Events January January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head office of IBM. January 10 – BOAC Flight 781, a de Havilland Comet jet plane, disintegrates in mid-air due to metal fatigue, and crashes in the Mediterranean near Elba; all 35 people on board are killed. January 12 – Avalanches in Austria kill more than 200. January 15 – Mau Mau leader Waruhiu Itote is captured in Kenya. January 17 – In Yugoslavia, Milovan Đilas, one of the leading members of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, is relieved of his duties. January 20 – The US-based National Negro Network is established, with 46 member radio stations. January 21 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the , is launched in Groton, Connecticut, by First Lady of the United States Mamie Eisenhower. January 25 – The foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union meet at the Berlin Conference. February February 10 – After authorizing $385 million over the $400 million already budgeted for military aid to Vietnam, President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower warns against his country's intervention in Vietnam. February 19 – 1954 transfer of Crimea: The Soviet Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR (Invaded and annexed by Russia in 2014). February 23 – The first mass vaccination of children against polio begins in Pittsburgh, United States. February 25 – Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes premier of Egypt. March March 1 U.S. officials announce that a hydrogen bomb test (Castle Bravo) has been conducted, on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. U.S. Capitol shooting incident: Four Puerto Rican nationalists open fire in the United States House of Representatives chamber and wound 5; they are apprehended by security guards. March 9 – American journalists Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly produce a 30-minute See It Now documentary, entitled A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy. March 12 – Finland and Germany officially end their state of war. March 13 – Việt Minh forces under General Võ Nguyên Giáp began a massive artillery bombardment on the French military, beginning the Battle of Dien