1950s

The 1950s were a decade that spanned the years 1950 through 1960. more...

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General

The 1950s in the United States of America were marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the baby boom from returning GIs who went to college under the G.I. Bill and settled in suburban America. Most of the internal conflicts that had developed in earlier decades like women's rights, civil rights, imperialism, and war were relatively suppressed or neglected during this time as a world returning from the brink hoped to see a more consistent way of life as opposed to liberalism and radicalism of the 1930s and 1940s. The effect of suppressing social problems in the 50s would have a significant impact on the rest of the twentieth century.

The 1950s were also marked with a rapid rise in conflict with the United States and the Soviet Union that would heighten the Cold War to an unprecedented level which would include the Arms Race, Space Race, McCarthyism, and Korean War. Stalin's death in 1953 left an enormous impact in Eastern Europe that forced the Soviet Union to create more liberal policies internally and externally. The rise of Suburbia as well as the growing conflict with the East are the two generally accepted reasons for the conservative domination of this decade.

Science

• Urey-Miller experiment shows that under simulated conditions resembling those thought to have existed shortly after Earth first created, many of the basic organic molecules that form the building blocks of modern life are able to spontaneously form
• Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the helical structure of DNA at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge
• Bruce Heezen discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
• Polio vaccine
• The third organ transplants are done in Boston and Paris in 1954.

War, peace, and politics

• Korean War
• Red Scare, McCarthy Hearings
• Suez Crisis
• European Common Market founded.
• Warsaw pact founded.
• Most above ground nuclear test explosions happened during this decade.
• The United States CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the Guatemalan government.
• Hungarian revolution of 1956 brutally suppressed by Soviet Union's troops.
• Fidel Castro gains power in Cuba.
• Mahmoud Abbas becomes involved in Palestinian politics in Qatar.
• Decolonization: Algeria, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
• Early history of the People's Republic of China, of the state of Israel, and of the Indonesian state.

Economics

• "Economic miracle" in West Germany and Italy.

Read more at Wikipedia.org