1950 Official census shows U.S. population at 150,000,000.
1950 George Mikan (former DePaul University all-American) and the Minneapolis Lakers win their first NBA championship.
1950 U.S.A. & UN back South Korea following communist invasion - 60,000 reservists called up to active duty.
1950 Korean War involves many nations - General Douglas MacArthur & UN troops push Communists back toward the northern border. Most of the UN troops are from U.S. and South Korea.
1950 “Peanuts” comic strip, featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, & Linus, makes its debut on October 2nd.
1950 – Ted Williams is baseball’s highest paid player, earning $125,000 a year.
1950 – Boston Celtics become the first team in the NBA to integrate, signing Charles Cooper to a contract. Boston Red Sox are MLB’s last team to integrate in 1959.
1951 22nd amendment is ratified – which limits U.S. Presidents to two terms in office.
1951 Insubordination costs MacArthur his job - President Truman relieves the general of his command and replaces him with General Matthew Ridgeway.
1951 American television audiences love Lucy. “I Love Lucy” becomes the top situation comedy of the early 1950s.
1951 Amount of appropriated funds for Marshall Plan tops $12 billion.
1951 – Veins from the leg are used in surgery to replace damaged vessels in other parts of the body.
1952 – The first full-length 3-D movie is released.
1952 – Heart attack victim is revived for the first time using electric shock.
1952 - Searle Laboratories develop the first birth control pill. Extensive testing done on 15,000 volunteers in Puerto Rico.
1952 Republican candidate Dwight Eisenhower defeats Democratic senator Adlai Stevenson in presidential election.
1952 MAD magazine make its debut.
1952 Decathlete Bob Mathias, boxer Floyd Patterson, and U.S. basketball team star in Summer Olympics hosted by Helsinki, Finland.
1953 McDonald’s goes nationwide - adopts the golden arches as their logo.
1953 Julius & Ethel Rosenberg are executed for selling atomic secrets to Soviets.
1953 Playboy magazine makes its debut -Marilyn Monroe is first centerfold Sweetheart of the Month.
1953 Korean War draws to a close - truce line is set at 38th parallel.
1953 – Chevrolet introduces its latest model – a sports car, the Corvette.
1954 – Miss America pageant is televised for the first time.
1954 – The U.S. Navy launches its first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus.
1954 – Surgeons for the first time perform open heart surgery.
1954 Dr. Jonas Salk discovers polio vaccine - 21,000 cases of polio reported in U.S. in the previous year, 1953.
1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas becomes landmark court case. It overturns Plessy vs. Ferguson, which allowed segregated school facilities.
1954 Interstate highway bill passes by congress – signed into law by President Eisenhower it creates a nationwide highway system.
1955 Congress establishes a new minimum wage for the country - $1.00 an hour.
1955 Walt Disney converts orange groves into huge family amusement park. Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California.
1955 Backed by the NAACP, Rosa Parks actions spur successful bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.
1955 Screen star James Dean dies in auto accident in California.
1955 – Ford introduces its latest model, a two-seater called the Thunderbird.
1955 – NBA introduces the 24-second shot clock. Pre-shot clock games were slow and boring. Example: Ft. Wayne 19 – Minneapolis 18. Post-shot clock example: Boston 173 – Minneapolis 139. (Record: Detroit Pistons 186- Denver Nuggets 184, December 13, 1983 - 3OT)
1955 – Doctors perform the first successful kidney transplant.
1956 Elvis Presley, a young rock-a-billy artist from Tupelo, Mississippi makes a smash debut in the world of Rock and Roll.
1956 Yankee pitcher Don Larsen pitches perfect game in World Series vs. Brooklyn Dodgers – allows no hits, not runs, no walks, and no errors. Yankees win 2-0.
1956 Eisenhower wins bid for re-election defeating Adlai Stevenson again.
1956 Soviets out duel U.S. for medals at Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. Medal count: Soviet Union 99 – United States 74.
1956 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) formed in Atlanta. Martin Luther King Jr. becomes best know of its leaders.
1957 US Army troops are brought in to assist with the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. 9 African-American students are escorted to school and between classes.
1957 Soviets launch first satellite (Sputnik) into space. American scientists scramble to catch up as “Space Race” begins.
1957 – Wham-O introduces two successful products: the Frisbee and the Hula Hoop.
1957 – American Bandstand, with host Dick Clark, airs for the first time.
1958 – CBS and other studios drop their quiz shows from their programming line-up because of the Quiz Show scandal, in which contestants were given answers before going on the air.
1958 – Pizza Hut opens its first restaurant.
1958 Congress allots millions to create National Aeronautics & Space Agency (NASA).
1959 Alaska & Hawaii become the 49th and 50th states respectively.
1959 Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson die in plane crash 2/3/59 “The day the music died."
1959 – The first Barbie dolls are sold.
1959 – Xerox introduces its first commercial photocopy machine.