Loving v. Virginia Landmark Court Case
Loving v. Virginia was a 1958 Supreme Court case that struck down state laws banning interracial marriage in the United States. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and Black woman whose marriage was...
The Bridge on the River Kwai
https://youtu.be/RlC7XBayj0s At the 30th Academy Awards in 1958, The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven awards, including best picture of 1957. Its director, David Lean, and star Alec Guinness also received Oscars. The Bridge on the River Kwai was based on...
Elvis Joins the US Army
Elvis Aron Presley entered the United States Army at Memphis, Tennessee in March 1958. During his active military career Presley served as a member of two different armor battalions. At the 2d Medium Tank Battalion, 37th Armor in Fort Hood, Texas he completed basic...
Van Cliburn wins Moscow Competition
In April 1958, at the height of the Cold War, the Texan pianist, Van Cliburn won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Because the contest was intended to demonstrate Soviet cultural superiority, the judges asked permission of Soviet leader Nikita...
Teenage Fashion
https://youtu.be/zlJFOZMEIGI In the 1950s many teenage girls wore circle skirts with fitted blouses, wide belts, bobby socks and flat shoes emphasizing the hourglass shape... ETSY Casual girl's wear 1950s Pinterest Some teen boys were inspired by...
John Birch Society
https://youtu.be/mide9z5q_3c In 1958 the John Birch Society, an American ultraconservative political advocacy group was founded by retired candy manufacturer Robert Welch to promote anti-communism and social conservatism. At its height,...
The Stroll
https://youtu.be/UrGLNtZ0rEg The Stroll was a slow rock 'n' roll dance and a song popular in the late 1950s. Performed by The Diamonds, the Stroll reached No. 1 on the Cashbox chart, #4 on the U.S. pop chart, and #5 on the U.S. R&B...
Bobby Fischer US Chess Champion
The chess prodigy Bobby Fischer won the 1958 U.S. Championship at age 14. In the 1972 World Championship Fischer won the title match against Boris Spassky of the USSR in Reykjavík, Iceland. Publicized as a Cold...
Mao’s Great Leap Forward
https://youtu.be/60_Q-kAZbXA The Great Leap Forward in the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign from 1958 to 1962 that was launched by Chairman Mao Zedong in an attempt to restructure the country from an...
Arkansas National Guard Prevents School Desegregation
In September 1957, as a test of Brown v. Board of Education, nine Black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the Black students’ entry into the high...
Miss USA (a mother) Loses Her Title
After 18 year old Mary Leona Gage was crowned Miss USA in 1957, she was stripped of her title when it was revealed that she was married and the mother of two children.
WEST SIDE STORY
https://youtu.be/C_IvknEFZGs The musical West Side Story, conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, was inspired by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Set in the mid-1950s in...
American Bandstand
American Bandstand premiered locally in late March 1952 as Bandstand on Philadelphia television station WFIL-TV as a television adjunct to a radio show of the same name on WFIL radio,. In August 1957, the show was picked up...
Humphrey Bogart Dies
https://youtu.be/KIHPx-Pj15s Humphrey DeForest Bogart - December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957 Bogart’s breakthrough to stardom came with High Sierra (1941) and The Maltese Falcon (1941). His private detectives, Sam Spade (in The Maltese Falcon) and Phillip Marlowe in...
Wham-O Produces First Frisbee
In June 1957, after learning that Yale students we're tossing empty Frisbie Pie Company pie tins as sport, the Wham-O Company branded a disc called "Frisbee." When Wham-O changed their marketing strategy to promote Frisbee use as a new sport, their sales increased...
The Daily Worker
In 1924 the Communist Party USA began publishing the Daily Worker newspaper in in New York City. At its peak, the newspaper achieved a circulation of 35,000. Contributors to its pages included: Robert Minor and Fred...
Elvis Presley—Screaming Jay Hawkins—Carl Perkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4euyTDhFnk https://youtu.be/82cdnAUvsw8 https://youtu.be/DRNyvO4QouY
Grace Kelly Marries Prince Rainer of Monaco
https://youtu.be/YiOKFzRHm14 In April 1956 popular American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Kelly retired fully retired from acting at age 26 and subsequently had three children as the Princess of Monaco. Selected Filmography Source:...
Christmas in the 1950s
Nat King Cole Attacked on Birmingham Alabama Stage
https://youtu.be/3PHQQRB5_w8 In April 1956, African American singer and pianist Nat King Cole was knocked down by a group of white men while he was performing before an all-white audience in Birmingham, Alabama. Before the attack, a drunk man near the front row...
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady was a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. In the play Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl takes speech...
Thanksgiving 1956
https://youtu.be/xNKj-vqweYU In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by...
Dear Abby Advice Column
Dear Abby: Which is better? To go to a school dance with a creep or to sit home? - All Shook Up Dear Shook: Go with the creep and look over the crop. https://youtu.be/akk_67S3DUk The first Dear Abby column appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle In January 1956. The...
Popular Books Published in 1955
Source: Goodreads
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
https://youtu.be/pxTWb38NERg In December 1955 an African-American woman named Rosa Parks was arrested for refusal to surrender her seat to a white person on a Montgomery Alabama public bus. The subsequent Montgomery bus boycott lasted from December 1955 to...