Dick Van Dyke Show

Dick Van Dyke Show

In October 1961 "The Dick Van Dyke Show," also starring Mary Tyler Moore, made its debut on CBS. The show continued to 1966. https://youtu.be/f43vTGOSE6o https://youtu.be/71muiGjdd7c

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The Fantasticks

The Fantasticks

https://youtu.be/H3iEoZdImpY In May 1960 the musical "The Fantasticks" opened at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village. Its feature song "Try to Remember" became very popular.

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Bathyscaphe Trieste Dives Into Mariana Trench

Bathyscaphe Trieste Dives Into Mariana Trench

https://youtu.be/VDdrBfF-fp8   In January 1960, the Bathyscaphe "Trieste," piloted by Jacques Piccard and USN Lt. Don Walsh, reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench (east of the Philipines) at 37,000 feet below sea level. Source: Wikipedia 

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Antarctic Treaty

Antarctic Treaty

In December 1959 representatives of 12 countries signed the Antarctic Treaty in Washington DC setting aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, free from military activity.Source: Wikipedia

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Chubby Checker-The Twist

Chubby Checker-The Twist

In November 1959 Chubby Checker introduced "The Twist" on the Dick Clark Saturday Night Show. In 1961 he released Let's Twist Again https://youtu.be/KxQZQ86jJHg

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The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music

https://youtu.be/btrt9_e5F5w Based on the 1949 book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers written by Maria Augusta von Trapp, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical The Sound of Music opened on Broadway in 1959. The...

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Charles Van Doren Quiz Show Scandal

Charles Van Doren Quiz Show Scandal

https://youtu.be/WW_wRS9_7rQ In November 1959 Charles Lincoln Van Doren, an American writer and editor, testified before the U.S. Congress that he had been given the correct answers by the producers of the NBC quiz show Twenty-One.

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Barbie Doll Released

Barbie Doll Released

https://youtu.be/9hhjjhYGQtY In March 1959 the Barbie doll was unveiled by the American Toy Fair in New York City. Doll No. 1 was sold by Mattel Toy Company for $3.  Source: History.com

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Van Cliburn wins Moscow Competition

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...

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The Stroll 

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...

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Bobby Fischer US Chess Champion

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...

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WEST SIDE STORY 

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...

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My Fair Lady

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...

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Scrabble

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...

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Marian Anderson Sings at the Met

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...

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Marilyn Monroe Marries Joe DiMaggio

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...

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Playboy Magazine

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...

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Conquest of Mount Everest

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

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Mr Potato Head

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....

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