Events of 1952- January 8 – West Germany has 8 million refugees inside its borders.
- January 14 – Today premieres on NBC, becoming one of the longest-running television series in America.
- January 24
- A sudden heavy snowfall hits Algeria.
- February 2 – A tropical storm forms just north of Cuba moving northeast. The storm makes landfall in southern Florida the next day. It is the earliest reported landfall from a tropical storm, and the earliest formation of a tropical storm on record in the Atlantic basin.
- February 6
- Elizabeth II becomes Queen upon the death of her father George VI. She is simultaneously proclaimed Queen of Canada at Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Ontario.
- In the United States, a mechanical heart is used for the first time in a human patient.
- February 7 – Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom at St. James's Palace, London, England—an event that effectively knocked Walt Kelly and Pogo off the front cover of Life Magazine, and deep into the interior pages.
- February 14 – February 25 – The Winter Olympics held in Oslo, Norway.
- February 15 – The funeral of King George VI takes place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
- February 26 – United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that the United Kingdom has an atomic bomb.
- March 15 – March 16 – 73 inches (1,870 mm) of rain falls in Cilaos, Réunion, the most rainfall ever in one day.
- March 20 – The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
- March 22 – Wernher von Braun publishes the first in his series of articles entitled Man Will Conquer Space Soon!, including ideas for manned flights to Mars and the Moon.
- April 15 – The United States B-52 Stratofortress flies for the first time.
- April 23 – A nuclear test is held in the Nevada desert.
- April 28
- The Treaty of San Francisco goes into effect, formally ending the occupation of Japan.
- The Treaty of Taipei is signed between Japan and the Republic of China to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War.
- May 1 – East Germany threatens to form its own army.
- May 2 – The first passenger jet flight route between London and Johannesburg.
- May 3 – U.S. lieutenant colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict land a plane at the geographic North Pole.
- May 6 – Farouk of Egypt has himself announced as a descendant of prophet Muhammad.
- May 13 – Pandit Nehru forms his first government in India.
- May 18 – Ann Davison becomes the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean.
- June 5 – Remains of a Viking ship are found near Boston, Massachusetts.
- June 14 – The keel is laid for the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
- June 15 – The Diary of Anne Frank is published.
- June 19 – The United States Army Special Forces is created
August 26 – A British passenger jet flies twice over the Atlantic Ocean in the same day.July 13 – East Germany announces the formation of its National People's Army.- July 19–26 – Washington D.C. is "buzzed" by several alleged UFOs tracked on multiple radars. Jets scramble on several occasions and the objects take evasive action, only to return after the jets leave the area.[1]
- July 19 – August 3 – The 1952 Summer Olympics are held in Helsinki, Finland.
- September 6 – Television debuts in Canada as the CBC in Montreal, Quebec airs..
- September 18 – The Soviet Union vetoes Japan's application for membership in the United Nations.
- October 14 – The United Nations begins work in the new United Nations building in New York City.
- October 16 – Limelight opens in London; writer/actor/director/producer Charlie Chaplin arrives by ocean liner; in transit his re-entry permit to the USA is revoked by J. Edgar Hoover.
- November 1 – Nuclear testing: Operation Ivy: The United States successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike", at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, with a yield of 10.4 megatons.
- November 4
- United States presidential election, 1952: Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson (correctly predicted by the UNIVAC computer).
- The U.S. National Security Agency is founded.
- November 21 – A show trial in Czechoslovakia sentences 11 ex-communist officials (all of them Jews) to death.
- November 29 – Korean War: U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a political campaign promise, by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict.
- December 4 – Great Smog of 1952: A "killer fog" descends on London (in the process coining the word "Smog", for "smoke" and "fog").
