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...
Tonight – Starring Jack Paar
https://youtu.be/c2m5kZ0p5x4 Although, as my fried Rodney pointed out, the YouTube picture above is NOT Jack Paar - the video actually is. Jack Harold Paar (1918 –2004) was an American talk show host, author, radio and television comedian, and film actor. After...
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.
John Glenn Sets Airspeed Record
In July 1957 Marine Corps Major John Glenn flew a Vought F8U Crusader, from Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in California to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York in three hours, 23 minutes, setting a transcontinental speed record: 725.55 mph.
Distant Early Warning Line
The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line was the northernmost of three radar lines in Canada and Alaska. Designed to provide enough warning time of a nuclear attack to enable launching an effective counterattack, the DEW line was placed far north of the joint...
Have Gun – Will Travel
https://youtu.be/HYl20fyIptM Have Gun – Will Travel was an American Western series that was originally broadcast by CBS on both television and radio from 1957 through 1963. The television version of the series starring Richard Boone was rated number three or...
President Eisenhower Illness
Although Dwight Eisenhower was the first American president to release information about his health while in office, his physicians and staff often misled the public about his condition. Eisenhower began chain smoking cigarettes at West Point. As...
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...
Hurricane Audrey
Hurricane Audrey, one of the srongest tropical storms ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, was also among the deadliest tropical cyclones in U.S. history, killing at least 416 people in its devastation of the southwestern Louisiana coast 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...
Mayflower II arrives in Plymouth, Massachusetts
The Mayflower II, a reproduction of the 17th-century ship Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, was built in Plymouth / Devon, England during 1955–1956. Mayflower II was launched from Plymouth England on September 22 1956—a rainy day start for...
Ford Edsel
In 1957 the Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel, named after Henry Ford's son. Although the Edsel had many innovations still in use today, including self-adjusting brakes and a powerful V-8 engine, the car was one of Ford's biggest financial failures. The...
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...
Eisenhower Doctrine
https://youtu.be/1N1_JGG4XX8 In January 1957 President Eisenhower declared that US forces could be deployed to protect the territorial integrity and political independence of nations from overt armed aggression by any nation controlled by international communism....
Candy 1950s
https://youtu.be/b1eBzJrYsh4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFwKXyOL0Sc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJTejHWi7Ao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPxTzO5bnmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxYovFn-U9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCodkvce6eM...
Cost of Living in 1956
PRICES IN 1956 House: $9,550Average income: $4,454Ford car: $1748-$3151Milk: $.97Gas: $.23Bread $.18Postage stamp: $.03Chuck Pot Roast: $ .33 lb.Spareribs: $.39 lb.Cabbage: $.04 lb.Eggs, doz.: $.45Coffee: $.69 lb.Carnation Instant Chocolate Drink, 10oz.: $.33Rheingold...
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
Suez Canal Crisis
In June 1956 the 74-year British occupation of the Suez Canal ended. In July 1956 the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal. In October 1956 Israeli brigades invaded Egypt and advanced toward the canal, routing Egyptian forces....
Birth of the US Interstate Highway System
https://youtu.be/6xd9cxRtt_k In June 1956, Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 into law. Under the act, the federal government would pay for 90 percent of the cost of construction of Interstate Highways. Each Interstate Highway was required to be a...
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
First Commercial Videotape Recorder
https://youtu.be/f0e03ScjnO4 A video tape recorder (VTR) is designed to record and play back video and audio material from magnetic tape. In 1956, Ampex Corporation introduced the first practical videotape recorder for television...