central Mexico, ceases its discontinuous eruption after spewing forth a gigaton of lava, and burying San Juan Parangaricutiro.
- March 10 – General Fulgencio Batista re-takes power in Cuba in a coup.
- March 15 – 16 – 73 inches (1,870 mm) of rain falls in Cilaos, Réunion, the most rainfall in one day up to that time.
- Tornadoes ravage the lower Mississippi River Valley, leaving 208 dead, through March 22.
- April 4 – West Ice accidents: During a severe storm in the West Ice, east of Greenland, 78 seal hunters on 5 Norwegian seal hunting vessels vanish 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 nationalized all steel mills in the United States, just before the 1952 steel strike began.
- 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 People’s Republic of China.
- April 18 – Bolivia National Revolution: A universal vote enables indigenous peoples and women to vote, nationalizes mines and enacts agrarian reform.
- April 26 – United States Navy aircraft carrier Wasp collides with destroyer Hobson while on exercises in the Atlantic Ocean, killing 175 men.
- 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 by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers.
- May 6 – Farouk of Egypt has himself announced as a descendant of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.
- May 13 – Pandit Nehru forms his first government in India
- June 10 – 1952 San Juan earthquake. A magnitude 6.8 earthquake kills 5 people on Argentina‘s San Juan Province.
- June 13 – “Catalina affair“: Soviet MiG-15 fighter planes shoot down a Swedish military Douglas C-47 Skytrain, carrying out signals intelligence gathering operations over the Baltic Sea, killing all 8 crew; three days later they shoot down a Catalina flying boat, searching for possible survivors.
- July 13 – East Germany announces the formation of its National People’s Army.
- July 21 – The 7.3 Mw Kern County earthquake strikes California’s southern Central Valley with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing 12 and injuring hundreds.
- July 23 – 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 – King Farouk of Egypt abdicates in favour of Fuad II.
- 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 Parliament forces King Talal of Jordan to abdicate due to mental illness; he is succeeded by his son King Hussein.
- August 12 – Night of the Murdered Poets: 13 Soviet Jewish poets are executed.
- 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 18: A 7.5 earthquake shakes the Tibet region leaving a balance of 54 fatalities.
- August 22 – The most damaging aftershock of the 1952 Kern County earthquake sequence strikes with a moment magnitude of 5.8, and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). This event damages several hundred buildings in Bakersfield, California, with total additional losses of $10 million, with two associated deaths and some injuries
- September 10 – The European Parliamentary Assembly (from March 1962, the European Parliament) opens.
- October 20 – Martial law is declared in Kenya, in the face of the Mau Mau uprising.
- November 1 – Nuclear testing and 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 – The 9.0 Mw Severo-Kurilsk earthquake hits the Kamchatka Peninsula of the Soviet Union with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). A tsunami took the lives of more than 2,300 people.
- 1952 United States presidential election: Republican General Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democratic Governor of Illinois Adlai Stevenson (correctly predicted by the UNIVAC computer).
- November 20 – The first successful sex reassignment surgery is performed in Copenhagen, making George Jorgensen Jr. become Christine Jorgensen.
- 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.
- During the Mau Mau Uprising, the poisonous latex of the African milk bush is used to kill cattle, in an incident of Biological warfare.[5]
This edited catalogue of events (source Wikipedia) reminds us that there are always wars, climate issues, political disagreements, appalling atrocities, natural disasters…
Setbacks are all part of life, and nearly every success story in history or in business comes down to how we deal with them.
Struggle is normal, the courage to keep going is a mindset. Good leaders do not talk about how easy or good things are, they know failure is inevitable, they acknowledge setbacks and they know they will pass. The key is to keep going.
The Queen saw many changes and developments, and also much of the same in her 70 year reign. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
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