Timeline of the Twentieth Century: 1950 - 1969 |
| 1950
First Modern Credit Card Introduced First Organ Transplant First "Peanuts" Cartoon Strip Korean War Begins Senator Joseph McCarthy Begins Communist Witch Hunt U.S. President Truman Orders Construction of Hydrogen Bomb 1951Color TV Introduced South Africans Forced to Carry ID Cards Identifying Race Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII Winston Churchill Again Prime Minister of Great Britain 1952Car Seat Belts Introduced The Great Smog of 1952 Jacques Cousteau Discovers Ancient Greek Ship Polio Vaccine Created Princess Elizabeth Becomes Queen at Age 25 1953DNA Discovered Hillary and Norgay Climb Mt. Everest Joseph Stalin Dies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed for Espionage 1954Britain Sponsors an Expedition to Search for the Abominable Snowman First Atomic Submarine Launched Report Says Cigarettes Cause Cancer Roger Bannister Breaks the Four-Minute Mile Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S. 1955James Dean Dies in Car Accident McDonald's Corporation Founded Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus Warsaw Pact Signed 1956Elvis Gyrates on Ed Sullivan's Show Grace Kelly Marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco Hungarian Revolution Khrushchev Denounces Stalin Suez Crisis T.V. Remote Control Invented Velcro Introduced 1957Dr. Seuss Publishes The Cat in the Hat European Economic Community Established Soviet Satellite Sputnik Launches Space Age Laika Becomes the First Living Animal to Enter Orbit 1958Boris Pasternak Refuses Nobel Prize Chinese Leader Mao Zedong Launches the "Great Leap Forward" Hope Diamond is Donated to the Smithsonian Hula Hoops Become Popular Lego Toy Bricks First Introduced NASA Founded 1959Castro Becomes Dictator of Cuba International Treaty Makes Antarctica Scientific Preserve Kitchen Debate Between Nixon and Khrushchev The Sound of Music Opens on Broadway U.S. Quiz Shows Found to be Fixed |
1960
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho Released Brazil's Capital Moves to Brand New City First Televised Presidential Debates Lasers Invented 1961 Adolf Eichmann on Trial for Role in Holocaust Bay of Pigs Invasion Berlin Wall Built Peace Corps Founded Soviets Launch First Man in Space 1962 Andy Warhol Exhibits His Campbell's Soup Can Cuban Missile Crisis First Person Killed Trying to Cross the Berlin Wall Marilyn Monroe Found Dead Rachel Carson Publishes Silent Spring 1963 Betty Friedan Publishes The Feminine Mystique JFK Assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. Makes His "I Have a Dream" Speech 1964 Beatles Become Popular in U.S. Cassius Clay (a.k.a. Muhammad Ali) Becomes World Heavyweight Champion Civil Rights Act Passes in U.S. Hasbro Launches GI Joe Action Figure Nelson Mandela Sentenced to Life in Prison Warren Report on JFK's Assassination Issued 1965 Japan's Bullet Train Opens Los Angeles Riots Malcolm X Assassinated New York City Great Blackout U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam 1966 Black Panther Party Established Mao Zedong Launches the Cultural Revolution Mass Draft Protests in U.S. Star Trek T.V. Series Airs 1967 Australian Prime Minister Disappears Che Guevara Killed First Heart Transplant First Super Bowl Six-Day War in the Middle East Stalin's Daughter Defects Three U.S. Astronauts Killed During Simulated Launch 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated Prague Spring Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated Tet Offensive 1969 ARPANET, the Precursor of the Internet, Created Charles Manson and "Family" Arrested Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon Rock-and-Roll Concert at Woodstock Senator Edward Kennedy Leaves the Scene of an Accident Sesame Street First Airs Yasser Arafat Becomes Leader of the PLO |
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