| 1845–1958 | Germany [earth sciences] | German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion. |
| 1950–1959 | USA [everyday life] | The number of people in the USA who live in the suburbs increases by 44% in the 1950s. |
| 1950–1980 | UK [television] | Watch With Mother, a series for young children featuring favourite characters such as Andy Pandy, the Flowerpot Men, Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, and the Woodentops, is shown on British television. |
| 15 October 1951 - 24 June 1957 | USA [television] | I Love Lucy, US television's first smash hit situation comedy, is shown, starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. |
| 1954 | USA [ships and shipping] | US entrepreneur Malcolm Maclean initiates the use of containers to ship goods between New York City and Houston, Texas. The idea catches on rapidly throughout the world. |
| 1954 | UK [television] | The Television Act establishes the Independent Television Authority in Britain to manage the introduction of commercial television, which will begin in 1955, ending the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) monopoly. |
| 1954 | Greece [orchestral music] | The French composer of Greek parentage Iannis Xenakis completes his orchestral work Metastaseis. |
| 1954 | USA [painting] | The US artist Mark Rothko paints Untitled: Yellow, Orange, Red on Orange. |
| 1954 | England [fiction] | The English writer Kingsley Amis publishes his novel Lucky Jim. |
| 1954 | England [fiction] | The English writer William Golding publishes his novel Lord of the Flies, partly a reworking of the Victorian boys' tale The Coral Island (1858). |
| 1954 | England [historical study] | English historian of science Joseph Needham publishes the first volume of his 12-volume Science and Civilization in China. The final part appears in 1984. |
| 1954 | UK [cinema and film] | The film Genevieve, directed by Henry Cornelius, is released in Britain, starring Kenneth More, Dinah Sheridan, John Gregson, and Kay Kendall. It is the first British film to be shot in Technicolor. |
| 1954 | USA, England [cinema and film] | The film Rear Window, directed by the English film-maker Alfred Hitchcock, is released in the USA, starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. |
| 1954 | Japan [cinema and film] | The film Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa, is released in Japan, starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, and Kuninori Kodo. |
| 1954 | UK [computing] | The UNIVAC 1103A computer is introduced in the UK. It is the first commercial computer to have a magnetic-core memory and is 50 times faster than UNIVAC I, introduced in 1951. |
| 1 January 1954 | UK [motor vehicles] | Flashing directional indicator lights are made compulsory on cars in Britain. |
| 14 January 1954 | USA [popular culture] | The US actor Marilyn Monroe is married for a second time, to US baseball star Joe DiMaggio; in October, she sues for divorce. |
| 21 January 1954 | USA [technology] | The first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, is launched by the USA at Groton, Connecticut. It is also the largest submarine, at 97 m/319 ft long. |
| February 1954 | USA [political events] | The USA announces that it detonated the world's first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands two years before. |
| 22 April - 17 June 1954 | USA [human rights] | The McCarthy ‘witch-hunts’ reach their peak as Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy, chairman of the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, alleges that a communist spy ring is active at the US Army Signal Corps headquarters at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. During the hearings, which are televised across the country, McCarthy accuses the Army secretary of deliberately concealing evidence. McCarthy's conduct turns public opinion against him. |
| May 1954 | USA [legislation] | The US Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, overturns the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 and declares ‘separate but equal’ schools to be unconstitutional. |
| 6 May 1954 | UK [athletics] | Roger Bannister of Great Britain, with a time of 3 min 59.4 sec becomes the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes, at the Iffley Road Sports Ground, Oxford, England. |
| 7 May 1954 | North Vietnam, France [political events] | The Vietminh siege of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in North Vietnam ends with the surrender of 10,000 French troops. 5,000 more French troops are dead and the defeat effectively ends French power in Indochina. |
| 7 June 1954 | England [births and deaths] | Alan Mathison Turing, English mathematician who pioneered computer theory and computer processes, dies in Wilmslow, Cheshire, England (41). |
| 24 June 1954 | USA [roads] | New York State Thruway is opened, a 894-km/559-mi long highway stretching from New York City to Buffalo, New York. |
| 5 July 1954 | UK [television] | BBC Television News, with newsreader Richard Baker, starts on British television. Initially, in the interests of impartiality, newsreaders were not allowed to be seen on screen and merely provided a voice-over. |
| 18 July 1954 | USA [jazz] | The first jazz festival at Newport, Rhode Island, takes place. |
| 20 July 1954 | North Vietnam, South Vietnam, France, Switzerland [diplomacy] | An armistice ending the fighting in Indochina is signed in Geneva, Switzerland. Under the terms of the agreement France is to evacuate North Vietnam, while the communists are to evacuate South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. France also undertakes to respect the independence of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, and the communist leader Ho Chi Minh is to form a government in North Vietnam. |
| 30 August 1954 | France [treaties] | The French parliament votes against ratification of the 1952 treaty establishing the European Defence Community (EDC), which is destroyed by the decision. |
| 8 September 1954 | Southeast Asia [treaties] | The South-East Asian Defence Treaty (for mutual defence) and Pacific Charter are signed in Manila, Philippines, by the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, Britain, and France. The treaty establishes SEATO, the South-East Asia Treaty Organization, based in Bangkok, Thailand. |
| 19 October 1954 | Egypt, UK [diplomacy] | Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, prime minister of Egypt, signs a British–Egyptian agreement which terminates the treaty of alliance of 1936. British troops are to withdraw from the Suez Canal zone, but Britain reserves the right to intervene if the canal is threatened. The agreement comes into force from 6 December. |
| 25 October 1954 | USA [television] | A meeting of the US cabinet is televised for first time. |
| 3 November 1954 | France [births and deaths] | Henri Matisse, French painter, sculptor, illustrator and designer, dies in Nice, France (84). |
| 29 December 1954 | North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, France [treaties] | Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia all become independent under a treaty with France. |
