While Growing To Young Adults
Miscellaneous Happenings
1943 - 1961
1943: Most of the class of '61 were born in 1943
- WWII was still being fought
- 16th Academy Awards (1943) were moved to a theater setting. A banquet seemed inappropriate due to war shortages. Also the statuette was made of plaster rather than bronze. Best Picture: Casablanca Best Actor: Paul Lukas (Watch on the Rhine) Best Actress: Jennifer Jones (The Song of Bernadette) Best Song: "You'll Never Know"
- hepcats in zootsuits do the jitterbug
1944:
- The world is at war...
- Ration Coupons
- Jitterbug, Dance Marathons
- Rosie the Riveter
- Big Band music ruled the airwaves
1946:
-
ENIAC, The first general purpose electronic digital computer.
1947:
- The first tailfin was on the '48 Cadillac, introduced in October, 1947
- The first Levittown home was occupied. New housing developments led to the middle-class migration to the suburbs and caused the need for high-speed roads to handle commuters.
1948:
- Bell Telephone Labs demonstrates the transistor.
- 4,196,000 electric clothes washers are sold in 1948 compared with 1,892,000 in 1941.
- Now 75% of all homes had flush toilets; this figure rose to over 90% by 1963.
- In 1948, only 64% of all homes were had telephones; by 1963, 83% had phones.
- 33% of all adults had four years of high school education; by 1963 it was 46%; today it's almost 80%.
- Road & Track, a magazine devoted to sports cars, begins publication.
- The first jet plane lands on an aircraft carrier.
- Adidas, the athletic shoe manufacturer, is founded.
- The Kinsey Report on human sexual behavior is published.
1949: We entered the first grade.
- Civil War veterans (16 in number) have their last meeting.
- Cortisone discovered.
- Joe Louis retires.
- Sam Snead wins PGA.
- Bikini introduced.
- Key starters introduced on cars.
- First 33.3 and 45 rpm records.
- First Land Rover produced.
- Hot Rod magazine debuts.
- Silly Putty debuts; over 30 million Silly Putty 'eggs' are sold over the next five years.
- Lego building blocks are introduced.
- The atomic clock is developed.
- Brylcream ads, "A little dab'll do ya."
1950:
- The population of the United States as reported by the 1950 Census is 150,697,361. The population of the world is approximately 2.5 billion.
- There are 1,667,231 marriages to 385,144 divorces (23%). By 1998 there will be 2,256,000 marriages and 955,000 divorces (43%)
- Median age for 1st marriage is 22.8 years old for men and 20.3 for women. By 1998, it will be 26.7 years old for men and 25 for women.
- 7,464,000 TV sets are sold at an average price of $300.
- PaperMate is the first leak-proof ballpoint pen.
- Haloid Corporation (later renamed Xerox) develops the first xerographic copy machine.
- Peanuts - the
comic strip - makes its debut.
- The first Club Med opens.
- First credit card is issued by Diners Club.
- The FBI issues the first Ten Most Wanted Criminals list.
- Top movies include The African Queen.
- The first self-service elevator is installed by Otis Elevator in Dallas
- Paul Harvey begins his national radio broadcast.
- There are 10,500,000 TV sets in 10,400,000 homes
- Hank Ketcham creates "Dennis the Menace."
- Telephone Answering Machine created by Bell Laboratories.
- First food processor (the Kenwood Chef)
- Antihistamines introduced.
- Color television licensed - average weekly earnings reach $60.
- First NCAA basketball championship
- During the 1950's some people built bomb shelters for a living
1951:
- Earl Tupper introduces Tupperware.
- Eames shell chair
is produced from fiberglass-reinforced polyester plastic.
- First videotape recording
- Topps Company started it's first baseball card series. The series consisted of two individual sets of 52 cards each.
- 20 year old outfielder Willie Mays joins N.Y. Giants Baseball team, while Joe DiMaggio retires from baseball.
- Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, New Jersey called his counterpart mayor Frank Osborn in Alameda, California.
- A.E.C. produces electricity from atomic energy.
- J.D. Salinger published Catcher in the Rye.
- American automobile manufacturer Chrysler Corporation introduces power steering.
- S&H Green Stamps get their start at the Denver store chain King Sooper.
- Still camera gets built-in flash units.
- A Crosley automobile with a steering wheel on the right side became the first such vehicle placed in service for mail delivery - in Cincinnati, Ohio.
1952:
- sleeping it
- Plastic kits of model aircraft are produced and soon model cars.
- Marilyn Monroe's
tight sweaters inspire the 'sweater girl' look.First Mad magazine
- Teabags introduced into Britain
- Guiding Light, currently the longest running drama in broadcasting history, premiered on TV.
- Ronald Reagan and actress Nancy Davis were married in San Fernando Valley, California. It was Reagan's second marriage.
- First jet airliner (de Havilland Comet)
- Norman Vincent Peale, publishes his most popular book, The Power of Positive Thinking
- Telephone area codes begin.
- Mr. Potato Head arrives!
- Sony, a brand new Japanese company, introduces the first pocket-sized transistor radio
- The typical U.S. grocery store now carries about 4,000 different items, up from about 870 in 1928.By the mid-1960s the grocery will be a supermarket carrying some 8,000 items.
- TV first acknowledges pregnancy on I Love Lucy - TV still did not portray married people the same bed.
1953:
- Chevrolet Corvette becomes the first production car to have an all-fiberglass body.
- First issue of Playboy magazine is published.
- New York adopts three color traffic lights.
- Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay become the first humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- Playboy Magazine begins publication, featuring nudes of Marilyn Monroe in its first issue.
- The Church of Scientology is founded by L. Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction writer.
- University of Minnesota physiologist Ancel Keys points out a correlation between coronary heart disease and diets high in animal fats.
- TV Guide is born.
- The first 3-D movie is shown: Arch Oboler's Bwana Devil, starring Robert Stack.
- The Academy Awards are televised for the first time.
- 46.4% of all domestic passenger travel was by railroad; 28.9% by bus; and 21.6% by air.
- Jacqueline Bouvier marries John F Kennedy
- Dow Chemical creates Saran Wrap.
1954:
- Matchbox cars arrive.
- Miss America Pageant is televised for the first time.
- Bell Telephone Labs develops a solar battery.
- Con-Tact paper premieres - cost is 59˘ per yard.
- Polypropylene is invented.
- The World Series is broadcast in color for the first time. NY Giants defeat Cleveland (4-0).
- IBM announces the development of an electronic brain for business use.
- Sports Illustrated is born!
- A test program using sterilized males wipes out screwworm flies on the Caribbean island of Curacao in only 4 months. (Just thought you should know this fact.)
- Baseball legend Hank Aaron begins his career by joining the Milwaukee Braves.
- Sun Myung Moon founds the Unification Church.
- Catholic Church declares watching Mass on TV does not fulfill obligations.
- Ellis Island, the immigration station in NY Harbor, is closed.
- Bazooka Joe comics were first introduced.
- Dr. Roger Bannister of England becomes the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes on May 6. His time is 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.
- General Electric introduces colored kitchen appliances.
1955: We entered junior high school.
- President Eisenhower takes part in the first televised press conference.
- Davy Crockett fad spawns over $100 million in toy and merchandise sales.
- Play-Doh is created.
- The Jonas Salk-developed polio vaccine is given to seven million American schoolchildren.
- Alfred E. Neuman appears on the cover of MAD as a write-in candidate for President.
- Ann Landers' advice column first appears in newspapers.
- Disneyland opens for business in California and has over 1 million visitors in 7 weeks.
- James Dean is
killed while driving his new Porsche Spyder at high speed.
- Average movie ticket price is 50˘.
- Thunderbird comes to Ford showrooms - just under $3000 without options.
- 1st automobile seat belt legislation enacted (Illinois).
- Barbra Striesand's 1st recording "You'll Never Know" at age 13.
- Congress authorizes all US currency and coins to say "In God We Trust."
- Johnson & Johnson invents the first “baby shampoo”. No More Tears!
- The first home microwave ovens are manufactured by Tappan - cost $1300.
- Crest introduces the first toothpaste with fluoride.
- NY psychologist Joyce Brothers won the "$64,000 Question." Her topic? Boxing.
- The National Review appears, edited and published by William F. Buckley, Jr.
- First hovercraft.
- Scrabble released.
1956:
- Air passenger traffic equals rail passenger traffic.
- Hamilton introduces the first battery-powered electric wristwatch.
- The first Midas Muffler Shop appears.
- Comet cleanser and Pampers disposable diapers make their respective debuts.
- Elvis Presley, had the number one hit, 'Heartbreak Hotel.' For 25 of 37 weeks, Elvis held the absolute top of the charts with 7 single, million-seller hits.
- Elvis Presley appears on Ed Sullivan.
- Mental patients occupy more hospital beds than all other illnesses combined.
- Last survivor of the Union Army dies (Albert Woolsen)
- Transatlantic telephone cable.
- Film actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
- Last Ringling Bros/Barnum & Bailey show under canvas.
- Pepsodent inaugurates "You'll wonder where the yellow went" ad campaign.
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture formulates the four basic food groups.
- At a Fourth of July family barbecue, Milton Levine dreams up the idea for the first Ant Farm, complete with live ants.
- Yahtzee is born!
- As the World Turns and Edge of Night premiere.
- The first prefrontal lobotomy performed in Washington DC.
- Wizard of Oz first aired on TV.
- By now, more than 80 percent of U.S. households have refrigerators. By contrast, only 8 percent of British households do.
- Clairol introduces the "Does She or Doesn't She" advertising campaign. "Only her hairdresser knows for sure."
- Certs, the first candy breath mint, is introduced.
1957:
The Hula Hoop is introduced in '57; the fad peaks in 1958 (over one million pounds per week of polyethylene plastic is consumed trying to keep up with demand.)
- The Frisbee is introduced.
- American Bandstand goes coast-to-coast.
- Boeing 707 passenger jet makes its inaugural flight.
- $25 million in Elvis non-record merchandise is sold.
- Elvis appears in his first motion picture, Love Me Tender.
- First non-stop around the world flight
- Rocky Marciano retires undefeated as heavyweight boxing champion.
- Barry Gordy, Jr. invests $700 to found "Motown Records."
- Velcro is patented by George de Mestral of Switzerland.
- Greyhound inaugurates the "It's such a comfort to take the bus and leave the driving to us" ad campaign.
- The 13-year-old Bobby Fisher becomes a chess champion.
- The Pink Flamingo emerged on the lawn.
- Ed Gein's killing and mutilation spree is over as he is arrested. Gein was the inspiration for Norman Bates in Psycho and Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs.
- Eveready produces "AA" size alkaline batteries for use in "personal transistor radios."
- At a Miami radio station, new employee Lawrence Harvey Zeiger abruptly adopts a stage name - Larry King - and begins broadcasting.
- NYC ends trolley car service.
- The publication of Jack Kerouac's On the Road introduces the words "beat" and "beatnik" into the American popular consciousness.
- Americans Clarence W. Lillehie and Earl Bakk invent the internal pacemaker.
- Theodore Geisel writes Cat in the Hat as Dr. Seuss!
- Margarine sales take the lead over butter.
- Better Homes & Gardens prints its first microwave-cooking article.
- Surgeon General links smoking to lung cancer.
- Giants leave New York and Dodgers leave Brooklyn.
1958: We entered high school.
- The American Express Card debuts.
- The median U.S. family annual income is just over $5,000.
- Elvis is drafted
into the Army.
- The sack dress becomes the fashion rage for women.
- Tropical fish are the most popular pet for Americans.
- First trans-Atlantic passenger jet service.
- First heart pacemaker.
- First stereo records.
- Pogo stick craze.
- The price of 1st class US postage is raised to 4˘ from 3˘ where it had been for 26 years - only a penny in 26 years!
- Dodger catcher Roy Campanella is paralyzed when the car he was driving skidded into a telephone pole.
- The Bank of American introduces the BankAmericard, which will become the Visa card.
- Eighteen-year-old Frank Carney sees a story in the Saturday Evening Post about the "pizza fad" among teenagers and college students. With $600 borrowed from his mother, he opens the first Pizza Hut in Wichita, Kan.
- Crest toothpaste inaugurates the "Look, Ma! No cavities!" ad campaign.
- Nelson Mandela weds Winnie Madikizela.
- UP & International News Service merge into United Press International.
- The first ever Grammy Awards!
- Sterophonic recordings, which use two separately recorded channels of sound to recreate a sense of space, come into commercial use.
- Japan’s new Datsun (Model 211) cars begin shipping to the U.S. but only 52 will sell. An especially meager number since in 1958 America will import 430,808 passenger cars.
- The Chevrolet Impala is introduced!
- Dr Ake Senning installs the first pacemaker.
1959:
-
Cadillac
tailfins were now almost as tall as the car itself.
- Teflon-coated pots and pans go on sale.
- Barbie doll
appears.
- The first integrated circuit is demonstrated.
- The Ski-Doo snowmobile debuts.
- Rock and roll singers are killed in a plane crash in Iowa. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson the Big Bopper.
- 21 students at St. Mary's college in Morage, CA crammed themselves into a telephone booth.
- Pantyhose are introduced.
- Lady Chatterly's Lover banned by the U.S. Postal Service.
- "Think Small" campaign from Volkwagon. In 1999 Advertising Age picked this as the number one ad campaign of the century!
- Maxwell House inaugurates the "Good to the last drop" ad campaign.
- The BIC ballpoint pen is introduced in America!
- A banner year for imported passenger cars. Some 668,070 of them. Up from 21,287 in 1950.The trend will reverse itself and by 1961 when there are only 279,437 imports.
- The microchip is invented by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce of the U.S.
- Vince Lombardi signs on to coach Green Bay Packers, a job he would hold until 1968.
- Groucho, Chico & Harpo Marx's final TV appearance together - on G.E. Theater with host Ronald Reagan.
- Giants Stadium is renamed Candlestick Park.
- Frank Lloyd Wright dies
1960:
- Etch-A-Sketch debuts.
- Pentel introduces the felt-tip pen.
- The movie, Psycho, debuts.
- Elvis leaves the army
- Charles Van Doren arrested for cheating in quiz show.
- 16 yr. old Bobby Fischer wins US chess championship.
- Arnold Palmer defeats Jack Nicklaus in US Open.
1961: High school graduation.
- The $450 IBM Selectric typewriter appears.
- Slip 'n Slide is introduced.
- Barbie's friend, Ken, debuts.
- The drug thalidomide is found to cause malformations in new born babies
Contributions for this page were taken from http://www.menziesera.com/menziesera/index.htm and http://www.fiftiesweb.com/ These sites are recommended for more facts and fun memories.
Others sites made contributions as well.
1943-1961: Food World Events Miscellaneous Happenings Television Things Said