What’s My Line
What's My Line? was a game show on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967. Blindfolded celebrity panelists questioned a weekly "mystery guest" to determine his/her employment. Moderated by John Charles Daly, regular panelists included Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene...
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Your Show of Shows
Premiering on NBC TV in February 1950, Your Show of Shows was a weekly, variety show featuring comedians Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. https://youtu.be/ZmCCxEUfEsE https://youtu.be/e0iMF6DWpo8
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Review of The Year
https://youtu.be/9RIJ4HkAaeg This interesting review of the year 1949 seeps Cold War energy. Cost of Living 1949 Average Cost of new house $7,450.00 Average wages per year $2,950.00 Cost of a gallon of Gas 17 cents Average Cost of a new car...
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Hopalong Cassidy
In 1904 Clarence E. Mulford created the fictional cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy, in a series of popular short stories and novels based on the character. Early on, Mulford portrayed Cassidy as a rude, dangerous, rough-talking man with a wooden leg that caused him to...
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TV Soap Operas
Irna Phillips (Old Magazine Articles) In January 1949 NBC broadcast the first TV daytime soap opera entitled "These Are My Children." Written by long-time radio and screen writer Irna Phillips, the show was broadcast live from Chicago for just fifteen minutes at...
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Martians Land in Ecuador
https://youtu.be/zJIHi78T5lA In February 1949 an Ecuadorian folk song was interrupted by a Radio Quito announcer with urgent news: Martian flying saucers had landed and used death rays to destroy a town 25 miles south of Quito.Soon a "reporter" breathlessly reported...
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Network Television
https://youtu.be/yX4Cea5pIlE In January 1949 WDTV on Channel 3 (owned and operated by the DuMont Television Network, a TV equipment and set manufacturer) became the first American "networked" television station, providing a link between thirteen Midwestern and East...
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Polaroid Land Camera
Land Cameras, instant cameras with self-developing film named after their inventor Edwin Land, were manufactured by Polaroid from 1947 to 1983. Instant cameras have made quite a comeback these days.
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Texaco Star Theater
The Texaco Star Theatre with the comedian Milton Berle was first broadcast on radio (1938-1949) before it became an extremely popular American variety show on television (1948 -1956). LISTEN As star of tThe Texaco Star Theater, Milton...
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Meet The Press
Meet the Press has had the longest run of any television program in the United States. Although it began as a Saturday night program moderated by the charmingly Southern-accented Martha Rountree, it ultimately became a popular NBC Sunday morning show hosted by a...
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Candid Camera
In 1947 Allen Funt broadcast The Candid Microphone radio show, featuring practical jokes and situations, on ABC radio. From 1948 -1954 CANDID MICROPHONE, hosted by Allen Funt, were produced by Ben and George Blake of the Columbia Movie Shorts Department....
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Billy Graham
William Franklin Graham Jr. (1918 –2018) was an American Southern Baptist evangelist who held huge rallies, broadcasting sermons on radio and television from 1947 until his retirement in 2005. Graham repudiated racial segregation and emphasized the relationship...
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Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian with a devilishly-quick wit and and somewhat off-color humor. Marx had a long stage and screen career, making 13 feature films with his brothers. Groucho walked with an...
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Voice of America Calls USSR
Established in 1942 for Allied propaganda broadcasts during WWII, the Voice of America (VOA) continued broadcasts after the war aimed mostly at Western Europe. In September 1947, VOA began broadcasts aimed at the Soviet Union with: “Hello! This is New...
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You and the Atomic Bomb
Just months after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, George Orwell published an essay entitled You and the Atomic Bomb in the London Tribune. The first one to use the term "cold war," Orwell outlines in the prophetic excerpt below a rationale that would...
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Ernie Pyle Killed
Before he became a WWII correspondent, Indianan Ernie Pyle wrote a popular syndicated column for the Scripps-Howard newspapers about the lives and hopes of typical American citizens in the 1930s. In 1942, Pyle went overseas as a war correspondent where he covered the...
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Censorship WWII USA
This 1944 U.S. Army instructional film about censorship incorporates the humor, sexuality and racism of the time. During the war, U.S. government control of the news by the Office of War Information was comprehensive. All correspondence between active duty military...
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U.S. Pilot Defects
For years a devotee of the ultra-conservative radio ministry of Father Charles Edward Coughlin, a 23 year-old USAAF P-38 pilot named Martin James Monti defected to the Axis powers in October 1944. Why a young American might actually defect to the Axis is hard to...
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Japan Faces Defeat
By the end of 1943, with no prospect of joining forces with its German allies who were being pushed out of Africa, and American forces penetrating its defensive ring, Imperial Japan was having great difficulty maintaining its distant holdings in the Western...
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Dietrich Bonhöffer
Dietrich Bonhöffer (1906 –1945) was a German Lutheran theologian and founding member of the Confessing Church that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to permeate German Protestant churches with Nazi doctrine. An outstanding academic theologian,...
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Die Große Liebe
Die große Liebe (The Great Love), which premiered in 1942, became the most commercially successful film in the history of the Nazi Germany. From the film's musical score: "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" and "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n"...
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American Music WWII
Unlike songs popular in America during WWI , many WWII songs focused more on romance and strength instead of patriotism. Particularly popular, were singers included Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, the Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby. Listen on YouTube to these popular...
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Censorship – USA
We were all a part of the War Effort. We went along with it, and not only that, we abetted it. Gradually it became a part of all of us that the truth about anything was automatically secret and that to trifle with it was to interfere with the War Effort. By this I...
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Mutilation of Dead Japanese Soldiers
Despite official prohibition by the U.S. military, some American servicemen mutilated the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers throughout the Pacific campaign. Body parts (mostly skulls and teeth) were often kept as “souvenirs.” Early on, this grisly practice was openly...
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Gee
Gee was the code name given to a hyperbolic navigation system introduced by the RAF in 1942. Based on the difference in timing between the reception of two signals, Gee produced a "fix" on a target as far away as 350 miles, with accuracy > several hundred feet....
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