1954

Events

February 25 - Adib Shishakli is overthrown as President of Syria.
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, replacing the MVD in that capacity. Ivan Serov is appointed chairman.
March 13 to May 7 - The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ is fought.
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 - Operation PBSuccess: at the behest of the United Fruit Company, 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.
September 27 - Zhou Enlai is named the first Premier of the People's Republic of China.
November 1 - Beginning of the Algerian War of Independence.
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.