1954

1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1920s  1930s  1940s  – 1950s –  1960s  1970s  1980s
Years:	1951 1952 1953 – 1954 – 1955 1956 1957

Events

• October 18 – Texas Instruments announces the worldwide first transistor radio.

Births

• January 6 - Anthony Minghella, British movie director (d. 2008)
• January 29 – Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host
• February 7 - Dieter Bohlen, German music mogul
• February 15 - Matt Groening, American creator of The Simpsons and Futurama
• February 16 - Iain Banks, Scottish writer
• February 18 - John Travolta, American actor
• February 20 - Patty Hearst, American heiress
• February 21 - Ivo van Damme, Belgian athlete (d. 1976)
• March 1 – Ron Howard, American actor, director
• March 1 - Catherine Bach, American actress
• April 11 - Abdullah Atalar, Turkish academic
• April 19 - Trevor Francis, English footballer
• April 23 – Michael Moore, documentary movie maker
• April 23 – Tony Atlas, American professional wrestler
• May 13 - Johnny Logan, Irish singer
• May 20 - David Paterson, former Governor of New York
• June 30 - Serzh Sargsyan, President of Armenia
• July 17 - Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
• July 28 - Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela (d. 2013)
• July 28 - Gerd Faltings, German mathematician
• August 12 - Francois Hollande, President of France
• August 15 - Stieg Larsson, Swedish writer (d. 2004)
• August 16 - George Galloway, British politician
• August 25 – Elvis Costello, British singer
• September 21 - Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan
• October 9 – Scott Bakula, actor
• November 14 - Condoleezza Rice, former United States Secretary of State
• December 25 - Annie Lennox, Scottish singer
• December 28 - Denzel Washington, American actor
• December 29 – Albrecht Böttcher, German mathematician
• December 30 - Pnina Rosenblum, Israeli business woman and politician
• December 31 - Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland
• December 31 - Hermann Tilke, German racing circuit designer

Deaths

• May 19 – Charles Ives, American composer
• June 7 – Alan Turing, mathematician
• June 9 - Alain LeRoy Locke, American writer
• July 13 – Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter
• August 6 – Emilie Dionne, one of the Dionne Quintuplets
• November 3 – Henri Matisse, painter
• November 29 – Enrico Fermi, physicist

Movies released

• Devil Girl from Mars
• On the Waterfront
• Rear Window
• The Seven Samurai
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954 movie)

Hit songs

• Sh-Boom – Crew Cuts

New books

• The Acrobats – Mordecai Richler
• Benton's Row – Frank Yerby
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (Le pont de la rivière Kwai) – Pierre Boulle
• The Caves of Steel – Isaac Asimov
• The Egyptian – Mika Waltari
• Explorers on the Moon- Hergé
• Histoire d'O (Story of O) – Pauline Réage
• The Horse and His Boy – C. S. Lewis
• I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
• Ideas and Opinions – Albert Einstein
• Katherine – Anya Seton
• Live and Let Die – Ian Fleming
• Lord of the Flies – William G. Golding
• The Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring – J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers – J. R. R. Tolkien
• Love Is Eternal – Irving Stone
• Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
• Mandarins – Simone de Beauvoir
• Mary Anne – Daphne du Maurier
• Nectar in a Sieve – Kamala Markandaya
• Never Victorious, Never Defeated – Taylor Caldwell
• No Time for Sergeants – Mac Hyman
• Not as a Stranger – Morton Thompson
• The Royal Box – Frances Parkinson Keyes
• Sayonara – James A. Michener
• Sweet Thursday – John Steinbeck
• Under Milk Wood (Poetry) – Dylan Thomas
• Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
• The View from Pompey's Head – Hamilton Basso