World Events

Posted in 1954

  • Vietnam US conducts H-bomb tests at Bikini Island.
  • Geneva Conference: Vietnam is divided along the 17th parallel into Communist North Vietnam and western backed South Vietnam.
  • Soviet official at the Russian Embassy in Canberra since 1951, Vladimir Petrov defects to Australia. Two weeks later his wife Evdokia also defects after she is freed from Soviet couriers by Australian police at Darwin airport. The defections led to the withdrawal of the Soviet Embassy from Australia and the expulsion of the Australian Embassy from Moscow.
  • The South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) is formed to prevent the spread of Communism in SE Asia. Member countries are France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and the United States. The treaty is supplemented by a Pacific Charter, affirming the rights of Asian and Pacific peoples to equality and self-determination and setting forth goals of economic, social and cultural cooperation between the member countries.
  • US Supreme Court rules that racial segregation in schools is a violation of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
  • All food rationing ends in Britain, nine years after the end of the Second World War when it was imposed.
  • British athlete Roger Bannister is the first man to break the four-minute mile barrier.