1950s

Wars

• Cold War conflicts involving the influence of the rival superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States
  • Korean War (1950–1953) – The war, which lasted from June 25, 1950, until the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953, started as a civil war between North Korea and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). When it began, North and South Korea existed as provisional governments competing for control over the Korean peninsula, due to the division of Korea by outside powers. While originally a civil war, it quickly escalated into a war between the Western powers under the United Nations Command led by the United States and its allies and the communist powers of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union.
    On September 15, General Douglas MacArthur conducted Operation Chromite, an amphibious landing at the city of Inchon (Song Do port). The North Korean army collapsed, and within a few days, MacArthur's army retook Seoul (South Korea's capital). He then pushed north, capturing Pyongyang in October. Chinese intervention the following month drove UN forces south again. MacArthur then planned for a full-scale invasion of China, but this was against the wishes of President Truman and others who wanted a limited war. He was dismissed and replaced by General Matthew Ridgeway. The war then became a bloody stalemate for the next two and a half years while peace negotiations dragged on.
    The war left 33,742 American soldiers dead, 92,134 wounded, and 80,000 missing in action (MIA) or prisoner of war (POW). Estimates place Korean and Chinese casualties at 1,000,000–1,400,000 dead or wounded, and 140,000 MIA or POW.
  • The Vietnam War began in 1955. Diệm instituted a policy of death penalty against any communist activity in 1956. The Viet Minh began an assassination campaign in early 1957. An article by French scholar Bernard Fall published in July 1958 concluded that a new war had begun. The first official large unit military action was on September 26, 1959, when the Viet Cong ambushed two ARVN companies.^[1]
• Arab–Israeli conflict (from early 20th century)

Israeli troops preparing for combat in the Sinai peninsula during the Suez Crisis.

• • Suez Crisis (1956) – The Suez Crisis was a war fought on Egyptian territory in 1956. Following the nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the United Kingdom, France and Israel subsequently invaded. The operation was a military success, but after the United States and Soviet Union united in opposition to the invasion, the invaders were forced to withdraw. This was seen as a major humiliation, especially for the two Western European countries, and symbolizes the beginning of the end of colonialism and the weakening of European global importance, specifically the collapse of the British Empire.
• Algerian War (1954–1962) – An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, use of torture on both sides and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. The war eventually led to the independence of Algeria from France.

Internal conflicts

Fidel Castro becomes the leader of Cuba as a result of the Cuban Revolution

• Cuban Revolution (1953–1959) – The 1959 overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and other forces resulted in the creation of the first communist government in the Western hemisphere.
• The Mau Mau began retaliating against the British in Kenya. This led to concentration camps in Kenya, a British military victory, and the election of moderate nationalist Jomo Kenyatta as leader of Kenya.
• The wind of destruction began in Rwanda in 1959 following the assault of Hutu politician Dominique Mbonyumutwa by Tutsi forces. This was the beginning of decades of ethnic violence in the country, which culminated in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.

Decolonization and Independence

• Decolonization of former European Colonial empires. The French Fourth Republic in particular faced conflict on two fronts within the French Union, the Algerian War and the First Indo-China War. The Federation of Malaya peacefully gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1957. French rule ended in Algeria in 1958, Vietnam left French Indo-china in 1954. The rival states of North Vietnam and South Vietnam were formed. Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos also gained independence, effectively ending French presence in Southeast Asia. Elsewhere the Belgian Congo and other African nations gained their independence from France, Belgium and the United Kingdom.
• Large-scale decolonization in Africa first began in the 1950s. In 1951, Libya became the first African country to gain independence in the decade, and in 1954 the Algerian War began. 1956 saw Sudan, Morocco, and Tunisia become independent, and the next year Ghana became the first sub-saharan African nation to gain independence.

Prominent political events

• European Common Market – The European Communities (or Common Markets), the precursor of the European Union, was established with the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
• On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists staged an attempted assassination on U.S. President Harry S. Truman. The leader of the team Griselio Torresola had firearm experience and Oscar Collazo was his accomplice. They made their assault at the Blair House where President Truman and his family were staying. Torresola mortally wounded a White House policeman, Leslie Coffelt, who shot Torresola dead before expiring himself. Collazo, as a co-conspirator in a felony that turned into a homicide, was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death in 1952 but then his sentence was later commuted to life in prison.
• On 7 July 1950, the first Group Areas Act was promulgated by the Parliament of South Africa and implemented over a period of several years. The passing of the Act contributed significantly to the period of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa known as Apartheid, which lasted from 1948 to 1991. One of the most famous uses of the Group Areas Act was the destruction of Sophiatown, a suburb of Johannesburg, which began on the 9th of February 1955.

• Establishment of the Non-aligned Movement, consisting of nations not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc.

The maximum territorial extent of countries in the world under Soviet influence, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961

Technology

In 1957 the Soviet Union launches to space Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite

The recently invented transistor, though initially quite feeble, had clear potential and was rapidly improved and developed at the beginning of the 1950s by companies such as GE, RCA, and Philco. The first commercial transistor production started at the Western Electric plant in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in October, 1951 with the point contact germanium transistor. It wasn't until around 1954 that transistor products began to achieve real commercial success with small portable radios.

Television, which first reached the marketplace in the 1940s, attained maturity during the 1950s and by the end of the decade, most American households owned a TV set. A rush to produce larger screens than the tiny ones found on 1940s models occurred during 1950–52. In 1954, RCA intro Bell Telephone Labs produced the first Solar battery. In 1954, you could get a yard of contact paper for only 59 cents. Polypropylene was invented in 1954. In 1955, Jonas Salk invented a polio vaccine which was given to more than seven million American students. In 1956, a solar powered wrist watch was invented.

A surprise came in 1957: a 184-pound (83 kg) satellite named Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviets. The space race began 4 months later as the United States launched a smaller satellite. In 1958, the first plastic Coke bottle appeared.

Castle Bravo: An 15 megaton hydrogen bomb experiment conducted by the United States in 1955. Photographed 78 miles (125 kilometers) from the explosion epicenter.

• Charles H. Townes builds the Maser in 1953 at the Columbia University.
• The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth on October 4, 1957.
• The United States conducts its first hydrogen bomb explosion test.
• The invention of the modern Solar cell.
• Passenger jets enter service.
• The U.S uses Federal prisons, mental institutions and pharmalogical testing volunteers to test drugs like LSD and chlorpromazine. Also started experimenting with the transorbital lobotomy.
• President Harry S. Truman inaugurated transcontinental television service on September 4, 1951, when he made a speech to the nation. AT&T carried his address from San Francisco and it was viewed from the west coast to the east coast at the same time.

Science

Francis Crick and James Watson discover the spiral structure of DNA

• Francis Crick and James Watson discover the double-helix structure of DNA. Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of the double helix structure.
• An immunization vaccine is produced for polio.
• The first successful ultrasound test of the heart activity.
• CERN is established.
• The world's first nuclear power plant is opened in Obninsk near Moscow.
• NASA is organized.
• The first human cervical cancer cells were cultured outside a body in 1951, from Henrietta Lacks. The cells are known as HeLa cells and are the first and most commonly used immortalised cell line.
• First transistor computer, built at the University of Manchester in November 1953.

Music

Elvis Presley became a popular rock and roll musician during the decade

Chuck Berry became a popular rock and roll musician during the decade

Popular music in the early 1950s was essentially a continuation of the crooner sound of the previous decade, with less emphasis on the jazz-influenced big band style and more emphasis on a conservative, operatic, symphonic style of music. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Patti Page, Judy Garland, Johnnie Ray, Kay Starr, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Dean Martin, Georgia Gibbs, Eddie Fisher, Teresa Brewer, Dinah Shore, Kitty Kallen, Joni James, Peggy Lee, Julie London, Toni Arden, June Valli, Doris Day, Arthur Godfrey, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Guy Mitchell, Nat King Cole, and vocal groups like the Mills Brothers, The Ink Spots, The Four Lads, The Four Aces, The Chordettes, The Fontane Sisters, The Hilltoppers and the Ames Brothers. Jo Stafford's "You Belong To Me" was the #1 song of 1952 on the Billboard Top 100 chart.

The middle of the decade saw a change in the popular music landscape as classic pop was swept off the charts by rock-and-roll. Crooners such as Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, and Patti Page, who had dominated the first half of the decade, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed by the decade's end.^[4] doo-wop entered the pop charts in the 1950s. Its popularity soon spawns the parody "Who Put the Bomp".

Rock-n-roll emerged in the mid-1950s with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, James Brown, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens, Duane Eddy, Eddie Cochran, Brenda Lee, Bobby Vee, Connie Francis, Johnny Mathis, Neil Sedaka, Pat Boone and Ricky Nelson being notable exponents. In the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. Chuck Berry, with "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.^[5] Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Johnny Horton, and Marty Robbins were Rockabilly musicians. Doo-wop was another popular genre at the time. Popular Doo Wop and Rock-n-Roll bands of the mid to late 1950s include The Platters, The Flamingos, The Dells, The Silhouettes, Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, Little Anthony and The Imperials, Danny & the Juniors, The Coasters, The Drifters, The Del-Vikings and Dion and the Belmonts.

The new music differed from previous styles in that it was primarily targeted at the teenager market, which became a distinct entity for the first time in the 1950s as growing prosperity meant that young people did not have to grow up as quickly or be expected to support a family. Rock-and-roll proved to be a difficult phenomenon for older Americans to accept and there were widespread accusations of it being a communist-orchestrated scheme to corrupt the youth, although rock and roll was extremely market based and capitalistic.

Jazz stars in the 1950s who came into prominence in their genres called bebop, hard bop, cool jazz and the blues, at this time included Lester Young, Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, Oscar Peterson, Gil Evans, Jerry Mulligan, Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Art Blakey, Max Roach, the Miles Davis Quintet, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Billie Holiday.

The American folk music revival became a phenomenon in the United States in the 1950s to mid-1960s with the initial success of The Weavers who popularized the genre. Their sound, and their broad repertoire of traditional folk material and topical songs inspired other groups such as the Kingston Trio, the Chad Mitchell Trio, The New Christy Minstrels, and the "collegiate folk" groups such as The Brothers Four, The Four Freshmen, The Four Preps, and The Highwaymen. All featured tight vocal harmonies and a repertoire at least initially rooted in folk music and topical songs.

On 3 February 1959, a chartered plane transporting the three American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson goes down in foggy conditions near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all four occupants on board, including pilot Roger Peterson. The tragedy is later termed "The Day the Music Died", popularized in Don McLean's 1972 song "American Pie". This event, combined with the conscription of Elvis into the US Army, is often taken to mark the point where the era of 1950s rock-and-roll ended.

Television

An American family watching television together, 1958

The 1950s are known as The Golden Age of Television by some people. Sales of TV sets rose tremendously in the 1950s and by 1950 4.4 million families in America had a television set. Americans devoted most of their free time to watching television broadcasts. People spent so much time watching TV, that movie attendance dropped and so did the number of radio listeners.^[6] Television revolutionized the way Americans see themselves and the world around them. TV affects all aspects of American culture. "Television affects what we wear, the music we listen to, what we eat, and the news we receive."^[7]

Film

Cary Grant as Roger O. Thornhill in North by Northwest (1959)

European cinema experienced a renaissance in the 1950s following the deprivations of World War II. Italian director Federico Fellini won the first foreign language film Academy Award with La Strada and garnered another Academy Award with Nights of Cabiria. In 1955, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman earned a Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with Smiles of a Summer Night and followed the film with masterpieces The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. Jean Cocteau's Orphée, a film central to his Orphic Trilogy, starred Jean Marais and was released in 1950. French director Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge is now widely considered the first film of the French New Wave. Notable European film stars of the period include Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Max von Sydow, and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Japanese cinema reached its zenith with films from director Akira Kurosawa including Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and The Hidden Fortress. Other distinguished Japanese directors of the period were Yasujirō Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. Russian fantasy director Aleksandr Ptushko's mythological epics Sadko, Ilya Muromets, and Sampo were internationally acclaimed as was Ballad of a Soldier, a 1959 Soviet film directed by Grigory Chukhray

In Hollywood, the epic Ben-Hur grabbed a record 11 Academy Awards in 1959 and its success gave a new lease of life to motion picture studio MGM.

The "Golden Era" of 3-D cinematography transpired during the 1950s.

Art movements

In the early 1950s Abstract expressionism and artists Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning were enormously influential. However, by the late 1950s Color Field painting and Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko's paintings became more in focus to the next generation.

Pop art used the iconography of television, photography, comics, cinema and advertising. With its roots in dadaism, it started to take form towards the end of the 1950s when some European artists started to make the symbols and products of the world of advertising and propaganda the main subject of their artistic work. This return of figurative art, in opposition to the abstract expressionism that dominated the aesthetic scene since the end of World War II was dominated by Great Britain until the early 1960s when Andy Warhol, the most known artist of this movement began to show Pop Art in galleries in the United States.

Fashion

American fashions, 1953

Short hair was very popular for young women in the 1950s as can be seen in this photograph taken in 1958

The 1950s saw the birth of the teenager and with it rock n roll and youth fashion dominating the fashion industry. In the UK the Teddy boy became both style icons and anti-authoritarian figures. While in America Greasers had a similar social position. Previously teenagers dressed similar to their parents but now a rebellious and different youth style was being developed. this was particularly noticeable in the overtly sexual nature of their dress. men wore tight trousers, leather jackets and emphasis was on long greasy hair.

New ideas meant new designers who had a concept of what was fashion. Fashion started gaining a voice and style when Christian Dior created “The New Look” collection. The 1950s was not only about spending on luxurious brands but also the idea of being comfortable was created. It was a time where resources were available and it was a new type of fashion. Designers were creating collections with different materials such as: taffeta, nylon, rayon, wool and leather that allowed different colors and patterns. People started wearing artificial fibers because it was easier to take care of and it was price effective.^[8] It was a time where shopping was part of a lifestyle.

Different designers emerged or made a comeback on the 1950s because as mention before it was a time for fashion and ideas. The most important designers from the time were:

Christian Dior: everything started in 1947 after World War II was over. Christian Dior found that there were a lot of resources in the market. He created the famous and inspirational collection named “The New Look.” This consisted on the idea of creating voluminous dresses that would not only represent wealth but also show power on women. This collection was the first collection to use 80 yards of fabric.^[8] He introduced the idea of the hourglass shape for women; wide shoulders, tight waistline and then voluminous full skirts. Dior was a revolutionary and he was the major influence for the next collections. He is known for always developing new ideas and designs, which led to a rapid expansion and becoming worldwide known.^[9] He had pressure to create innovative designs for each collection and Dior did manage to provide that to the consumers. He not only made the hourglass shape very famous but he also developed the H-line as well as the A and Y-Lines. Dior was a very important designer, he changed the way fashion was looked on the world but most importantly he reestablished Paris as a fashion capital.^[9]

Cristobal Balenciaga: Cristobal Balenciaga a Spanish designer who opened his first couture house in 1915. In 1936, he went to Paris in order to avoid the Spanish Civil War, there he had inspiration for his fashion collections. His designs were an inspiration for emerging designers of the time. His legacy is as important as the one from Dior, revolutionaries.^[9] He was known for creating sack dresses, heavy volumes and balloon skirts.^[10] For him everything started when he worked for Marquesa de Casa Torre who became his patron and main source of inspiration. Marquesa de Casa Torre helped Balenciaga enter the world of couture.^[9] His first suit was very dramatic. The suit consisted on cutout and cut-ins the waist over a slim skirt, something not seen before.^[9] Balenciaga was a revolutionary designer who was not afraid to cut and let loose because he had everything under control. In 1950s and the 1960s his designs were well known for attention to color and texture. He was creating different silhouettes for women, in 1955 he created the tunic, 1957 the sack dress and 1958 the Empire styles.^[11] He was known for moving from tailored designs to shapeless allowing him to show portion and balance on the bodies.^[9] Showing that his designs evolved with time and maintained his ideologies.

Coco Chanel: After World War II the famous designer reestablished herself. This time Chanel introduced very useful clothing for women, the boxy suit. The suits created in 1954 were special because of the unique tweeds that were made just for her.^[12] Her ideology was to create comfort clothing that had function and made women look pretty and young. The suits had jackets, skirts and accessories such as hats and handbags.^[13] Her style was well known over the world and her idea of having functional luxurious clothing influenced other designers from the era. Chanel believed that luxurious should come from being comfortable that is why her designers were so unique and different from the time period, she also achieved her looks by adding accessories such as pearl necklaces.^[14] Chanel believed that even though Dior designs were revolutionary for the time period they did not managed to represent the women of the time. She believed women had to wear something to represent their survival to another war and their active roles in society.^[15] Coming back from a closed house of fashion was not easy for Chanel and competing against younger designers.^[15] The Chanel suit was known as a status symbol for wealthy and powerful women.^[15] Chanel influenced over the years and her brand is still one of the most influential brands for fashion.

Sports

Paavo Nurmi and the Olympic flame in the opening ceremony of the 1952 Summer Olympics

• Inaugural season of Formula One

World leaders

Note: Names of world leaders shown below in bold remained in power continuously throughout the decade.

• 
  Dwight D. Eisenhower
• 
  Harry S. Truman
• 
  Nikita Khrushchev
• 
  Joseph Stalin
• 
  Mao Zedong
• 
  Konrad Adenauer
• 
  Harold Macmillan
• 
  René Coty
• 
  Alcide De Gasperi
• 
  Pope Pius XII
• 
  Juan Perón
• 
  Louis St. Laurent
• 
  John Diefenbaker
• 
  Chiang Kai-shek
• 
  Robert Menzies
• 
  Getulio Vargas
• 
  Gamal Abdel Nasser
• 
  Jawaharlal Nehru
• 
  David Ben-Gurion
• 
  Syngman Rhee
• 
  Kim Il-sung
• 
  Willem Drees
• 
  Francisco Franco
• 
  Charles de Gaulle
• 
  Winston Churchill
• 
  Anthony Eden
• 
  Ibn Saud
• 
  Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
• 
  King Hussein
• 
  Fidel Castro

Politics

• Aleksey Innokentevich Antonov, Chief of General Staff of the Unified Armed Forces Warsaw Treaty Organization
• Eugene R. Black, President World Bank
• William Sterling Cole, Director-general International Atomic Energy Agency
• Manuel Fraga Iribarne, Secretary-general Latin Union
• André François-Poncet, Chairman of the Standing Commission International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
• Louis Goffin, Secretary-general Western European Union
• Walter Hallstein, President of the European Commission
• Fritz Hess, Director Universal Postal Union
• Ivan Stepanovich Konev, Commander-in-chief of the Unified Armed Forces Warsaw Treaty Organization
• Henri St. Leger, Secretary-general International Organization for Standardization
• Robert C. Lonati, Secretary-general World Tourism Organization
• David A. Morse, Director-general International Labour Organization
• Arnold Duncan McNair, Baron McNair, President of the European Court of Human Rights
• Ove Nielsen, Secretary-general International Maritime Organization
• Maurice Pate, Executive Director United Nations Children's Fund
• Robert Schuman, President of the European Parliamentary Assembly
• Gustav Swoboda, Chief of the Secretariat World Meteorological Organization
• José Guillermo Trabanino Guerrero, Secretary-general Organization of Central American States
• Eric Wyndham White, Executive Secretary World Trade Organization

Entertainers

• 
  Marilyn Monroe
• 
  James Dean
• 
  Marlon Brando
• 
  Humphrey Bogart

Musicians

• 
  Everly Brothers c. 1958
• 
  Bill Haley and the Comets c. 1954
• 
  Elvis Presley, (1957)
• 
  Chuck Berry in 1957
• 
  Fats Domino singing Blueberry Hill on The Alan Freed Show c. 1956

Bands

Sports figures

• 
  Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers third baseman, 1954
• 
  Willie Mays, New York Giants centerfielder in 1954
• 
  Mickey Mantle, New York Yankees centerfielder, in 1953
• 
  Duke Snider, Brooklyn Dodgers centerfielder, c. 1953

Timeline

The following articles contain brief timelines which list the most prominent events of the decade:

1950 • 1951 • 1952 • 1953 • 1954 • 1955 • 1956 • 1957 • 1958 • 1959

United States

• Dunar, Andrew J. America in the fifties (2006)
• Halberstam, David. The Fifties (1993) excerpt and text search
• Levine, Alan J. The Myth of the 1950s (2008) excerpt and text search
• Marling, Karal Ann. As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Harvard University Press, 1996) 328 pp.
• Miller, Douglas T. and Marion Nowak. The fifties: the way we really were (1977)
• Stoner, John C., and Alice L. George. Social History of the United States: The 1950s (2008)
• Wills, Charles. America in the 1950s (Decades of American History) (2005)