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| 1948, July |
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| Formation of the Nation Party, which attracted religious conservatives who were dissatisfied with both the ruling Republican People's Party and the opposition Democratic Party. Fevzi Çakmak, former commander of the armed forces, assumed leadership of the new party. | 1 |
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| 1949, Oct |
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| Opening of the faculty of divinity at the University of Ankara. The act was a government gesture to appease the mounting sentiment around the country to restore a religious presence to public life. | 2 |
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| 1950–86 |
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| Dramatic growth in population. The number of Turks rose from about 21 million to 52 million. The percentage of urban dwellers increased from around 25 percent to an estimated 46 percent. Istanbul remained the biggest city (up from 1 million in 1950 to 5.5 million in 1985) and was followed by Ankara (up from 290,000 to 2.2 million in the same period) and Izmir (230,000 to 1.5 million). | 3 |
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| 1950–90 |
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| Rapid growth of the Turkish economy, which expanded at an average rate of 6 percent per year. Industrial production climbed to unprecedented levels (from 16.5 percent of GNP in 1950 to 27 percent in 1986), and the economy as a whole became less dependent on agriculture (from 37 percent down to 20 percent of GNP, 1950–86). | 4 |
| Dramatic improvement in literacy rates. The proportion of literate Turks rose from about one-third (1950) to one-half (1970) to three-quarters (1990). Literacy rates among women jumped from about 20 percent to well over 50 percent. Most of the gains were achieved among the younger generations and not through the education of adults. | 5 |
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| 1950–57 |
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| Relaxation of restrictions on religious activities. Responding to widespread popular sentiment, the new Democratic government permitted religious broadcasting and public prayers in Arabic (1950) and the founding of secondary schools (1952) and later of middle schools (1956), which included religious teaching along with the standard curriculum. Schools that offered only religious instruction were legalized in 1957. In the wake of RPP's thoroughgoing secularization program, the entire decade of the 1950s was marked by a revival in religious activity and expression. | 6 |
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| 1950–52 |
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| About 400,000 Bulgarian Muslims migrated to and settled in Turkey. | 7 |
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| 1950, May 14 |
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| OPPOSITION VICTORY IN ELECTIONS. For the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic, the Republican People's Party relinquished power to another party. In elections that were remarkable for their freedom and openness, the Democratic Party came to office with a substantial majority of the vote (53 percent, compared to 39 percent for the RPP). The transfer of power was smooth and peaceful. Celal Bayar became the new president, and Adnan Menderes was appointed prime minister. | 8 |
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| 1951–54 |
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| Campaign by the Democratic Party to depoliticize state institutions. During the more than quarter-century of rule by the Republican People's Party, the separation between the party and the state had become somewhat blurred, owing to the presence of active RPP partisans in the judiciary, the army, the state economic sector, the bureaucracy, and the educational system. To eliminate the influence of the RPP within the state apparatus, the Democratic government enacted a series of reforms. In 1951, it shut down the People's Houses (founded in 1932 to disseminate Republican ideology), which in effect had become branches of the larger RPP organization. The second attack on the RPP was the confiscation of all party property, including its newspaper Ulus, deemed unessential to normal operations (1953). The next year the government took the further measure of retiring a number of judges, officials, and teachers and implementing laws that tightly regulated political conduct in these occupations. In addition, the new laws reduced freedom of the press and public assembly. Critics accused the government of orchestrating a campaign of political repression. | 9 |
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| 1952 |
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| Suppression of the Tijani Sufi order. The government feared that it might become a focal point for political unrest, especially in the countryside. | 10 |
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| Feb. 18 |
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| Turkish membership in NATO (See April 4) was ensured by Turkey's enthusiastic participation in the Korean War. | 11 |
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