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Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy charged that the State Department was infiltrated by Communists. Many carrers were ruined and people became paranoid about Communism.
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The Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea. Over 10,000 soldiers had already died in skirmishes before the war started.
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Althea Gibson was the first African American to break the tennis color barrier. She was the first African American to be named as Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in 1957.
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Peanuts was introduced under the name of Li'l Folks. In 1952 the strip was published in forty newspapers across theUnited States.
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Earl Lloyd was the first African American to play in a NBA game. He often got discriminated against whenever he traveled with the team to restaurants and hotels.
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Presper Eckert and John Mauchley invented the first computer for business called the UNIVAC. The cmputer weighed 1600 pounds. By 1900 more than 2,000 computers were sold.
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The victory over polio was one of the biggest medical advances of the decade. After Jonas Salk created a vaccine against polio, polio cases dropped 97%. It saved many people from dying of the disease.
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The US exploded an H-bomb in Enewetak in the Marshall Islands. Ernest Lawrence and Luis Alvarez created the bomb. The bomb is 1,000 times more powerful than conventional nuclear devices.
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In 1952 Dr. John F. Lewis performed the first open heart surgery. A year later medicine to help the patients oxygen flowing while they were in surgery for a long period of time was invented.
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"The Golden Era" of 3-D films began with the movie "Bwana Devil." Sixty more films followed in the next three years.
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The music synthesizer was one of the first widely used electricronic musical instruments. It was invented by Dr. Robert Moog. The synthesizer was used by moving your hand in the vicinity of two metal rods controlling the pitch and volume.
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Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay were the first people to ever climb Mt. Everest. This was once thought to be impossible
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James D. Watson and Frances H.C. Crick discovered DNA in 1953. Today DNA helps us with finding diseases and curing them. It can also help us solve crimes because part of your DNA is your fingerprints.
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The Korean War ended when the United States organized an International Confrence to discuss the political future of Korea. A truce was decided upon.
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The first coast-to-coast program to be broadcast in color was the Tournament of Roses Parade. It was broadcast on twenty-one stations.
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Greensboro, North Carolina was the first city in the Southern United States to allow African Americans in the schools.African Americans in Little Rock, Arkansas required military assitance to get in the schools.
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Rock and Roll revolutionized people's musical taste. This form of music mostly became popular with teenagers.
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The invention of the microwave made cooking faster in the US. The microwave was about the size of a refrigerator and costed about $1,200. In 2000 there were estimated 150 million microwaves sold in the US.
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Disneyland was built on a 160-acre orange orchard in Anaheim, California and cost $17 million to complete. It featured themed areas such as Main Street, Adventureland, Frontirland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland.
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Rosa Parks, a fourty-two year old African American women, refused to give ip her seat on the bus to a white man. This led to the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott, that was a big role in ending segregation.
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Elvis was one of the most important figures of twentieth century popular culture. This album, "Elvis Presley", was at number one on Billboard's pop album chart for ten weeks and earned Elvis' first gold album.
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The barbie doll was invented by Ruth Handler. The doll was named after her daughter Barbra. Within the first year there were 300,000 barbies sold.
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The VCR spread the growth of homr media and popularity of television. The recorder was about the size of a cabinet. The VCR sold for about $50,000.
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Whe John Biggins invented the credit card it made shopping faster. Credit cards in 1958 weren't plastic. They'v been credit tokens, metal plates, fiber, and paper. Shopping today with credit cards still makes shopping faster.
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Don Larsen pitched a perfect hame for the Yankees playing against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. This was the first time anyone has thrown a perfect game in a world series game.
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Willie O'ree was the first African American to play in the National Hockey League. Jackie Robinson was his inspiration to try.
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Dive -in theaters in the late 50's ranged in size from fifty parking spaces to 2,500 parking places with 1,200 additional indoor seats. Many theaters would open three hours early to make a bigger profit.
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Motown was a black owned and blacked centered record label that produced amazing groups like the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, and the Temptations. Motown gave white American access to Black Music.
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Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens, three great musicians, died in a plane crash. They were on thier eleventh night of their Winter Dane Party Tour. Later in 1971, Don Mclean's single "American Pie" turned the plane crash into a metaphor for the moment when the US lost its last shred of innocence.
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Originally called the Gramophone Awards, the first ever Grammys were broadcast as a series and had only twenty- eight catergories. No Rock 'n' Roll singers, songs, or albums won.
