The following events occurred in July 1954:
The Common Nordic Labor Market Act comes into effect.
The United States officially begins using the international unit of the nautical mile, equal to 6,076.11549 ft. or 1,852 meters.
Died:Thea von Harbou, German actress (b. 1888)
Died:Reginald Marsh, American artist (b. 1898)
Food rationing in Great Britain ends with the lifting of restrictions on sale and purchase of meat, 14 years after it began early in World War II and nearly a decade after the war's end.
“Miracle of Bern”: West Germany beats Hungary 3–2 to win the 1954 FIFA World Cup.
Elvis Presley's first single, "That's All Right", is recorded by Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee.
Died:Gabriel Pascal, Hungarian producer and director (b. 1894)
Dewey Phillips of WHBQ (AM) in Memphis is the first radio announcer to broadcast a recording of Elvis Presley. The track "That's All Right" (later pressed as (Sun 209) was recorded 2 days earlier. Upon hearing that his debut record was about to be aired, Presley hid in a movie theater, thinking he would become a laughingstock.
Peter Thomson becomes the first Australian to win the British Open Golf Championship.
Born:Yō Yoshimura, Japanese voice actor (d. 1991)
Died:Henry Valentine Knaggs, English physician and author (b. 1859)
Died:
Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter (b. 1907)
Irving Pichel, American actor and director (b. 1891)
Grantland Rice, American sportswriter (b. 1880)
Died:
Jacinto Benavente, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1866)
Jackie Saunders, American silent screen actress (b. 1892)
The maiden flight of the Boeing 367-80 (or Dash 80), prototype of the Boeing 707 series.
Juan Fangio, the Argentine driver for German Grand Prix team Mercedes-Benz, makes a new fastest lap of the Silverstone Circuit with an average speed of 100.35 mph, the previous record being 100.16 mph.
Died:Herms Niel, German composer (b. 1888)
Died:Machine Gun Kelly, American gangster (b. 1895)
Release of Elvis Presley's first single, "That's All Right", by Sun Records in the United States.
First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference sends French forces to the south, and Vietnamese forces to the north, of a ceasefire line, and calls for elections to decide the government for all of Vietnam by July 1956. Failure to abide by the terms of the agreement leads to the establishment de facto of regimes of North Vietnam and South Vietnam, and the Vietnam War.
Born:Walter Payton, African-American football player (d. 1999)
Born:Vitas Gerulaitis, American tennis player (d. 1994)
Born:Lynne Frederick, British actress (d. 1994)
Born:Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela (d. 2013)
Died:Sōjin Kamiyama or "Sojin", Japanese film star during the American silent film era, (b. 1884)
Died:Coen de Koning, Dutch speed skater (b. 1879)
Italian mountaineers Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni become the first successfully to reach the summit of the Himalayan peak K2.
July 1954 Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA