1.
1950
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January 1 – The International Police Association – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. Senator Estes Kefauver introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of organized crime in the U. S, January 6 – The UK recognizes the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with Britain in response. January 7 – A fire consumes Mercy Hospital in Davenport, Iowa, January 9 – The Israeli government recognizes the Peoples Republic of China. January 11 – Huk guerrillas manhandle the town of Hermosa, Bataan in the Philippines, January 12 The British submarine Truculent collides with a Swedish oil tanker in the Thames Estuary and sinks,64 die. Cold War, U. S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivers his Perimeter Speech, January 13 – Finland forms diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic of China. January 17 – Great Brinks Robbery, Eleven thieves steal more than $2 million from the Brinks armored car company headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. January 21 – Accused communist spy Alger Hiss is convicted on 2 accounts January 23 – The Knesset passes a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Fuchs is formally charged on February 2. The Kingdom of Mysore is merged into the new republic, January 29 – Lord Balfour criticizes the fact that rationing is still in force in Britain. January 31 United States President Harry S. Truman orders the development of the hydrogen bomb, the last Kuomintang troops surrender in mainland China. December – First five-year plan is tabled in the Parliament by Jawaharlal Nehru and it emphasizes Agricultural and Community development. February 1 – Chiang Kai-shek is re-elected as a president of the Republic of China, February 4 – Ingrid Bergmans illegitimate child arouses ire in the U. S. February 6 – First Cabinet Secretary N. R. February 8 The Stasi is founded in East Germany and acts as a secret police until 1990, payment first made by Diners Club card, in New York, first use of a charge card. February 11 Two Viet Minh battalions attack a French base in French Indochina, February 12 Pro-communist riots erupt in Paris. The European Broadcasting Union is founded, albert Einstein warns that nuclear war could lead to mutual destruction. February 13 The U. S. Army begins to deploy anti-aircraft cannons to protect nuclear stations and military targets. British Columbia B-36 crash – The U. S. Air Force loses a Convair B-36 bomber that carried a Mark 4 nuclear bomb off the west coast of Canada, February 14 – Cold War, The Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China sign a mutual defense treaty. In an election speech at Edinburgh, Winston Churchill proposes a parley at the summit with Soviet leaders, February 15 Juho Kusti Paasikivi is re-elected president of Finland. Walt Disney releases his 12th animated film, Cinderella in Hollywood, February 19 – Konrad Adenauer tries unsuccessfully to negotiate with East Germany to begin unification
2.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
3.
Monarch
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A monarch is the sovereign head of state in a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority and power in the state, alternatively, an individual may become monarch by conquest, acclamation or a combination of means. A monarch usually reigns for life or until abdication, if a young child is crowned the monarch, a regent is often appointed to govern until the monarch reaches the requisite adult age to rule. A monarch can reign in multiple monarchies simultaneously, for example, the monarchy of Canada and the monarchy of the United Kingdom are separate states, but they share the same monarch through personal union. Monarchs, as such, bear a variety of titles — king or queen, prince or princess, emperor or empress, archduke, duke or grand duke, Prince is sometimes used as a generic term to refer to any monarch regardless of title, especially in older texts. A king can also be a husband and a queen can be a kings wife. If both people in a reign, neither person is generally considered to be a consort. Monarchy is political or sociocultural in nature, and is associated with hereditary rule. Most monarchs, both historically and in the present day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, agnatic seniority, Salic law, etc. In an elective monarchy, the monarch is elected but otherwise serves as any other monarch, historical examples of elective monarchy include the Holy Roman Emperors and the free election of kings of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In recent centuries, many states have abolished the monarchy and become republics, advocacy of government by a republic is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchy is called monarchism. A principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of national leadership. In cases where the monarch serves mostly as a ceremonial figure real leadership does not depend on the monarch, a form of government may in fact be hereditary without being considered monarchy, such as a family dictatorship. Monarchies take a variety of forms, such as the two co-princes of Andorra, positions held simultaneously by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgel and the elected President of France. Similarly, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia is considered a monarch despite only holding the position for five years at a time, hereditary succession within one patrilineal family has been most common, with preference for children over siblings, sons over daughters. Other European realms practice one form or another of primogeniture, whereunder a lord was succeeded by his eldest son or, if he had none, by his brother, the system of tanistry was semi-elective and gave weight also to ability and merit. The Salic law, practiced in France and in the Italian territories of the House of Savoy, in most fiefs, in the event of the demise of all legitimate male members of the patrilineage, a female of the family could succeed. Spain today continues this model of succession law, in the form of cognatic primogeniture, in more complex medieval cases, the sometimes conflicting principles of proximity and primogeniture battled, and outcomes were often idiosyncratic
4.
George VI
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George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India and the first Head of the Commonwealth, known as Albert until his accession, George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, and was named after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort. As the second son of King George V, he was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his life in the shadow of his elder brother. He attended naval college as a teenager, and served in the Royal Navy, in 1920, he was made Duke of York. He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, in the mid-1920s, he had speech therapy for a stammer, which he never fully overcame. Georges elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII upon the death of their father in 1936, however, later that year Edward revealed his desire to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised Edward that for political and religious reasons he could not marry a divorced woman, Edward abdicated in order to marry, and George ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor. During Georges reign, the break-up of the British Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations accelerated, the parliament of the Irish Free State removed direct mention of the monarch from the countrys constitution on the day of his accession. The following year, a new Irish constitution changed the name of the state to Ireland, from 1939, the Empire and Commonwealth – except Ireland – was at war with Nazi Germany. War with Italy and Japan followed in 1940 and 1941, respectively, though Britain and its allies were ultimately victorious in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union rose as pre-eminent world powers and the British Empire declined. After the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, George remained king of countries, but relinquished the title of Emperor of India in June 1948. Ireland formally declared itself a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1949, George adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth. He was beset by problems in the later years of his reign. He was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Elizabeth II, George was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria. His father was Prince George, Duke of York, the second and eldest-surviving son of the Prince and his mother was the Duchess of York, the eldest child and only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Teck. His birthday was the 34th anniversary of the death of his great-grandfather, Albert, uncertain of how the Prince Consorts widow, Queen Victoria, would take the news of the birth, the Prince of Wales wrote to the Duke of York that the Queen had been rather distressed. Two days later, he again, I really think it would gratify her if you yourself proposed the name Albert to her. Consequently, he was baptised Albert Frederick Arthur George at St. Mary Magdalenes Church near Sandringham three months later, within the family, he was known informally as Bertie
5.
Governor-general
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Governor-General or governor general, in modern usage, is the title of an office-holder appointed to represent the monarch of a sovereign state in the governing of an independent realm. Governors-General have also previously been appointed in respect of major colonial states or other territories held by either a monarchy or republic, in modern usage, the term governor-general originated in those British colonies which became self-governing within the British Empire. In these cases, the Crowns representative in the federated Dominion was given the title of governor general. Another non-federal state, Newfoundland, was a Dominion for 16 years with the Kings representative retaining the title of governor throughout this time, since 2016, the title governor-general has been given to all representatives of the sovereign in independent Commonwealth realms. In these countries the governor-general acts as the representative, performing the ceremonial and constitutional functions of a head of state. The only other nation which uses the designation is Iran. In Iran, the authority is headed by a governor general. As such they held the prerogative powers of the monarch. The monarch or imperial government could overrule any governor-general, though this could often be cumbersome, the governors-general are entitled to wear a unique uniform, which are not generally worn today. If of the rank of general, equivalent or above. The report resulting from the 1926 Imperial Conference stated, in other words, the political reality of a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire with a governor-general answerable to the sovereign became clear. British interference in the Dominion was not acceptable and independent country status was clearly displayed, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were clearly not controlled by the United Kingdom. The governor-general, however, is appointed by the monarch. Executive authority is vested in the monarch, though much of it can be exercisable only by the governor-general on behalf of the sovereign of the independent realm. Except in rare cases, the only acts in accordance with constitutional convention and upon the advice of the national prime minister. The governor-general is still the representative of the sovereign and performs the same duties as they carried out historically. In some realms, the monarch could in principle overrule a governor-general, in Australia the present Queen is generally assumed to be head of state, since the governor-general and the state governors are defined as her representatives. However, since the governor-general performs almost all national regal functions, to a lesser extent, uncertainty has been expressed in Canada as to which officeholder—the monarch, the governor general, or both—can be considered the head of state
6.
William McKell
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Sir William John McKell GCMG was an Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales from 1941 to 1947, and the 12th Governor-General of Australia from 1947 to 1953. He was the longest-lived Governor-General, aged 93 when he died, Bill McKell was born in Pambula, New South Wales, the eldest of four children. His father, Robert Pollock McKell, was a butcher who moved the family to Surry Hills in Sydney in 1898, three years later he abandoned them. For the rest of his life, McKell concealed the matter by saying his father had died young, the family moved to Redfern, with McKell’s mother working at various menial tasks to support the family. He was educated at Bourke Street Public School in Surry Hills, McKell supplemented the family income by working part-time and then becoming a messenger boy when he left school at 13. As well as being a student, McKell was a talented footballer, cricketer and boxer. In 1906, McKell became an apprentice boilermaker at Morts Dock and he joined the Federated Society of Boilermakers and Iron and Steel Ship-Builders and organised fellow apprentices to fight for improved conditions. Completing his articles, McKell worked for the NSW Government Railways from 1913-14 and he became full-time Assistant Secretary of the Boilermakers Society in 1914. McKell was also active in the Australian Labor Party, which he joined in 1908 and he was prominent in a militant faction, the Industrial Section, which took control of the Party in 1916. McKell became a member of the State Executive, when Labor split over the proposed introduction of conscription in that year, McKell was a vigorous anti-conscriptionist. James McGowen, MLA for Redfern and first ALP Premier of NSW, had expelled from the Party for supporting conscription. Although McGowen, a boilermaker, had been something of a mentor. He won and subsequently defeated McGowen at the 1917 election, in 1919, McKell bought a house in Redfern that was to be his home for almost three decades. The following year he married Mary Minnie Pye, the first of three children soon followed. In 1933, McKell bought a property near Goulburn and he sold it in 1946 and purchased a nearby property of 1,400 acres which his son Bill eventually took over. Except for the period of representation, when he was a member for Botany. McKell had improved his education by attending Workers’ Educational Association lectures, even before he was elected he had begun studying for the Bar and was admitted in 1925. Practising as a barrister was to bring him income, experience, as a parliamentarian, he developed formidable debating skills and revelled in the hard work involved in mastery of legislation and procedure
7.
Prime minister
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A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss members of the cabinet. In most systems, the minister is the presiding member. In parliamentary systems fashioned after the Westminster system, the minister is the presiding and actual head of government. In such systems, the head of state or the head of states official representative usually holds a ceremonial position. The prime minister is often, but not always, a member of the Legislature or the Lower House thereof and is expected with other ministers to ensure the passage of bills through the legislature. In some monarchies the monarch may also exercise powers that are constitutionally vested in the crown. The first actual usage of the prime minister or Premier Ministre was used by Cardinal Richelieu when in 1625 he was named to head the royal council as prime minister of France. Louis XIV and his descendants generally attempted to avoid giving this title to their chief ministers, the term prime minister in the sense that we know it originated in the 18th century in the United Kingdom when members of parliament disparagingly used the title in reference to Sir Robert Walpole. Over time, however, the title became honorific and remains so in the 21st century, the monarchs of England and the United Kingdom had ministers in whom they placed special trust and who were regarded as the head of the government. Examples were Thomas Cromwell under Henry VIII, William Cecil, Lord Burghley under Elizabeth I, Clarendon under Charles II and these ministers held a variety of formal posts, but were commonly known as the minister, the chief minister, the first minister and finally the prime minister. The power of ministers depended entirely on the personal favour of the monarch. Although managing the parliament was among the skills of holding high office. Although there was a cabinet, it was appointed entirely by the monarch, when the monarch grew tired of a first minister, he or she could be dismissed, or worse, Cromwell was executed and Clarendon driven into exile when they lost favour. Kings sometimes divided power equally between two or more ministers to prevent one minister from becoming too powerful, late in Annes reign, for example, the Tory ministers Harley and St John shared power. The monarch could no longer any law or impose any tax without its permission. It is at point that a modern style of prime minister begins to emerge. A tipping point in the evolution of the prime ministership came with the death of Anne in 1714, George spoke no English, spent much of his time at his home in Hanover, and had neither knowledge of, nor interest in, the details of English government
8.
Robert Menzies
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Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, KT, AK, CH, PC, QC, FAA, FRS, was the Prime Minister of Australia from 1939 to 1941 and again from 1949 to 1966. He is Australias longest-serving prime minister, serving over 18 years in total, Menzies studied law at the University of Melbourne and became one of Melbournes leading lawyers. He was Deputy Premier of Victoria from 1932 to 1934, and then transferred to federal parliament, subsequently becoming Attorney-General, in April 1939, following Lyons death, Menzies was elected leader of the United Australia Party and sworn in as prime minister. He authorised Australias entry into World War II in September 1939, on his return to Australia in August 1941, Menzies found that he had lost the support of his party and consequently resigned as prime minister. He subsequently helped to create the new Liberal Party, and was elected its leader in August 1945. At the 1949 federal election, Menzies led the Liberal–Country coalition to victory, after 1955, his government also received support from the Democratic Labor Party, a breakaway group from the Labor Party. Menzies won seven consecutive elections during his term, eventually retiring as prime minister in January 1966. Robert Gordon Menzies was born to James Menzies and Kate in Jeparit and he was the fourth of six children, with one sister and three brothers. His maternal grandfather, John Sampson, was a Cornish miner from Penzance who also came to seek his fortune on the goldfields and his father was elected to the Victorian State Parliament for the seat of Lowan in 1911 and moved with the family to Melbourne after selling the farm. His middle name, Gordon, was given to him in honour and memory of Charles George Gordon, Menziess formal education began at Humffray Street State School in Bakery Hill, Ballarat, then later at private school in Ballarat. He attended Wesley College in Melbourne and studied law at the University of Melbourne, when World War I began, Menzies was 19 years old and held a commission in the universitys militia unit. He resigned his commission at the very time others of his age and it was later stated that, since the family had made enough of a sacrifice to the war with the enlistment of two of three eligible brothers, Menzies should stay to finish his studies. Menzies himself never explained the reason why he chose not to enlist and it should be noted that the two brothers, James and Frank, who did enlist did not do so until 1915 after the landings at Anzac which belies the alleged reason. Subsequently, he was prominent in undergraduate activities and won prizes and declared himself to be a patriotic supporter of the war. In 1916 he became the editor of the Melbourne University Magazine, establishing a reputation as an unusually bright and articulate member of the undergraduate community. After graduating from the University of Melbourne in 1916 with First Class Honours in Law, Menzies was admitted to the Victorian Bar and to the High Court of Australia in 1918. Establishing his own practice in Melbourne, Menzies specialised chiefly in Constitutional law which he had read with the leading Victorian jurist and future High Court judge, Sir Owen Dixon. In 1920 Menzies served as an advocate for the Amalgamated Society of Engineers which eventually took its appeal to the High Court of Australia, the case became a landmark authority for the positive reinterpretation of Commonwealth powers over those of the States
9.
Election
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An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century, Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is used in many other private and business organizations. Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems where they are not in place, psephology is the study of results and other statistics relating to elections. To elect means to choose or make a decision, and so other forms of ballot such as referendums are referred to as elections. Elections were used as early in history as ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and throughout the Medieval period to select rulers such as the Holy Roman Emperor, in Vedic period of India, the raja of a gana was apparently elected by the gana. The raja belonged to the noble Kshatriya varna, and was typically a son of the previous raja, however, the gana members had the final say in his elections. The Pala king Gopala in early medieval Bengal was elected by a group of feudal chieftains, such elections were quite common in contemporary societies of the region. In Chola Empire, around 920 CE, in Uthiramerur, palm leaves were used for selecting the village committee members, the leaves, with candidate names written on them, were put inside a mud pot. To select the members, a young boy was asked to take out as many leaves as the number of positions available. This was known as the Kudavolai system, ancient Arabs also used election to choose their caliph, Uthman and Ali, in the early medieval Rashidun Caliphate. Questions of suffrage, especially suffrage for minority groups, have dominated the history of elections, males, the dominate cultural group in North America and Europe, often dominated the electorate and continue to do so in many countries. Early elections in such as the United Kingdom and the United States were dominated by landed or ruling class males. However, by 1920 all Western European and North American democracies had universal male suffrage. Despite legally mandated universal suffrage for males, political barriers were sometimes erected to prevent fair access to elections. The question of who may vote is an issue in elections. In Australia Aboriginal people were not given the right to vote until 1962, suffrage is typically only for citizens of the country, though further limits may be imposed. However, in the European Union, one can vote in municipal elections if one lives in the municipality and is an EU citizen, the nationality of the country of residence is not required
10.
New South Wales state election, 1950
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The 1950 New South Wales state election was held on 17 June 1950. It was conducted in single member constituencies with compulsory voting and was held on boundaries created at a 1949 redistribution. The election was for all of the 94 seats in the Legislative Assembly, the NSW Labor Government, under McGirr, was beginning to show signs of age. They had voted for the businessman Asher Joel instead of the endorsed Labor candidates, all four served out the remainder of their terms as independents and stood in the election as Independent Labor candidates. Two members of Lang Labor, James Lang and Lillian Fowler were still in the Assembly, in contrast, the Liberal Party which had been founded by in 1945, continued to consolidate its position as the pre-eminent conservative party. It had been led by Vernon Treatt and presented a front to the electorate. The Country Party was led by Michael Bruxner and remained closely aligned to the Liberals, under a legalistic interpretation of the ALP rules, Seiffert was readmitted to the party and, together with the support of Geraghty, McGirr and Labor were able to stay in power. Labor gained the two Lang Labor seats and re-gained the Independent Labor seat of Lakemba at the election and it lost the remaining seat held by an Independent Labor member to the Country Party. Labor also lost Hawkesbury, Ryde and Kogarah to the Liberal Party and Mudgee, the sitting Independent members for South Coast and Gloucester changed their allegiance to the Liberal Party and the Country Party respectively at this election. During the parliament there were 4 by-elections with the result of a net gain to Labor of 1 seat, the near loss of the election weakened McGirrs position and he was replaced as premier by Joseph Cahill in April 1952. Treatt remained the Leader of the Opposition during the period of this parliament and Bruxner continued as the Leader of the Country Party, the final 2pp result was labor 51% to Coalition at 49%. 1 There were 1,768,801 enrolled voters in 86 contested electorates and 150,878 were enrolled in 8 uncontested electorates, former members of the New South Wales Parliament, 1856-2006. Defeat of Five Members in pre-selection, Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1950–1953 Candidates of the New South Wales state election,1950
