Timeline March 1954

Events in March 1954 5

• 1954 1954 World Snooker Championship Fred Davis Title 6 Winner: Fred Davis; Runner-up: Walter Donaldson. Score: 39–21.
• 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test Largest US nuclear detonation causes radioactive fallout crisis The United States detonated a 15-megaton thermonuclear device at Bikini Atoll, far exceeding its expected yield. Fallout contaminated inhabited islands and the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon 5, killing one crewman and sparking international protest over nuclear testing. It remains the largest nuclear explosion ever conducted by the United States.
• 1954 Mother's Death His mother, Crown Princess Märtha, died of cancer at the age of 53. She had been widely expected to become queen, and her death deeply affected the 17-year-old prince.
• 1954 Fall of Dien Bien Phu Viet Minh victory ends French rule in Indochina Viet Minh forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap overran the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu after a 56-day siege. The defeat ended French colonial control of Indochina and led directly to the Geneva Conference. It marked one of the first major military defeats of a European colonial power by a Southeast Asian independence movement.
• 1954 – 1985 Karen Ann Quinlan (1954-1985) Died 11 June 1985, aged 31 Quinlan became the center of a landmark American right-to-die case after she entered a persistent vegetative state in 1975 and her parents fought in court to remove her ventilator. The 1976 New Jersey Supreme Court ruling in their favor shaped later end-of-life law. She remained on a feeding tube until her death from pneumonia on 11 June 1985.