By a 4-4 split, the US Supreme Court refused to intervene in the cases of more than fifty Germans convicted by American military tribunals at
Nuremberg.[2]
Chinese Communist forces captured
Hangzhou, sealing off
Shanghai by land from the rest of China.[4]
Baseball Commissioner
Happy Chandler reinstated
New York Giants manager
Leo Durocher after he found that there was not enough evidence to prove that Durocher had deliberately assaulted a fan at the
Polo Grounds after a game on April 28.[5]
The Big Four powers agreed to lift the
Berlin Blockade and counter-blockade measures. A US State Department announcement gave no date for the lifting but said that "agreement has been reached and that all restrictions imposed in Germany which have been the subject of conversation will be mutually lifted."[6]
The Belgian Chamber of Deputies approved the
North Atlantic Pact by a vote of 139 to 22.[7]
Over 62,000 workers at two
Ford Motor Company plants walked out in protest of an alleged speed-up of the assembly lines, a charge the company denied.[8]
In
Quebec, 4,000 striking workers in the three-month old
Asbestos strike blockaded every road into the area to prevent the Canadian
Johns Manville Company from bringing in strike-breakers.[9][10]
A motorized convoy of 150 police was sent to break up the blockade in the
Asbestos strike with instructions to "shoot as necessary." The police broke through the barricades and entered the town, beating strikers and making 150 arrests.[12][10]
At the UN General Assembly, the United States denied a Russian and Polish charge that Americans were building air and military bases in Francoist Spain. "Despite assertions to the contrary, we have no military alliance with Spain, we have given no military assistance to Spain, no military or naval missions are maintained in Spain. The United States has no air bases anywhere on Spanish territory," declared US delegate
Ray Atherton. "We have made no overtures in bringing Spain into the United Nations or into the European recovery program or the North Atlantic treaty. Spanish participation in such cooperative projects is a matter of determination by all participants and not by the United States alone."[13]
Voice of America and the
BBC began combining their efforts to thwart Soviet attempts to jam broadcasts into the USSR. Voice engineers called the effort "successful."[14]
The United Nations General Assembly admitted
Israel to membership in the UN by a vote of 37-12. The delegations of the six Arab countries (
Egypt,
Iraq,
Lebanon,
Saudi Arabia,
Syria and
Yemen) walked out of the Assembly Hall in protest.[21]
German Communist fugitive from the United States
Gerhart Eisler was arrested after a struggle aboard the Polish liner
MS Batory off
Southampton. Eisler had jumped his $23,500 bail and stowed away on the ship as it sailed from New York.[25]
Parliamentary elections were held in
Hungary, the first of the non-competitive elections that would be the norm through the Communist era.
25,000 Catholics gathered at Brooklyn's
Ebbets Field to hold a mass prayer for
József Mindszenty and other clergymen imprisoned in Communist countries.[26]
A United Nations resolution to lift a ban on diplomatic relations with
Francoist Spain fell four votes short of the two-thirds majority required to pass.[27]
The
Tokyo Stock Exchange resumed formal business for the first time since being closed in August 1945.[28]
1949 East German State Railway strike: 16,000 non-Communist railway workers in
Berlin went on strike to demand payment in western
Deutsche Marks. 500 were reported injured in fighting between strikers and Soviet sector police and strike-breakers.[37]
Died:James Forrestal, 57, 48th United States Secretary of the Navy and 1st Secretary of Defense (fell from a hospital window, probable suicide although theories of homicide persist)
Speaking at the Paris Foreign Ministers Conference, Soviet representative
Andrey Vyshinsky urged a return to the system of four-power Allied rule in Germany, including revival of the
Allied Control Council and the
Allied Kommandatura. US State Secretary
Dean Acheson rejected the proposal.[44]
American labor organizer
Victor G. Reuther survived an attempt on his life when an assailant fired a shotgun through the kitchen window of his
Detroit home. Reuther lost his right eye from the blasts.[45]
In Paris, Soviet Foreign Minister
Andrey Vyshinsky rejected Western proposals for unifying Germany by extending the West German constitution to the entire country.[51]
^Brady, Thomas F. (August 1, 1949). "'Rebellion' Ends For Judy Garland". Chicago Daily Tribune. Chicago: 14.
^Steinberg, S. H., ed. (1957). The Statesman's Year-Book: Statistical and Historical Annual of the States of the World for the Year 1957.
St. Martin's Press. p. 1413.
^Hamilton, Thomas J. (May 12, 1949). "Israel Wins A Seat In U.N. By 37-12 Vote". The New York Times. p. 1.