Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s
1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 - 1947 - 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952
Events:
- January 3 - Proceedings of the United States Congress are televised for the first time.
- February 3 - Percival Prattisbecame becomes the first African American news correspondent allowed in the United States House and Senate press gallery.
- February 10 - Italy cedes most of Venezia Giulia to Yugoslavia
- February 17 - Propaganda: The Voice of America begins to transmit radio broadcasts into the Soviet Union.
- February 21 - In New York City Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
- April 15 - In the United States, Jackie Robinson, an African-American, takes the field at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers major-league baseball team, breaking that sport's color line.
- August 15 - India obtains independence from the British rule. Pakistan splits from India.
- October 14, American test pilot, Captain Chuck Yeager flies a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, the first man to do so in level flight.
- December 9 - U.S. Senator Tom Daschle
- December 30 - King Michael of Romania abdicates
- The House Un-American Activities Committee begin their investigations of communism in Hollywood.
- Cambridge University begins to admits women as full students.
- Mikhail Kalashnikov designs the AK-47 assault rifle
- Walter Morrison invents the Frisbee.
- Raytheon produces first commercial microwave oven
Art, Culture & Fashion
- 1949 in film
- 1949 in literature
- Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert Heinlein
- The Diary of Anne Frank
- Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
- Miss Hickory by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
- 1949 in music
- 1949 in sports
- 1949 in television
- January 22 - The first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, begins operation in Hollywood, California.
- January 30 - The FCC rejects CBS' color television system.
- May 7 - Kraft Television Theater premieres on NBC, the first regularly scheduled drama series on a network.
- September 30 - The opening game of the World Series is the first World Series game to be telecast. The 1947 World Series brought in an estimated 3.9 million people, becoming television's first mass audience.
- October 5 - The first presidential address is telecast from the White House. President Truman speaks about the world food crisis.
- November 6 - Meet the Press first appears as a local program in Washington.
- November 20 - Meet the Press first network telecast.
- December 27 - Puppet Television Theater (later called Howdy Doody), a children's television program, makes its debut (NBC).
- The first Hollywood film production for TV, The Public Prosecutor.
- There are 14,000 television sets in use in the United States.
Births:
- January 8 - David Bowie - Pop star
- January 11 - Bryan Robson, football player
- January 16 - Dr. Laura Schlessinger, physiologist, radio talk show host
- January 25 - Al Capone, gangster
- January 30 - Steve Marriott, musician ("The Small Faces") (+ 1991)
- January 31 - Nolan Ryan, baseball player
- February 3 - Paul Auster, novelist.
- February 4 - Dan Quayle, Vice President of the United States
- February 5 - Darrell Waltrip, automobile racer
- February 10 - Louise Arbour, jurist
- February 18 - Princess Christina of the Netherlands
- January 24 - Warren Zevon, musician
- February 1 - Jessica Savitch, journalist (+ 1983)
- February 2 - Farrah Fawcet, actress
- February 2 - Melanie, singer
- February 10 - Louise Arbour, Jurist
- February 18 - Princess Christina of the Netherlands
- February 18 - Dennis DeYoung, musician ("Styx")
- February 20 - Peter Osgood, English football player
- February 20 - Peter Strauss, actor
- February 24 - Edward James Olmos, actor
- March 6 - Rob Reiner, actor, comedian, movie producer
- March 10 - Kim Campbell, first female Prime Minister of Canada (1993)
- March 25 - Elton John - Pop star
- April 12 - David Letterman - US entertainer
- April 16 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, American basketball player
- June 19 - Salman Rushdie, author
- July 2 - Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld
- July 30 - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian bodybuilder and actor
- September 21 - Stephen King, author
- October 19 - Giorgio Cavazzano, comics artist and illustrator
- November 14 - P. J. O'Rourke, journalist and satirist
- December 27 - Steven Spielberg, American film director
Deaths:
- Tristan Bernard - French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer
- Aleister Crowley - British occultist
- November 25 - Léon-Paul Fargue, poet
- December 17 - J. N. Bronsted, physical chemist.
- Physics - Sir Edward Victor Appleton
- Chemistry - Sir Robert Robinson
- Medicine - Carl Ferdinand Cori, Gerty Theresa, née Radnitz Cori, Bernardo Alberto Houssay
- Literature - André Paul Guillaume Gide
- Peace - The Friends Service Council (UK) and The American Friends Service Committee (USA), on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers.