In 1950 Springbok Radio, the SABCs first commercial service, is launched. North Korean troops cross the 38th parallel into South Korea and the Korean War begins. 2 Squadron SAAF departs to take part in the Korean War. Sasol (Suid-Afrikaanse Steenkool, Olie en Gaskorporasie Bpk.) is registered as a company. In Transvaal a new railway line is opened from Vandyksdrif to Broodsnyersplaas on 2 October. In 1951 the Group Areas Act, passed in 1950, becomes law. Cabinet votes for the removal of Coloured people from the voters roll. Virologist Max Theiler is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing a vaccine against yellow fever, the first South African Nobel Prize laureate. Herman Charles Bosman, writer and journalist, dies in Edenvale on 14 October. In Transvaal new railway lines are opened from Grootvlei to Redan on 13 June and from Springs to Welgedag on 21 December. 1952 (1) King George VI dies aged 56. Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that the United Kingdom has an atomic bomb. The Van Riebeeck Festival is held in Cape Town to mark the tercentenary of his landing at Table Bay. Regular jet flights between South Africa and Britain starts with the arrival of a De Havilland Comet with 36 passengers at Johannesburg. Farouk of Egypt has himself announced as a descendant of prophet Muhammad. Washington DC is buzzed by several alleged UFOs, tracked on multiple radars, and when jets are scrambled on several occasions the objects take evasive action, only to return after the jets leave the area. Dr. C. Walton Lillehei and Dr. F. John Lewis perform the first open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota. And the first of one hundred Class S2 0-8-0 shunting steam locomotives enter service on the South African Railways.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 10:26:59 +0000
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