1950s
| Millennia: 1st millennium - 2nd millennium - 3rd millennium | |
| Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century | |
| Decades: | |
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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 height of the baby-boom from returning GIs who went to college under the Montgomery GI Bill and settled in Suburbia 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. 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. The rise of Suburbia as well as the growing conflict with the East are the two generally accepted reasons for the 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.
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Science
- 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 Heezen discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
- Polio vaccine
War, peace, and politics
- Korean War
- Red Scare, McCarthy Hearings
- Suez Crisis
- European Common Market founded.
- Warsaw pact founded.
- Most aboveground nuclear test explosions happened during this decade.
- The United States CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the Guatemalan government.
- Hungarian 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: Algeria, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
- Early history of the People's Republic of China, of the state of Israel, and of the Indonesian state.
Economics
- "Economic miracle" in West Germany.
Culture, religion
- 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 USA
- Traditional pop music reaches its climax; early rock and roll music embraced by teenagers/youth culture while generally dismissed or condemned by older generation.
- Beatnik culture/ The 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
- The Catcher in the Rye
- The Twilight Zone premiers as the first major science-fiction show.
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 (Ireland)
- Taoiseach Eamon de Valera (Ireland)
- Taoiseach Sean Lemass (Ireland)
- Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union)
- Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet Union)
- King George VI (United Kingdom)
- Queen 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)
- President Harry S. Truman (United States)
- Prime Minister George Borg Olivier (Malta)
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower (United States)
- Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (West Germany)
- President Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia)
Entertainers
- Abbott and Costello
- Paul Anka
- Jack Benny
- Chuck Berry
- Humphrey Bogart
- Marlon Brando
- James Dean
- Bo Diddley
- Ava Gardner
- The Goons
- Cary Grant
- Tony Hancock
- Audrey Hepburn
- Charlton Heston
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Buddy Holly
- Ernie Kovacs
- Jerry Lewis
- Dean Martin
- Groucho Marx
- Marilyn Monroe
- Paul Newman
- Laurence Olivier
- Elvis Presley
- Little Richard
- James Stewart
- Gale Storm
- Jerry Lee Lewis
- Jacques Tati
- Elizabeth Taylor
- John Wayne
- Jack Webb
Sports figures
- Alberto Ascari (Italian racing driver)
- Bill Russell (American basketball player)
- Brian Statham (England cricketer)
- Colin Cowdrey (England cricketer)
- Ferenc Puskás (Hungarian soccer player)
- Frank Tyson (England cricketer)
- Frank Worrell (West Indies cricketer)
- Gary Sobers (West Indies cricketer)
- Gordie Howe (Canadian ice hockey player)
- Juan Manuel Fangio (Argentinian racing driver)
- Len Hutton (England cricketer)
- Lev Yashin (Russian soccer player)
- Maureen Connolly (American tennis player)
- Maurice Richard (Canadian ice hockey player)
- Neil Harvey (Australian cricketer)
- Rocky Marciano (American boxer)
- Roger Bannister (English track and field athlete)
- Stanley Matthews (English soccer player)
- Sugar Ray Robinson (American boxer)
- Willie Mays (American baseball player)
- Yogi Berra (American baseball player)