1954

Events

• March 1 - Castle Bravo: the United States tests its first lithium deuteride fueled thermonuclear weapon at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
• March 4 - Todor Zhivkov is named General Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party.
• March 13 - The KGB is founded to serve as the secret police of the Soviet Union. Ivan Serov is appointed chairman.
• May 4 to 7 - Alfredo Stroessner seizes control of Paraguay following a successful coup.
• May 25 - Ho Chi Minh launches a campaign of land reform in North Vietnam.
• June 18 to 27 - The CIA installs Carlos Castillo Armas as the military dictator of Guatemala, deposing democratically-elected leader Jacobo Árbenz.
• August 1 - End of the First Indochina War.
• September 3 - The Communist Party of China takes control of the the Yijiangshan Islands from Taiwan.
• November 30 - Daniel François Malan steps down as Prime Minister of South Africa. Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom is appointed as his successor.
• December 2 - Joseph McCarthy is censured by the United States Senate.
• Unknown - William Unek commits his first killing spree near Mahagi in the Belgian Congo, killing 21 people with an axe.

Births

Villain births

• February 6 - Paul Hill
• May 11 - Daniel Conahan
• May 26 - Danny Rolling
• June 17 - Pedro Rodrigues Filho
• July 28 - Hugo Chávez
• August 30 - Alexander Lukashenko
• September 8 - Mark Foley
• September 28 - Simon Bikindi
• November 10 - Henry Francis Hayes
• November 19 - Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
• November 26 - Velupillai Prabhakaran
• Unknown - Augustin Bizimana

Victim births

• November 16 - Jon Garth Murray

Deaths

Villain deaths

• July 10 - Calogero Vizzini