1950s
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Events and trends
The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the the baby boom from returning GIs who went to college under the G. I. Bill of Rights|Montgomery G.I. Bill and settled in suburbia|suburban America. Most of the internal conflicts that had developed in earlier decades like women's rights, civil rights, imperialism, and war were relatively suppressed or neglected during this time as a returning world from the brink hoped to see a more consistent way of life as opposed to liberalism and radicalism of the 1930s and 1940s. The effect of suppressing social problems in the 50s would backfire in the 60s with the counter-culture movement.
The 1950s were also marked with a rapid rise in conflict with the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union that would heighten the Cold War to an unprecedented level which would include the Arms Race, Space Race, McCarthyism, and Korean War. Stalin's death in 1953 left an enormous impact in Eastern Europe that forced the Soviet Union to create more liberal policies internally and externally. The rise of Suburbia as well as the growing conflict with the East are the two generally accepted reasons for the conservativism|conservative domination of this decade.
Technology
United States tests the first fusion bomb. ''See'' History of nuclear weapons
Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, and thus the Sputnik crisis
The De Havilland Comet enters service as the world's first jet airliner
Charles Townes builds a maser in 1953 at Columbia University.
Science
Miller experiment|Urey-Miller experiment shows that under simulated conditions resembling those thought to have existed shortly after Earth first accreted, many of the basic organic molecules that form the building blocks of modern life are able to spontaneously form
Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the helical structure of DNA at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge
Bruce C. Heezen|Bruce Heezen discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Polio vaccine
The first organ transplants are done in Boston, Massachusetts|Boston and Paris in 1954.
War, peace, and politics
Korean War
Red Scare, Joseph McCarthy|McCarthy Hearings
Suez Crisis
European European Union|Common Market founded.
Warsaw pact founded.
Most aboveground nuclear test explosions happened during this decade.
The United States CIA Operation PBSUCCESS|orchestrated the overthrow of the Guatemala|Guatemalan government.
Hungary|Hungarian Hungarian Revolution, 1956|revolution of 1956 brutally suppressed by Soviet Union's troops.
Fidel Castro gains power in Cuba.
Mahmoud Abbas becomes involved in Palestinian politics in Qatar.
Decolonization: Algerian War of Independence|Algeria, First Indochina War|Vietnam, and elsewhere.
Early history of the History of the People's Republic of China|People's Republic of China, of the state of History of Israel|Israel, and of the History of Indonesia|Indonesian state.
Economics
"Economic miracle" in West Germany and Italy.
Culture, religion
Traditional pop music reaches its climax; early rock and roll music was embraced by teenagers/youth culture while generally dismissed or condemned by older generations.
Brylcreem and other hair tonics have a period of popularity
Television replaces radio as the dominant mass medium in industrialized countries.
In the West, the generation traumatized by the Great Depression and World War II creates a culture with emphasis on normality and calm conformity.
Juvenile delinquency said to be at unprecedented epidemic proportions in United States|USA, though some see this era as relatively low in crime compared to today. Continuing poverty in some regions during recessions later on in this decade.
Fairly high rates of unionization, government social spending, taxes, and the like in the US and European countries. Mostly liberal or moderate Western governments, though communism/Cold War play a role in reaction to, and within, domestic politics.
Beatnik culture/ ''The Beat generation|Beat Generation''
Optimistic visions of semi-Utopian technological future including such devices as the flying car.
''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' hits movie theaters.
Along with the appearance of the sentence ''Kilroy was here'' across the United States, graffiti as an art form develops, especially among urban African Americans; graffiti eventually becomes one of the four elements of hip hop
Considerable race relations|racial tension with military and schools desegregation in the US, though controversy never truly erupts as later on in the 1960s.
The Catcher in the Rye
The Twilight Zone premiers as the first major science-fiction show.
Rise of evangelical Christianity including Youth for Christ (1943); the National Association of Evangelicals, the American Council of Christian Churces, the Billy Graham Evagelistic Association (1950), and the Campus Crusade for Christ (1951).
Christianity Today was first published in 1956. 1956 also marked the beginning of Bethany Fellowship, a small press that would grow to be a leading evangelical press.
Carl Stuart Hamblen religious radio broadcaster.
Others
Wartime rationing ends in the United Kingdom.
People
World leaders
Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent (Canada)
Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (Canada)
Chairman Mao Zedong (People's Republic of China)
President Chiang Kai-shek (Republic of China on Taiwan)
President Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt)
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (India)
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (Israel)
Emperor Hirohito (Japan)
Pope Pius XII
Pope John XXIII
Taoiseach John A. Costello (Republic of Ireland|Ireland)
Taoiseach Eamon de Valera (Republic of Ireland|Ireland)
Taoiseach Sean Lemass (Republic of Ireland|Ireland)
Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union)
Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet Union)
King George VI of the United Kingdom|George VI (United Kingdom)
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Elizabeth II (United Kingdom)
Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (United Kingdom)
Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden (United Kingdom)
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (United Kingdom)
Prime Minister Robert Menzies (Australia)
Prime Minister George Borg Olivier (Malta)
President Harry S. Truman (United States)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower (United States)
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (West Germany)
President Josip Broz Tito (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia)
Entertainers
Desi Arnaz
Abbott and Costello
Paul Anka
Lucille Ball
Jack Benny
Chuck Berry
Humphrey Bogart
Marlon Brando
Maria Callas
Dalida
James Dean
Bo Diddley
Margot Fonteyn
Ava Gardner
The Goons
Cary Grant
Tony Hancock
Audrey Hepburn
Charlton Heston
Alfred Hitchcock
Buddy Holly
Grace Kelly
Ernie Kovacs
Mario Lanza
Jerry Lewis
Dean Martin
Groucho Marx
Marilyn Monroe
Paul Newman
Laurence Olivier
Elvis Presley
George Reeves
Little Richard
James Stewart (actor)|James Stewart
Gale Storm
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jacques Tati
Elizabeth Taylor
John Wayne
Jack Webb
Ed Wynn
Sports figures
Alberto Ascari (Italian motor racing|racing driver)
Roger Bannister (English athletics|track and field athlete)
Yogi Berra (American baseball player)
Maureen Connolly (American tennis player)
Colin Cowdrey (England cricketer)
Juan Manuel Fangio (Argentinian motor racing|racing driver)
Neil Harvey (Australian cricketer)
Gordie Howe (Canadian ice hockey player)
Len Hutton (England cricketer)
Rocky Marciano (American boxing|boxer)
Stanley Matthews (English soccer player)
Willie Mays (American baseball player)
Ferenc Puskás (Hungarian soccer player)
Maurice Richard (Canadian ice hockey player)
Sugar Ray Robinson (American boxing|boxer)
Bill Russell (basketball)|Bill Russell (American basketball player)
Gary Sobers (West Indies cricketer)
Brian Statham (England cricketer)
Frank Tyson (England cricketer)
Frank Worrell (West Indies cricketer)
Lev Yashin (Russian soccer player)
See also
United States in the 1950s
List of rock and roll albums in the 1950s
External links
http://www.fiftiesweb.com http://vlib.iue.it/history/USA/ERAS/20TH/1950s.html
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