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...
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...
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...
Elvis Presley—Screaming Jay Hawkins—Carl Perkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4euyTDhFnk https://youtu.be/82cdnAUvsw8 https://youtu.be/DRNyvO4QouY
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...
Scrabble
Scrabble is a word game that gained enormous popularity in the 1950s. In the game, two to four players may score points by forming words with placement of single letter tiles onto a board divided into squares. Like a crossword puzzle, Scrabble words are read...
Marian Anderson Sings at the Met
https://youtu.be/J-Q8MbUsWac In 1955, at the age of 58, Marian Anderson became the first African-American soloist to sing at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Singing the role of the sorceress Ulrica in Verdi's Un ballo en maschera, Anderson later said: "I was...
Godzilla, Them and the Creature from the Black Lagoon
1954 was a great year for classic monster movies. https://youtu.be/lM1o1xe5FGE https://youtu.be/CugQcmapiwc
Marilyn Monroe Marries Joe DiMaggio
In January 1954, Marilyn Monroe and and baseball star Joe DiMaggio were mobbed by reporters and fans when they married in San Francisco. On their honeymoon in Japan, Monroe was asked to perform for American soldiers stationed in Korea. She went, leaving her new...
Playboy Magazine
In 1953 Hugh Hefner and Eldon Sellers founded Playboy Magazine featuring Marilyn Monroe as its first cover girl and nude centerfold. Although best known for its centerfolds of nude and semi-nude models known as playmates, Playboy has published...
Conquest of Mount Everest
Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary reached the summit of Mount Everest in May 1953. Wikipedia Wikipedia Britannica
Mr Potato Head
https://youtu.be/g58CFvquOtE Mr. Potato Head was invented by George Lerner in 1949 and first manufactured and distributed by Hasbro in 1952. The first toy advertised on television, Mr. Potato Head has remained in production since its debut....
Amahl and the Night Visitors
https://youtu.be/VUKvrNeNgk8 Amahl and the Night Visitors was a one-act production by Gian Carlo Menotti that was the first opera specifically composed for television in America. The story: One night in Judea, a disabled shepherd...
The King and I – Rodgers and Hammerstein
Wikipedia The King and I was a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein based on Margaret Landon's novel, Anna and the King of Siam derived from the memoirs of a governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the...
Ernie Kovacs Popular TV Comedian
https://youtu.be/U2AWAZ0gojY Ernest Edward Kovacs (1919 – 1962, was a popular American TV comedian, actor, and writer. Often spontaneous, his zany comedy style influenced numerous TV comedy programs for years after his death. Frequently his slapstick humor...
Victor Borge Danish Pianist & Comedian
Victor Borge (born Børge Rosenbaum) was a Danish conductor and pianist whose comic renditions of piano concerts were widely popular in the United States and Europe. Born to two concert musicians, Rosenbaum was a child prodigy pianist. After classical...
Top Movies of 1950
https://youtu.be/s9_vnMHYyig Top-grossing American films of 1950 RankTitleStudioBox-office gross rental1King Solomon's MinesMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer$5,047,000[1]2Annie Get Your Gun$4,708,000[1]3Cheaper by the Dozen20th Century Fox$4,425,000[2]4CinderellaWalt Disney/RKO...
Guys and Dolls Award-Winning Broadway Musical
https://youtu.be/SiUK-TDTIpo In 1950 the musical Guys and Dolls premiered on Broadway. The hit show continued for 1,200 performances and in 1951 won the Tony Award for best musical. In 1955 the show was made into a movie starring Marlon...
Al Jolson
https://youtu.be/KD_YRnuuKyY Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, was an American singer, comedian, and actor who lived from 1886-1950. In the 1920s, Jolson was immensely popular as America's highest-paid entertainer. In 1927 Jolson starred in The Jazz Singer, the...
Miles Davis
Miles Davis explored the trumpet’s middle register, experimenting with harmonies and rhythms and varying the phrasing of his improvisations.
Marilyn Monroe
https://youtu.be/SKhyLCjIpvw SOURCE: Wikipedia Born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926, she began working as a model in 1944 using the name Jean Norman. By 1946, she had appeared on 33 magazine covers for publications such as Pageant, U.S. Camera, Laff, and Peek. In 1946...
Zoo Parade
https://youtu.be/IwDnUeCh35M 1950 Philadelphia Zoo TV commercial Zoo Parade, a popular Sunday afternoon TV show on NBC from 1950-57 was hosted by Zoo director Marlin Perkins. ~ The show was actually shot at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo (I couldn't find a short video)....
Beat the Clock
https://youtu.be/H0cBnWgZOKg First televised by CBS in 1950, Beat the Clock was an American television game show that required its contestants to accomplish various stunts within 60 seconds. Contestants were chosen from the studio audience and usually were...
Color TV
https://youtu.be/e7hpZbGd2Uw In 1950, the first public demonstration of the RCA system for color television, the all electronic tri-color picture tube, was made at a press conference in Washington, DC. The RCA system was eventually accepted by the...