1950s

Events and Trends

Bruce Heezen discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Korean War
Polio Vaccine
Sputnik
Brylcreem and other hair tonics have a period of popularity
Television replaces radio as the dominant mass medium in industrialized countries.
In West, generation traumatized by Great Depression and World War II creates culture with emphasis on normality and calm conformity
"Economic miracle" in West Germany.
Red Scare, McCarthy Hearings
Hydrogen Bomb
Wartime Rationing ends in the United Kingdom
Suez Crisis
European Common Market founded.
Warsaw pact founded.
Hungarian revolution of 1956 brutally surpressed by Soviet Union's troops.
Fidel Castro gains power in Cuba.
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

World Leaders

Entertainers

See also: List of rock and roll albums in the 1950s

Sports Figures