1950

January 1950 January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. January 5 – Sverdlovsk plane crash: Aeroflot Lisunov Li-2 crashes in a snowstorm. All 19 aboard are killed, including almost the entire national ice hockey team (VVS Moscow) of the Soviet Air Force – 11 players, as well as a team doctor and a masseur. January 6 – The UK recognizes the People's Republic of China; the Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with Britain in response. January 7 – A fire in the St Elizabeth's Ward of Mercy Hospital in Davenport, Iowa, United States, kills 41 patients. January 9 – The Israeli government recognizes the People's Republic of China. January 12 – Submarine collides with Swedish oil tanker Divina in the Thames Estuary and sinks; 64 die. January 13 – Finland forms diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. January 21 – In the United States, suspected spy Alger Hiss is convicted on two counts of perjury. January 23 – The Knesset passes a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. January 24 – Cold War: Klaus Fuchs, German émigré and physicist, confesses to an MI5 interrogator that he is a Soviet spy: for seven years, he passed top secret data on U.S. and British nuclear weapons research to the Soviet Union. Fuchs is formally charged on February 2. January 26 – India promulgates its constitution, forming a republic, and Rajendra Prasad is sworn in as its first president. The Kingdom of Mysore is merged into the new republic. January 31 United States President Harry S. Truman orders the development of the hydrogen bomb, in response to the detonation of the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb in 1949. The last Kuomintang troops surrender in mainland China. February 1950 February 1 – Chiang Kai-shek is re-elected as president of the Republic of China. February 6 In West Virginia, 372,000 coal miners strike (they remain out until March 3). The first Cabinet Secretary (N.R. Pillai) is appointed in India.