February 23, 1954. Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes premier of Egypt. He will rule Egypt as a virtual dictator until his death in 1970.

April, 1954. The new Salk polio vaccine is being tested on nearly one million children in the United States. It is hoped that the disease will be eradicated by the use of this vaccine.

May 6, 1954. British medical student Roger Bannister runs the mile in under four minutes, three minutes, 59.4 seconds to be exact. No one thought the mile could be run in under four minutes, and some predicted that the exertion of attempting it would kill the runner. Bannister says afterward that he was “prepared to die.” Roger Bannister’s account of his historic run.

May 7, 1954. Vietnamese rebels, mostly Communist, capture the French fortress of Dien Bien Phu. This defeat for the French may end the French presence in Indochina.

June 27, 1954. Guatemalan President Jacobo Guzmán is deposed in a CIA-sponsored military coup, triggering a bloody civil war that continues for more than 35 years.

June 27, 1954. The world’s first atomic power station opens at Obninsk in the Soviet Union, proving that nuclear power can be used for peaceful purposes.

July 21, 1954. A peace conference at Geneva divides Vietnam along the 17th parallel of latitude, sending French forces to the south, and Vietnamese forces to the north, and calls for elections to decide the government for all of Vietnam by July 1956. Communist guerilla leader Ho Chi Minh will lead the North Vietnamese section of the country, while Emperor Bảo Đại appoints Ngô Ðình Diệm as Prime Minister of South Vietnam.

October 20, 1954. Texas Instruments announces the development of the first transistor radio.

November, 1954. The U.S. National Cancer Institute claims that there is a link between cancer and cigarette smoking.

December 24, 1954. Laos gains full independence from France.