1950s

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Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Years: 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959

Table of contents

1 The United States in the 1950s

2 Events and trends

2.1 Technology
2.2 Science
2.3 War, peace and politics
2.4 Economics
2.5 Culture, religion
2.6 Others

3 World leaders

4 Entertainers

5 Sports figures

The United States in the 1950s

The 1950s are noted in United States history as a time of both compliance and conformity and also of rebellion. Major U.S. events during the decade included:

The Korean War (1950-1953);
The election of Second World War hero and retired Army Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower as President in 1952 and his subsequent re-election in 1956;
The Red Scare and anti-Communist hysteria of the McCarthy era;
The U.S. reaction to the 1957 launch by the Soviet Union of the Sputnik satellite, a major milepost of the Cold War.

Compliance and attempts at social perfection were hallmarks of the 1950s domestic scene, where the two-parent families in which the father worked in industry and the mother remained home as a homemaker were idealized in television programs such as Leave it to Beaver. Social undercurrents subverting this view were seen in movements such as beat poetry, rock and roll music, and in motion pictures such as Rebel Without a Cause, starring 1950s icon James Dean. In fact, Dean and rock star Elvis Presley are almost universally seen as 1950s icons, as is motion picture actress Marilyn Monroe. Television became almost universally available in the United States by the end of the decade, and its social effects have been debated from then until now.

One of the most influential and most highly critically-acclaimed of the many books about the era is The Fifties by journalist and author David Halberstam.

Events and trends

Technology

United States tests the first fusion bomb. See History of nuclear weapons
Sputnik, the first man-made satellite
The De Havilland Comet enters service as the world's first jet airliner
Charles Townes builds a maser in 1953 at Columbia University.

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.
Hungarian revolution of 1956 brutally suppressed by Soviet Union's troops.
Fidel Castro gains power in Cuba.

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 art eventually becomes one of the four elements of hip hop