The 22nd Amendment is ratified, constitutionally limiting U.S. presidents to two elected terms in response to Franklin Roosevelt's unprecedented four.

Momentum built in Iran's push to nationalize British-controlled oil operations under Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, reshaping Middle Eastern geopolitics for decades.

Delegates in Geneva adopted the 1951 Refugee Convention, establishing the legal definition of a refugee and the principle of non-refoulement that still governs international asylum law.

The U.S. Mutual Security Act took effect, folding the Marshall Plan's European recovery mission into a new Cold War-focused foreign aid framework.

Experimental Breeder Reactor I in Idaho generated the first usable electricity from nuclear power, lighting four light bulbs and opening the atomic age of civilian energy.