Download America in the 1950s

America in the 1950s
Relations with Europe
After WWII
Creating the United Nations
• UN General Assembly - every member nation in the
world has one vote
– power to vote on resolutions and choose the non-permanent
members of the Security Council
• UN Security Council - 11 members
– Five permanent members
– Britain, France, China, the Soviet Union, and the United
States
– five permanent members have veto power
– responsible for international peace and security
– Can ask members to use military force to uphold a UN
resolution
Yalta Conference
• February 1945
• Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at
Yalta (Soviet resort on the Black Sea)
• Met to plan the postwar world
• Several agreements reached here later
caused the Cold War
Decisions from Yalta
• Poland
– Soviet Union had driven Germany out of Poland and encouraged
Communists to set up a government
– Two groups claimed to govern Poland
– Roosevelt and Churchill argued that the Poles should be free to choose
their own government
– Stalin stated that every time invaders had entered Russia from the west,
they had come through Poland.
– Compromise - Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to recognize the Polish
government set up by the Soviets. Stalin agreed it would include members
of the prewar Polish government, and free elections would be held as soon
as possible
Declaration of a Liberated
Europe
• At Yalta, the leaders agreed to issue the
Declaration of Liberated Europe
– Said that the people should be allowed to choose the
type of government under which they would live
– The people of Europe would be allowed “to create
democratic institutions of their own choice” and to
create temporary governments that represented “all
democratic elements.”
– Agreed to “the earliest possible establishment through
free elections of governments responsive to the will of
the people.”
The Long Telegram
• Soviets would not actually allow the free elections
• Feb 22, 1946 – George Kennan (diplomat) sent an
8,000 word telegraph to Truman
– Soviets were scared of the West
– Wanted to fight capitalism (taught to them by Lenin and
Stalin)
• Kennan said that the US should adopt a policy of
containment of Communism
• Communism had political and economical weaknesses
and would end itself
The Marshall Plan
• In Western Europe, France, Italy, and Germany were still in terrible
shape, so Truman, with the help of Secretary of State George C.
Marshall, implemented the Marshall Plan, a miraculous recovery effort
that had Western Europe up and prosperous in no time.
– This helped in the forming of the European Community (EC).
– The plan sent $12.5 billion over four years to 16 cooperating nations to aid
in recovery, and at first, Congress didn’t want to comply, especially when
this sum was added to the $2 billion the U.S. was already giving to
European relief as part of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration (UNRRA).
– A Soviet-sponsored coup that toppled the government of Czechoslovakia
finally awakened the Congressmen to their senses, and they passed the
plan.
• Truman also recognized Israel on its birthday, May 14, 1948, despite
heavy Arab opposition and despite the fact that those same Arabs
controlled the oil supplies in the Middle East.
The Cold War
Continues
Chinese Revolution
• General Douglas MacArthur headed reconstruction in Japan and tried
the top Japanese war criminals. He dictated a constitution that was
adopted in 1946, and democratized Japan.
• However, in China, the communist forces, led by Mao Zedong, defeated
the nationalist forces, led by Chiang Kai-shek, who then fled to the
island of Formosa (Taiwan) in 1949.
– With this defeat, one-quarter of the world population (500,000,000 people)
plunged under the Communist flag.
– Critics of Truman assailed that he did not support the nationalists enough,
but Chiang Kai-shek never had the support of the people to begin with.
• Then, in September of 1949, Truman announced that the Soviets had
exploded their first atomic bomb—three years before experts thought it
was possible, thus eliminating the U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons.
– The U.S. exploded the hydrogen bomb in 1952, and the Soviets followed
suit a year later; thus began the dangerous arms race of the Cold War.
Election of 1948
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Republicans Thomas E. Dewey
Democrats were forced to choose Truman
again when war-hero Dwight D. Eisenhower
refused to be chosen.
– Truman’s nomination split the Democratic
Party
– Southern Democrats (“Dixiecrats”)
nominated Governor J. Strom Thurmond
of South Carolina on a State’s Rights
Party ticket
– Former vice president Henry A. Wallace
also threw his hat into the ring, getting
nominated by the new Progressive Party.
With the Democrats totally disorganized,
Dewey seemed destined for a super-easy
victory, and on election night, the Chicago
Tribune even ran an early edition wrongly
proclaiming “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN,”
but Truman shockingly won, getting 303
electoral votes to Dewey’s 189. And to make
things better, the Democrats won control of
Congress again.
– Truman received critical support from
farmers, workers, and blacks.
The Fair Deal
• Truman’s domestic agenda
• Raised minimum wage to 75¢ an hour
• Increased Social Security benefits by over 75 percent and
extended them to 10 million additional people
• Passed the National Housing Act of 1949
– Construction of low-income housing and for long-term rent
subsidies.
• Congress refused to pass other parts of the Fair Deal
– National health insurance
– Aid for farmers or schools
– Truman’s civil rights legislation.
Truman Doctrine
• The United States would provide political,
military and economic assistance to all democratic
nations under threat from external or internal
authoritarian forces.
• Effectively reoriented U.S. foreign policy, away
from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional
conflicts not directly involving the United States,
to one of possible intervention in far away
conflicts.
• END OF ISOLAIONISM as a foreign policy
Korean War (1950-1953)
• After WWII – US and Soviet Union split Korea on
the 38th parallel. Soviet Union helped rebuild
North Korea (Communist) and the US helped
rebuild South Korea (Democratic).
• June 25, 1950 – North Korea invaded South Korea
in an effort to unite all of Korea under one
Communist government.
• US went to aid South Korea and China went to
help North Korea.
• July 27, 1953 – cease fire called with the border
being exactly where it was in the beginning of the
war
Space Race
• It involved the parallel efforts
by the US and Soviet Union to
explore outer space with
artificial satellites, to send
humans into space, and to land
people on the Moon.
• US and Soviet Union were
trying to see who could get into
space, explore space and get on
the moon first!
• Space would provide benefits
for military development, as
well as for morale among the
people.
Sputnik
• The first artificial
satellite to be put into
orbit.
• The satellite helped to
identify the density of
high atmospheric layers
by its orbit change and
provided data on radiosignal distribution in the
ionosphere
• Launched by the Soviet
Union
Air Raid Drills
• Air raid drills became common place in schools across America,
particularly after the 1951 release
of the now-iconic film, Duck and
Cover. With the help of the upbeat
cartoon character, Bert the Turtle,
Duck and Cover advised children
to take cover at the first flash of a
nuclear blast or first sound of a
warning siren. In order to be
“protected” children were
encouraged to “duck to avoid the things flying through the air,” and then
“cover to keep from getting cut or even badly burned.” School children
were also encouraged to wear metal identification tags, so that in the
event of a nuclear attack, their bodies would be able to be identified by
survivors.
Arms Race
• The US and Soviet Union each tried to
build up greater weapons
• 1952 – US explodes an H-bomb
• 1953 – Soviet Union explodes an H-bomb
Red Scare
• Heightened
suspicion of
Communists and
other radicals, and
the fear of
widespread
infiltration of
Communists in
U.S. government.
• Hunt for
Communists was
lead by Senator
Joseph McCarthy
McCarthyism
• A period of intense anti-Communist suspicion in
the United States that lasted roughly from the late
1940s to the late 1950s.
• Fears spurred aggressive investigations and the
red-baiting, blacklisting, jailing and deportation of
people suspected of following Communist or other
left-wing ideology.
• Many people in show business were “blacklisted”
as Communists or Communist sympathizers.
Alger Hiss
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
• American Communists
who received
international attention
when they were tried and
executed for passing
nuclear weapons secrets
to the Soviet Union
• Helped fuel McCarthy’s
hunt for Communists
• March 6, 1951 - David Greenglass stated that his sister,
Ethel, typed notes containing US nuclear secrets in the
Rosenberg apartment in Sep 1945. He also stated that Julius
Rosenberg made a sketch of a cross section of the implosiontype atom bomb (like the one dropped on Nagasaki).
• Although the notes typed by Ethel apparently contained little
that was relevant to the Soviet atomic bomb project, this was
sufficient evidence for the grand jury to indict Ethel and
enough for the jury to convict on the conspiracy to commit
espionage charge.
• The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and on
April 5 were sentenced to death by Judge Irving Kaufman.
• At the time, some Americans believed both Rosenbergs were
innocent and some believed that the couple got what they
deserved. Pope Pius XII appealed to President Dwight D.
Eisenhower to spare the couple, but he refused. On February
19, 1953 the Rosenbergs were executed in the electric chair.
• In 1995, the National Security Agency publicly released documents
from the VENONA project, an effort to decrypt intercepted
communications between Soviet agents and the NKVD/KGB. A 1944
cable from New York to Moscow clearly indicates that Julius
Rosenberg was engaged in espionage for the Soviet Union, though the
importance of his effort is not clear
• Ethel's involvement is not clear from the VENONA transcripts. A
document from November 27, 1944 specifically about Ethel lists her
as a "fellow countryman" and claims that she was aware of Julius'
work. Ethel was apparently never assigned a code name, which has
cast doubt onto her significance and involvement.
• In his memoirs, published posthumously in 1990, Nikita Khrushchev
praised the pair for their "very significant help in accelerating the
production of our atomic bomb.“
• In late 2001, Greenglass recanted and claimed that he had committed
perjury when he testified about the typing activity of his sister Ethel.
Greenglass said he chose to falsely testify against his sister in order to
protect his wife and children.
Hollywood Blacklist
• List of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and
other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied
employment in the field because of their political beliefs
or associations, real or suspected.
• Artists were barred from work on the basis of their
alleged membership in or sympathy toward the
American Communist Party, involvement in liberal or
simply humanitarian political causes that enforcers of
the blacklist associated with communism, and/or refusal
to assist federal investigations into Communist Party
activities; some were blacklisted merely because their
names came up at the wrong place and time.
Eisenhower Republicanism
• Eisenhower came into the White House pledging a
policy of “dynamic conservatism,” which stated that
he would be liberal with people, but conservative
with their money.
• Ike decreased government spending by decreasing
military spending, trying to transfer control of
offshore oil fields to the states, and trying to curb
the TVA by setting up a private company to take its
place.
• Eisenhower Doctrine – promised aid to any country trying
to resist Communism
New Foreign Policy
• Secretary of State John Foster Dulles stated that the policy of
containment was not enough and that the U.S. was going to push
back communism and liberate the peoples under it. This became
known as “rollback.”
– Massive Reltaliation was the building up of our forces in the sky to
scare the enemys.
– Dulles wanted to tone down defense spending by building a fleet of
superbombers called Strategic Air Command, which could drop
massive nuclear bombs in any retaliation.
– SAC could inflict "Massive Retaliation" on the enemy, and also a
great bang for the buck.
• Ike tried to thaw the Cold War by appealing for peace to new
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the 1955 Geneva
Conference, but the Soviet leader rejected such proposals, along
with one for “open skies.”
• However, hypocritically, when the Hungarians revolted against
the U.S.S.R. and appealed to the U.S. for help, America did
nothing, earning the scorn of bitter freedom fighters.
Suez Canal Crisis
• The Suez crisis was far messier:
President Gamal Abdel Nasser, of
Egypt, needed money to build a dam in
the upper Nile and flirted openly with
the Soviet side as well as the U.S. and
Britain, and upon seeing this blatant
communist association, Secretary of
State Dulles
dramatically withdrew his offer, thus
forcing Nasser to nationalize the dam.
– Late in October 1956, Britain, France,
and Israel suddenly attacked Egypt,
thinking that the U.S. would supply them
with needed oil, as had been the case in
WWII, but Eisenhower did not, and the
attackers had to withdraw.
– The Suez crisis marked the last time the
U.S. could brandish its “oil weapon.”
U-2 Incident
• May 1960
• Soviet Union shot down an
American U-2 spy plane in Soviet
air space and captured its pilot,
Francis Gary Powers
• Eisenhower was forced to admit to
the Soviets that the CIA had been
flying spy missions over the USSR
for several years
• Powers was convicted on espionage
charges and sentenced him to 10
years in prison
• After serving less than two years,
he was released in exchange for a
captured Soviet agent in the firstever U.S.-USSR “spy swap”
Life in the 1950s
Rise of Television
• Many early shows
were based on radio
programs
• Westerns
– Gunsmoke
– Lone Ranger
• Game Shows
– $64,000 Question
• Variety Shows
– Toast of the Town
• Spy Shows
– I Led Three Lives
The Rise of Suburbs
• Whites in cities fled to the suburbs
– Encouraged by federal agencies such
as the Federal Housing Authority and
the Veteran’s Administration, whose
loan guarantees made it cheaper to
live in the suburbs than in cramped
city apartments
– By 1960, one out of every four
Americans lived in the suburbs.
• Innovators like the Levitt brothers,
with their monotonous but cheap
housing plans, built thousands of
houses in projects like Levittown,
and the “White flight” left the cities
full of the poor and the AfricanAmericans.
– Federal agencies aggravated this by
often refusing to make loans to
Blacks due to the “risk factor”
involved with this.
The Baby Boom
• After the war, many soldiers
returned to their sweethearts
and married them, then had
babies, creating a “Baby
Boom” that would be felt for
generations.
• As the children grew up
collectively, they put strains on
respective markets, such as
manufacturers of baby
products in the 1940s and 50s,
teenage clothing designers in
the 60s, and the job market in
the 70s and 80s.
• By around 2020, they will
place enormous strains on the
Social Security system.
The Changing Role of Women
• In 1956, “white-collar” workers
outnumbered “blue collar”
workers for the first time
– Industrial era was over for the
US
– Labor unions peaked in 1954
then started a steady decline.
– Women appeared more and more
in the workplace
– Tried to combat this with the
stereotypical role of women as
housewives on TV shows such
as “Ozzie and Harriet” and
“Leave It to Beaver.”
• More than 40 million new jobs
were created in the TV industry
Entertainers
Lucille Ball
• Starred with her
husband in 2
successful TV shows.
• Started Desilu Studios,
which produced TV
shows
• I Love Lucy 19511957)
• The Lucy-Desi Comedy
Hour (1957-1960)
Desi Arnaz
• Cuban immigrant
• Starred with his wife
in 2 successful TV
shows.
• Started Desilu
Studios, which
produced TV shows
• I Love Lucy 19511957)
• The Lucy-Desi
Comedy Hour (19571960)
Jack Benny
• 1st standup comedian
• The Jack Benny Program
(1950-1965)
• Worked a lot with George
Burns and to his
frustration could never get
Burns to laugh. Burns
could crack him up with
little effort.
Montgomery Clift
• A Place in the Sun (1951)
• From Here to Eternity
(1953)
• Lonelyhearts (1958)
• Suddenly, Last Summer
(1959)
• The Misfits (1960)
• Described by Marilyn
Monroe as, “the only person
I know who is more messed
up than I am.” – Died at 45
from heart disease brought
on by drug and alcohol use.
James Dean
• East of Eden
(1954)
• Rebel Without a
Cause (1955)
• Giant (1956)
• Killed in a headon car crash in
1955.
Rock Hudson
• One Way Street (1950)
• All That Heaven Allows
(1955)
• Giant (1956)
• A Farewell to Arms (1957)
• Pillow Talk (1959)
• 1st major Hollywood star to
die from AIDS- related
complications. He contracted
AIDS from infected blood he
received when having an
open-heart by-pass surgery.
Grace Kelly
• Married Prince Ranier
III of Monaco and
became the Princess of
Monaco
• High Noon (1952)
• Dial M for Murder
(1954)
• Rear Window (1954)
Gene Kelly
• Black Hand (1950)
• An American in
Paris (1951)
• Singing in the Rain
(1952)
• Brigadoon (1954)
Marilyn Monroe
• Monkey Business (1951)
• Niagara (1953)
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1954)
• How to Marry a Millionaire
(1954)
• The Seven Year Itch (1955)
• Some Like it Hot (1958)
• The Misfits (1958)
• Married 3 times: Jame
Dougherty (policeman), Joe
DiMaggio (baseball player),
and Arthur Miller (playwrite)
Laurence Olivier
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Wuthering Heights
Rebecca
Spartacus
Oh! What a Lovely War
Sleuth
Marathon Man
Henry V
Hamlet
Richard III
George Reeves
• Played Superman in the
original Superman TV
series
• Died in 1959, police
ruled it a suicide, but
many still believe he was
killed.
Debbie Reynolds
• Singing in the Rain
(1952)
• Hit the Deck (1954)
• The Catered Affair
(1956)
• The Happy Feeling
(1958)
Elizabeth Taylor
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The Father of the Bride
A Place in the Sun
Ivanhoe
The Last Time I Saw
Paris
• Giant
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
• Cleopatra
John Wayne
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Western Movie Star
The Alamo
North to Alaska
El Dorado
True Grit
Music
Chuck Berry
Little Richard
Everly Brothers
• All I Have to
Do is
Dream
Dean Martin
• That’s Amore
Marilyn Monroe
• Diamonds are a Girl’s
Best Friend
• I Wanna Be Loved by
You
Bobby Darin
• Dream Lover
• Splish Splash
Royal Teens
• Who Wears
Short
Shorts?
Penguins
• Earth
Angel
Nat King Cole
Elvis Presley
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1956
Heartbreak Hotel
I Was the One
Blue Suede Shoes
I Want You, I Need You, I
Love You
Don’t Be Cruel
Hound Dog
Love Me Tender
Anyway You Want Me
When My Blue Moon Turns
Gold Again
1950s Songs
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1957
Love Me
Too Much
All Shook Up
Loving You
Teddy Bear
Jailhouse Rock
Treat Me Nice
Don’t
I Beg of You
• 1958
• Wear My
Ring Around
Your Neck
• Doncha’
Think It’s
Time
• Hard Headed
Woman
• One Night
• I Got Stung
• 1959
• A Fool Such
As I
• I Need Your
Love Tonight
• A Big Hunk
O’ Love
• My Wish
Came True
Movies
Paths of Glory
• Directed by Stanley Kubrick
• Anti-war film based on the novel of
the same name by Humphrey Cobb
• Paths of Glory is based loosely on the
true story of five French soldiers
executed for mutiny during World
War I
• Their families sued, and while the
executions were ruled unfair, two of
the families received one franc each
(roughly equivalent to 15 American
cents in today's currency), while the
other three received nothing.
Rear Window
• Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• Starring Jimmy Stewart and Grace
Kelly
• Jeff is a professional photographer
who has been confined to his
Greenwich Village apartment after
an accident has left him with his
leg in a cast. Suffering from
boredom, he takes to spying on his
neighbors through the rear
window. His view is of the back of
several apartment buildings, their
inner courtyard, and the persons
dwelling within. Over time,
however, Jeff comes to believe that
a murder has taken place in the
building across the courtyard,
though his friends and his
girlfriend, Lisa Carol Fremont
initially think his beliefs are
imagined due to his idle behavior.
Singing in the Rain
• Gene Kelly plays Don Lockwood, a
silent film star, dancer and stunt man.
Don barely tolerates his self-obsessed
leading lady, Lina Lamont, who is
convinced their on-screen romance is
real.
• After the first talking picture, The Jazz
Singer, proves to be a, the head of the
studio, R.F. Simpson, decides he wants
to make their new film, The Dueling
Cavalier, into a talkie. The production
has many difficulties, by far the worst
being Lina's comically grating voice.
• After a disastrous test screening, Don's best friend,
Cosmo Brown, comes up with the idea to overdub
Lina's voice and they convince R.F. to turn The
Dueling Cavalier into The Dancing Cavalier, a
musical comedy.
• Meanwhile, Don falls in love with aspiring actress
Kathy Selden who is providing the voice for Lina.
• When Lina finds out, she is furious and does
everything possible to sabotage the romance. She
demands that Kathy continue to provide her voice
in all future films, but remain uncredited. An irate,
but desperate R.F. is forced to agree; Kathy has no
choice because she is under contract.
An American in Paris
• Jerry Mulligan is an American
expatriate trying to make a living
in Paris as a painter. His friend
Adam is a struggling pianist
who's a long time associate of a
famous singer, Henri Baurel. A
lonely society woman takes Jerry
under her wing, only to have
Jerry fall for Lise, a girl he sees
at a party. Lise loves him as well,
but she is already in a
relationship with Henri.
White Christmas
• The story is based around two World War
II U.S. Army buddies Bob Wallace (a
former Broadway star) and Phil Davis
(who wants to be a Broadway star).
• It begins on Christmas Eve, 1944. Cpt.
Wallace is giving a show with the help of
Pvt. Davis. During the show, the enemy
attacks. Davis saves Wallace's life from a
toppling wall, wounding his arm slightly
in the process. Using his "wounded" arm
and telling Bob he doesn't expect any
"special obligation," Phil convinces Bob
to do a show with him when the war is
over. Phil wants to be a Broadway star.
Phil uses his arm wound as a way to get
Bob to do what he wants, and it becomes
a running joke throughout the movie.
Some Like it Hot
Some Like It Hot tells the story of two
struggling musicians, Joe and Jerry,
who are on the run from a Chicago
gang after witnessing a gang shooting
in a parking garage. Spats Columbo,
the gangster in charge, orders the
execution of Jerry and Joe. They
escape in the confusion and decide to
leave town. But the only out-of-town
job they can find is in an all-girl band,
so they disguise themselves as women
and call themselves Josephine and
Daphne. They join the band and go to
Florida by train. Joe and Jerry both fall
for "Sugar" Kane Kowalczyk, the
band's Polish-American vocalist and
ukulele player, and fight for her
affection while maintaining their
disguises.
Rebel Without A
Cause
The main plot centers around Jim
Stark, a 17 year old. Stark and his two
parents move to Los Angeles, where
he enrolls at Dawson High School.
While trying to fit in at the school, he
gets himself involved in silly games
with a local bully and tough guy
named Buzz Gunderson. While he
tries to deal with Buzz, he becomes
friends with a 13-year-old boy named
Plato. Plato is very misguided in life,
constantly getting into trouble and
dealing with the police. He looks up to
Jim as a role model, because his real
father abandoned his family. Plato
experiences many of the same
problems as Jim, such as searching for
a place in life and dealing with parents
who "don't understand."
Literature
Lord of the Flies
• Written by William Golding
• A group of young boys who
are stranded on a island and
subsequently attempt to
govern themselves, a task at
which they fail disastrously.
On the Road
• Written by Jack Kerouac
• Based on the spontaneous
road trips of Kerouac and
his friends across midcentury America
• Often considered a
defining work of the
postwar Beat Generation
that was inspired by jazz,
poetry, and drug
experiences.
The Catcher in the Rye
The novel covers a few important
days in the life of the protagonist
Holden Morrissey Caulfield, a tall,
lanky, highly-critical and
depressed sixteen-year-old who
academically flunked out of
Pencey Prep boarding school, just
before Christmas vacation.
Because he is so critical of others,
and points out their faults only to
exhibit them himself later, Holden
is widely considered to be an
unreliable narrator, and the details
and events of his story are apt to
be distorted by his point of view.
Nonetheless, it is his story to tell.
The Lord of the Rings
Written by J.R.R. Tolkien
The story concerns peoples
such as Hobbits, Elves,
Men, Dwarves, Wizards,
and Orcs and centres on the
Ring of Power made by the
Dark Lord Sauron. Starting
from quiet beginnings in
The Shire, the story ranges
across Middle-earth and
follows the courses of the
War of the Ring.
Science Fiction
• Genre of fiction that often
takes place in the future
and usually involves
speculations based on
current science
• Isaac Asimov
• Arthur C. Clarke
• Robert Heinlein
A Raisin in the Sun
I Was a Communist for the FBI
The New Yorker
Saturday Evening Post
The Organization Man
Tomorrow!
Walk East on Beacon
Dress
Automobiles
1957 Chevy
1957 Chevy BelAir
1957 Chevy Truck
Ford Thunderbird
Ford Thunderbird
Ford Fairlane
Ford Del Rio
Ford Ranchero
Porsche Speedster
Porsche Coupe
Chrysler New Yorker
Chrysler Royal
1950s Slang
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Ankle-Biter – child
Blast – a good time
Bread – Money
Burn Rubber – Accelerate
Cat – Cool Person
Cherry – Unaltered
Cool it – Settle Down
Cooties’ – Infestation of the
Uncool
Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’ –
Looking for Trouble
Dig – Understand
Flat Out – Fast As You Can
Flick – Movie
Gig – Job
Heat – Police
Hip - Cool
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Horn – Telephone
Jets – Smart People
Kookie – Nuts (nice)
See Ya Later Alligator
Make the Scene – attend a
party
No sweat – no problem
Off the Line – Start of a Drag
Race
On the Stick – Prepared
Paper Shaker – Cheerleader
Peepers – Glasses
Pile Up Zs – Get some sleep
Rap – Tell on Some one
Spaz – Some one who is
uncoordinated
What’s Buzzin’ Cuzzin’?
Technology
st
1
Commercial Jet Airliner
• BOAC brings
into service the
de Havilland
Comet the
world's first
commercial jet
airliner
Polio Vaccine
• The first polio vaccine,
developed by Jonas Salk,
was introduced to the
general public in 1955
• Infects and destroys motor
neurons. The destruction
of motor neurons causes
muscle weakness and
flaccid paralysis
Oral Polio Vaccine
• Created by Albert Sabin
• Containing weakened
forms of strains of polio
viruses
– Salk's was a "killed"
vaccine effective in
preventing most of the
complications of polio, but
did not prevent the initial
intestinal infection.
• Sabin’s vaccine was easier
to give than Salk’s and its
effects last longer.
Organ Transplants
• The successful kidney
transplant was done in
Boston in 1954
• Kidney transplanted
between identical twins
(Richard and Ronald
Herrick) so there was no
rejection
• Later, doctors figured out
drugs to suppress
rejection
Sports
Yogi Berra
• New York Yankees (19461963)
• New York Mets (1965)
• American League MVP
1951, 1954, 1955
• All-star (American League):
1949-1962
• Elected to the baseball Hall
of Fame in 1972
• One of only six managers to
lead both American and
National League teams to the
World Series.
Mickey Mantle
• Centerfielder
• Played for the Yankees
from 1951-1968
• AL MVP (1956, 1957, &
1962)
• AL Triple Crown (1956)
• AL Gold Glove winner in
(1962)
• 16-time AL All-Star
(1952-1965, 1967, 1968)
Rocky Marciano
• Heavyweight champion
of the world from 19521956
• 43 Knockouts
• 88% Knockout rate
• The only heavyweight
champion in boxing
history to retire without a
defeat or a draw in his
professional career
Willie Mays
• Giants 1951-1952 and
1954-1972
• Mets 1972-1973
• Record for most
appearances in the All-Star
Game
• 1st player with 500 home
runs and 3,000 hits
• Most Valuable Player:
1954, 1965
• Gold Glove Award: 19571968
Sugar Ray Robinson
• Welterweight and
middleweight
champion boxer
• First boxer in history to
win a divisional world
championship five
times
• He was inducted into
the International
Boxing Hall of Fame
in 1990
Bill Russell
• Basketball player
• Boston Celtics 19561969
• 5 Time NBA MVP
• Added to the
Basketball Hall of
Fame in 1975
• 1956 – Gold Metal at
the Melbourne
Olympics