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The Rosenbergs, Ethel and Julius, were convicted for espionage.
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Santayana goodbye: George Santayana, philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist, dies on September 26
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Joseph Stalin dies on March 5, yielding his position as leader of the Soviet Union
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Roy Cohn resigns as Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel and enters private practice with the fall of McCarthy. He also worked to prosecute the Rosenbergs, mentioned earlier in verse.
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dies on April 18 at the age of 76
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Nikita Khrushchev makes his famous Secret Speech denouncing Stalin's "cult of personality" on February 23
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Jack Kerouac publishes his first novel in seven years, On the Road
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California baseball begins as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California and become the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants. They are the first major league teams west of Kansas City
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Wheel of Fortune: A hit television game show which has been TV's highest-rated syndicated program since 1983
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China's under martial law: On May 20, China declares martial law, enabling them to use force of arms against protesting students to end the Tiananmen Square protests.
