| 12th January 1950 | The British submarine ‘Truculent’ collides with a Swedish oil tanker in the Thames Estuary and sinks; sixty-four people die. |
| 21st January 1950 | George Orwell, English author of “1984” and “Animal Farm” (b. 1903) dies. |
| 26th January 1950 | India formally declares its own constitution, forming a republic. Rajendra Prasad is sworn in as its first president. |
| 12th February 1950 | Albert Einstein warns that nuclear war could lead to mutual destruction. |
| 1sr March 1950 | Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying against both the United States and Britain for the Soviet Union. Fuchs had given top secret atomic bomb data to the Soviet Union, which had led to his arrest.. |
| 12th March 1950 | An aeroplane carrying returning rugby fans from Ireland to Wales crashes near to Llandow, with the loss of eighty lives. |
| 13th May 1950 | The first race in the inaugural FIA Formula One World Championship is held at Silverstone, England. |
| 25th June 1950 | North Korean troops cross the 38th parallel into South Korea. The Korean War officially begins. |
| 16th July 1950 | Uruguay beat Brazil 2-1 to win the 1950 FIFA World Cup. |
| 5th August 1950 | Florence Chadwick swims across the English Channel in thirteen hours and twenty-two minutes. |
| 15th August 1950 | An earthquake and terrible flooding kills 574 people in Assam, India, and leaves 5,000,000 homeless. |
| 7th September 1950 | A coal mine collapses in New Cumnock, Scotland, killing thirteen miners; 116 are rescued. |
| 20th November 1950 | Iconic war poet T. S. Eliot speaks-out against television in the United Kingdom. |
| 22nd November 1950 | Shirley Temple announces her retirement from show business. |
| 26th November 1950 | Troops from the People's Republic of China move into North Korea and launch a massive counterattack against South Korean and American forces at Chosin. Any hopes of a quick end to the Korean War are dashed. |
| 3rd December 1950 | Mount Etna erupts in Sicily. The eruption lasts for 371 days, causing damage to vineyards and orchards. |
| 24th December 1950 | Scottish nationalists take the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey. |
| 28th December 1950 | The Peak District becomes Britain's first National Park. |