Fall of French Indochina
https://youtu.be/ZMPNY9w8OmQ In May 1954 communist Viet Minh forces won a decisive victory over the French colonial army in the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. The war ended shortly afterward with signing of the 1954 Geneva Accords in which France agreed to withdraw its...
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Music Soothes the Post-War Soul
Popular music often seemed soft and soothing in 1954, the year after the tragic Korean War. https://youtu.be/BTIERquza6Q https://youtu.be/nVGt-qNQ4Os
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Eisenhower Describes Domino Theory
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower described the domino theory during an April 1954, news conference, when referring to communism in Indochina. The geopolitical theory stated that if one country fell to a communist takeover, the surrounding...
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Edward R. Murrow vs. Joseph McCarthy
Edward Roscoe Murrow was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent who first gained radio prominence with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe during WWII. In the spring of 1954 the US Senate held a series of hearings to investigate...
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USS Nautilus – First Nuclear-Powered Submarine
Named after both Captain Nemo's fictional submarine in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the WWII submarine USS Nautilus (SS-168) ,the new nuclear-powered Nautilus was launched in 1954. Because the USS Nautilus nuclear propulsion allowed prolonged submersion...
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Nationwide Atom Bomb Drills
The development of the H-bomb committed the United States to an arms race with the Soviet Union. Despite the specter of nuclear holocaust, both the United States and the Soviet Union vied to build ever more powerful nuclear weapons. The Federal Civil Defense...
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Atoms for Peace
https://youtu.be/CQ0bd4cShs8 In December 1953 , Preident Eisenhower delivered his "Atoms for Peace" address to the UN. He called on both the US and Soviet Union to abandon their nuclear arsenals. The "Atoms for Peace" program spread nuclear technology to nations that...
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Memorial Day
Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day, 1953 May 21, 1953By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation Whereas the bodies of our war dead lie buried in hallowed plots throughout the land, and it has long been our custom to decorate their graves on...
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How Much is that Doggie in the Window?
How Much is that Doggie in the Window, written by the novelty tune specialist Bob Merrill and sung by Patti Paige, reached No. 1 on both the Billboard and Cash Box charts in 1953, and sold over two million copies.
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Coup d’etat in British Guiana
https://youtu.be/b61zp4lQCHk In October 1953, the democratically elected People's Progressive Party (PPP) of British Guyana was removed from power by the British Government—its colonial ruler at that time. The overthrow of the PPP, which had won a landslide...
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Post-Korean War Recession
https://theeconreview.com The recession of 1953 was the first recession occurring in the United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s. With high expenditures to purchase equipment during the Korean War, the inflation rate in the U.S. soared up to 10%,...
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American War Deaths Through History
Source: American war deaths through history CONFLICT SPAN CASUALTIES Revolutionary War 1775-1783 25,000 Northwest Indian War 1785-1795 ~1,056 Quasi-War 1798-1800 514 War of 1812 1812-1815 ~20,000 1st Seminole War 1817-1818 36 Black Hawk War 1832 305 2nd Seminole War...
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Iranian Coup d’état
https://youtu.be/VlbRUwgASAQ In August 1953 a coup d'état overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The coup was...
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Armistice Ends Korean War
The armistice signed on July 27, 1953, formally ended the war in Korea. North and South Korea remained separate and occupied almost the same territory they had when the war began. https://youtu.be/K1otXThthbk
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Battle of Pork Chop Hill
The Battle of Pork Chop Hill comprised a pair of related Korean War battles fought between United Nations forces and the Chinese and North Korean armies from April through July 1953. Fought while the UN and the Chinese and North Koreans were negotiating...
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I Like Ike
https://youtu.be/Y9RAxAgksSE In November 1952. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won a landslide victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson, ending a string of Democratic Party wins that stretched back to Franklin Roosevelt's victory over Herbert Hoover...
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BATTLE OF TRIANGLE HILL
The Battle of Triangle Hill (上甘岭战役) was a protracted military engagement during the Korean War that pitted two United Nations infantry divisions and the US Air Force, against elements of the 12 and 15th Corps of the...
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Britain Develops Atomic Bomb
Although several British scientists worked on the Manhattan Project during WWII, after the war the U.S. government ended cooperation on nuclear weapons development. In 1947, in response to concerns about American isolationism and Britain losing its great...
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First Indochina War – 1947-1954
https://youtu.be/8kgcUFU5_eA After WWII, the decolonization of French Indochina left the region divided into four independent states: North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In September 1945, a provisional government in Hanoi...
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Christmas Home on the Home Front and in Korea
https://youtu.be/fkfs6hd3sMc From the time the liaison officers of both coalitions met in July 1951, until the armistice agreement was signed in July 1953, the Korean War continued as a stalemate. Both sides had given up trying to unify Korea by...
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Truman Declares a National Emergency
On December 15, 1951, U.S. President Harry Truman gave a radio address from the White House and announced that he would proclaim a national emergency "because of great danger created by the Soviet Union."
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Remember Pearl Harbor
https://youtu.be/A2kSnlS4xX8 On Dec. 7, 1941 2,403 service members and civilians were killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 1,178 people were injured in the attack, which permanently sank two U.S. Navy battleships (the USS Arizona and the...
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Chinese Treatment of Prisoners of War
The issue of Chinese treatment of UN prisoners of war is controversial. Cold war attitudes were often reflected in early reports which had limited actual data. On occasion, the Chinese People's Liberation Army was reported to provide emergency medical treatment for...
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Korean War Thanksgiving
https://youtu.be/Uc4G8gFIPT4
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Battle of Hoa Binh – French Indochina War
https://youtu.be/pl-0uqJhi3o From 1887 to the mid-1900s, French Indochina was the collective name for the French colonial regions of Southeast Asia composed of Cochin-China, Annam, Cambodia, Tonkin, Kwangchowan and Laos....
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