* 1954 – Jon Krakauer, American author

* 1954 – Pat Travers, Canadian singer and musician

* 1954 – Thom Bray, American actor

* 1954 – Jane Campion, New Zealand director

* 1954 – Frank-Michael Marczewski, German footballer

* 1954 – John Lloyd, English tennis player

* 1954 – Derek Warwick, English race car driver

* 1954 – Paul Steigerwald, American sportscaster

* 1954 – Ray Jennings, South African cricketer and coach

* 1954 – Radio Pakistan broadcasts the " Qaumī Tarāna ", the national anthem of Pakistan for the first time.

* 1954 – Nico Assumpção, Brazilian bass player ( d. 2001 )

In 1954 – 55, Australia's batsmen had no answer to the pace of Frank Tyson and Statham.

* 1954 – James Charles Kopp, American murderer of Barnett Slepian

* 1954 – Sammy McIlroy, Irish footballer and manager

* 1993 – Alan Kulwicki, American race car driver ( b. 1954 )

After 1890 came philosopher Josiah Royce ( 1855 – 1916 ), botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey ( 1858 – 1954 ), the Southern Agrarians of the 1920s and 1930s, novelist John Steinbeck ( 1902 – 1968 ), historian A. Whitney Griswold ( 1906 – 1963 ), environmentalist Aldo Leopold ( 1887 – 1948 ), Ralph Borsodi ( 1886 – 1977 ), and present-day authors Wendell Berry ( b. 1934 ), Gene Logsdon ( b. 1932 ), Paul Thompson, and Allan C. Carlson ( b. 1949 ).

Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS ( ; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954 ), was a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist.

* 1954 – James Gleick, American author, journalist, and biographer

* 1954 – Benno Möhlmann, German footballer

* 1954 – Gary Peters, English footballer

South Viet Nam has received $1,450,000,000 in United States aid since 1954 and the rate of assistance has been stepped up since Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson's visit last May.

At Geneva in 1954, to get the war in Indo-China settled, the British and French gave in to Russian and Communist Chinese demands and agreed to the setting up of a Communist state, North Viet Nam -- which then, predictably, became a base for Communist operations against neighboring South Viet Nam and Laos.

Deployment overseas began in 1954, first to West Germany and later to the Republic of China ( Taiwan ) and South Korea.

In late 1954, Gen. J. Lawton Collins was made ambassador to " Free Vietnam " ( the term South Vietnam came into use in 1955 ), effectively elevating the country to sovereign status.

Holt as Minister for Labour at a Raymond Terrace, New South Wales Masonite factory in 1954.

* 1954 – Ricky Skaggs, American singer-songwriter, musician, and producer ( New South )

* 1954 – First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

* 1954 – Trevor Rabin, South African guitarist ( Yes )

Negotiations took place in Delhi from December 1953 to April 1954 between the Delegation of the PRC Government and the Delegation of the Indian Government on the relations between the two countries with respect to the disputed territories of Aksai Chin and South Tibet.

* 1954 – Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States support to South Vietnam

* 1954 – Mike Rounds, American politician, current governor of South Dakota

With Soviet assistance, the navy reorganized in 1954 and 1955 into the North Sea Fleet, East Sea Fleet, and South Sea Fleet, and a corps of admirals and other naval officers was established from the ranks of the ground forces.

The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity is a new religious movement founded in South Korea in 1954 by the late Sun Myung Moon.

When the North and South were divided politically in 1954, they also adopted different economic ideologies: communism in the North and capitalism in the South.

Thurmond represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 until 2003, at first as a Democrat and, after 1964, as a Republican.

* Eight-term senator from South Carolina ( December 1954 – April 1956 and November 1956 – January 2003 )

He served three terms in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1949 to 1954.

He was subsequently elected Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina in 1954, and Governor in 1958 at age 36.

On May 18, 1954 Greensboro became the first city in the South to publicly announce that it would abide by the U. S. Supreme Court ’ s Brown v. Board of Education ruling which declared racial segregation in the nation ’ s public schools unconstitutional.

Following the Geneva Accord of 1954, the Viet Minh became the government of North Vietnam, although the Bảo Đại government continued to rule in South Vietnam.

The NLF was made up of two distinct groups: South Vietnamese intellectuals who opposed the government and were nationalists ; and communists who had remained in the south after the partition and regrouping of 1954 as well as those who had since come from the north, together with local peasants.

The terms South Vietnam and North Vietnam became common usage in 1954 at the time of the Geneva Conference, which partitioned Vietnam into Viet-Minh and French zones at the 17th parallel.