Topics
Understanding our world and that of our enemies
Dean Acheson ~ Pacific Defense
https://youtu.be/i9c4c6J9GfM In January 1950 U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a speech to the National Press Club intended to outline the Pacific defense posture of the United States. He named Japan and the Philippines in the U.S. defense plan,...
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The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles was published in 1950 by Ray Bradbury as a series of 27 connected short stories about humans fleeing a devastated earth to colonize Mars where they conflict with aboriginal Martians. In 1980 NBC produced the book as a television miniseries...
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Kim Il-sung pre-Korean War
Kim Il-sung Kim Il-sung's life Before the Korean War Kim Il-sung’s life has been greatly mythologized by North Korean historians. After reviewing the literature (including Kim’s autobiography Reminiscences: With the Century) and interviewing Korean historians on my...
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Cost of Living
https://youtu.be/mzhUuMrkdcA In 1950: a new house cost $8,450.00 the average income per year was $3,210.00 a gallon of gas was 18 cents the average cost of new car was $1,510.00 A few more prices from the 50's and how much things costChrysler New Yorker $43471958...
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Arirang
This lovely, traditional Korean song is >600 years old. The refrain Ariyang... is apparently nonsensical. There are many versions of the lyrics reflecting love, loss, resistance and patriotism. Arirang, Arirang, Arariyo...Crossing over Arirang Pass.The one who...
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CIA Mind Control
https://youtu.be/NUW-frxo2X4 In 1950 the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence authorized Project BLUEBIRD to discover methods of: conditioning personnel to prevent unauthorized extraction of informationcontrol of an individual by the application of special...
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Armed Forces Day
https://youtu.be/x2y10XtqXTc In 1950 United States President Harry Truman issued a proclamation: "Armed Forces Day, Saturday, May 20, 1950, marks the first combined demonstration by America's defense team of its progress, under the National Security Act, towards the...
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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)....
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Nuclear Espionage
https://youtu.be/mxmsBePZwHY In January 1950, the German-born physicist Klaus Fuchs, working for the British mission in the Manhattan Project, was arrested for passing key documents to the Soviets throughout WWII. Fuchs identified his courier as the...
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Tollund Man
In 1950 the mummified corpse of the Tollund Man who lived during the 4th century BC was found in a bog on the Jutland peninsula of Denmark. Tollund Man's body was so well-preserved that it was first thought to be that of a recent murder victim. Although initially...
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Sino-Soviet Treaty
https://youtu.be/l6x7fzcx5oc Beginning in early 1950, the newly-established People's Republic of China (PRC) Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou En-lai met with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky in Moscow to discuss an alliance for...
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Cigarettes Linked to Cancer
https://youtu.be/gCMzjJjuxQI 1949 Camel ad In 1950 The Journal of the American Medical Association published two articles linking smoking and cancer: Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiological Factor in Bronchogenic Carcinoma: A Study of Six Hundred and...
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Understanding Post-WWII East Asia
East Asia ~ Wikimedia I am currently on a trip to Seoul, Vladivostok and Tokyo to research locations for my upcoming historical-fiction novel covering the years 1940-1950. My protagonists are: a young Korean physician, trained in the Imperial Japanese medical system...
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McMinnville UFO
McMinnvile Oregon UFO - Wikipedia In May 1950 photographs of UFOs taken on a farm near McMinnville, Oregon were published in Life magazine and nationwide newspapers. Although some skeptics believe UFOs are a hoax, many ufologists argue that the photos are...
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USSR Repatriates German POWs
https://youtu.be/5Skoh6n2SB4 In 1950, while releasing 17,538 German soldiers, the Soviet Union claimed it had completed repatriation of all WWII German POWs numbering 1,939,063. Since the Russian TASS news agency had reported 3.5 million German POWs held in the USSR...
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Nuclear “Doom” Towns
https://youtu.be/wgpo0qAfwDk In the 1950s, nuclear testing began at the Nevada National Security Site with nuclear bombs mounted on top of a 1500 foot detonation tower so the fireball wouldn't damage the monitoring equipment. "Doom" towns were assembled with shops,...
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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...
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Taiwan
Brittanica.com By the end of 1949, most of mainland China was under Communist control. Official Communist figures counted some 1.5 million dead and wounded among the People’s Liberation Army. ~600,000 Nationalists troops were killed in combat, while roughly three...
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American Shopping Mall
Pinterest In April 1950 Northgate Center, the first urban shopping mall, was opened in Seattle.Originally an open air complex where the stores faced each other, Northgate began adding a roof over the concourse in 1962 and was completely enclosed by 1974....
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NSC 68 ~ No Preventive War
https://youtu.be/7ugz3eS1R6Q NSC 68 the United States Objectives and Programs for National Security was issued by U.S. President Truman's National Security Council in April 1950. Classified top secret until 1975, the document defined American foreign policy...
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First Black NBA Player
https://youtu.be/08IK0FjcPss In 1950 Chuck Cooper an All-American basketball player from Duquesne University (a private Catholic school in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania) was selected in the second round by the Boston Celtics. Cooper thus became the first...
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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...
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U.S. Navy Plane Shot Down
Consolidated Vultee PB4Y-2 Privateer In April 1950, Soviet fighters shot down a US Navy PB4Y-2 Privateer patrol bomber over the Baltic Sea. At the time, Privateers were used by the US Navy for signals intelligence flights off of the coast of the Soviet Union and the...
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Father of the Bride
https://youtu.be/ok7pNklkNhA IN 1950 director Vincente Minelli's comedy Father of the Bride (adapted from a book of the same title by Edward Streeter) told the story of a man (Spencer Tracy) dealing with his daughter's upcoming wedding. The cast...
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There Will Come Soft Rains
https://youtu.be/bv_D39zKZzc In May 1950, at the height of the Cold War, science fiction writer Ray Bradbury published the short story There Will Come Soft Rains in Collier's magazine. Later that year the story was included in The Martian Chronicles . Plot Summary:...
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