Welcome to the 1950's

1950

• First Modern Credit Card Introduced
• First Organ Transplant
• First "Peanuts" Cartoon Strip
• Korean War Begins
• Senator Joseph McCarthy Begins Communist Witch Hunt
• U.S. President Truman Orders Construction of Hydrogen Bomb

1951

• Color TV Introduced
• South Africans Forced to Carry ID Cards Identifying Race
• Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII
• Winston Churchill Again Prime Minister of Great Britain

1952

• Car Seat Belts Introduced
• The Great Smog of 1952
• Jacques Cousteau Discovers Ancient Greek Ship
• Polio Vaccine Created
• Princess Elizabeth Becomes Queen at Age 25

1953

• DNA Discovered
• First Playboy Magazine
• Hillary and Norgay Climb Mt. Everest
• Joseph Stalin Dies
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed for Espionage

1954

• Britain Sponsors an Expedition to Search for the Abominable Snowman
• First Atomic Submarine Launched
• Report Says Cigarettes Cause Cancer
• Roger Bannister Breaks the Four-Minute Mile
• Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S.

1955

• Disneyland Opens
• Emmett Till Murdered
• James Dean Dies in Car Accident
• McDonald's Corporation Founded
• Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus
• Warsaw Pact Signed

1956

• Elvis Gyrates on Ed Sullivan's Show
• Grace Kelly Marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco
• Hungarian Revolution
• Khrushchev Denounces Stalin
• Suez Crisis
• T.V. Remote Control Invented
• Velcro Introduced 19

1957

• Dr. Seuss Publishes The Cat in the Hat
• European Economic Community Established
• Soviet Satellite Sputnik Launches Space Age
• Laika Becomes the First Living Animal to Enter Orbit

1958

• Boris Pasternak Refuses Nobel Prize
• Chinese Leader Mao Zedong Launches the "Great Leap Forward"
• Hope Diamond is Donated to the Smithsonian
• Hula Hoops Become Popular
• LEGO Toy Bricks First Introduced
• NASA Founded
• Peace Symbol Created

1959

• Castro Becomes Dictator of Cuba
• International Treaty Makes Antarctica Scientific Preserve
• Kitchen Debate Between Nixon and Khrushchev
• The Sound of Music Opens on Broadway
• U.S. Quiz Shows Found to be Fixed