1950-1959 A.D. - When We Started Watching TV
My mom grew up in the 1950s.
In fact, her 1950s are like my 1990s. They were her grade school, Jr. High and High School years. The music, the movies, even the politics (which she was unaware of), shaped her younger years.
What decade did your mom grow up in? It's fun to compare your "school days decade" with those that raised you, or have a strong influence on you even today.
Quick Note: As I've been researching the 1950s, it seems that a lot of what started simmering in this decade, boiled over in the 2020s, but not all of it in obvious ways. I'll do my best to explain what I mean as I add more and more onto this page. Hopefully, the picture will start to come into focus.
(Feature Photo: A family watches television in 1958, Wikimedia Commons)
1950
Harry S. Truman is the president – George VI is king of England Clement Attlee is prime minister
During the 1950s, televisions become a household norm
April 3, Worlds in Collision, by Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) is published, in it he postulates that in the 15th century B.C., the planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet-like object and passed near Earth, changing its orbit and axis (the scientific community then, as well as now, highly criticized this theory https://www.velikovsky.info/fred-whipple/ ); Back in the 1920’s, Velikovsky helped in the found the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and even worked on a volume of work with Albert Einstein in order to do so, he is a Russian, Israeli, American scholar
April 9, Hugh Hefner (founder of Playboy magazine) turns 24 years old
June 25, the Korean War breaks out between North Korea and South Korea, with North Korea supported by the Soviet Union and South Korea supported by the United Nations, principally by the United States; Both North Korea and South Korea saw themselves as the legitimate government of all Korea (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
October 16, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis is published
The first episode of the Colgate Comedy Hour airs
Masonic Orders of Fraternity, by Manly P. Hall is published
November issue of the Metronome magazine features Frank Sinatra on the set of his television program The Frank Sinatra Show (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
December 18, Director Stephen Spielberg turns 4 years old, he will go on to make such films as Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones and Saving Private Ryan, the latter of which will star Tom Hanks (who is will be born in five years) (Photo: Spielberg speaking at the Pentagon in the year 1999, Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
1951
Harry S. Truman is president of the USA/Alben W. Barkley is vice president –George VI is king of England/Clement Attlee is the prime minister of England until October 26, when Winston Churchill becomes prime minister George VI is king of England
Gerard Kuiper predicts the existence of another belt of rocky, orbiting bodies would be found just outside Neptune’s orbit, his prediction was proven correct in the 1990’s when telescopes discovered hundreds of small, dim, rocky, objects circling at the edge of our solar system
Jan Hendrik Oort predicts that a shell of rocky ice balls, the breeding ground of long-period comets, should orbit the sun at an extreme distance, up to 100,000 AU, although the cloud has not been seen by any telescope, the trajectory of comets such as Hale-Bopp through the solar system backs up this claim (National Geographic Encyclopedia of Space, Pg. 115) (Photo: A "map" of the solar system showing the placement of the Oort Cloud, as well as the space probe Voyager 1 that will be launched in the year 1977)
April 9, Hugh Hefner (founder of Playboy magazine) turns 25 years old
Archaeologist, Zakaria Goneim, starts looking for pyramids built by Pharaoh Zoser’s successors (3rd Egyptian Dynasty, 2080-ish to 1950-ish)
August 14, Newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst, dies, aged 88 years old, in Beverly Hills, CA (b. 1863); Hearst built a "castle" in San Marino, California that has been turned into a museum (Photo: Hearst in 1904; Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
THE UNITED NATIONS complex is completed in New York City and becomes their official headquarters
Bill Gates Sr. (Bill Gates’ dad) marries Mary Maxwell; Mary’s paternal grandfather, James Willard Maxwell was president of the National City Bank in Seattle from 1911 to 1929 and a director of the Seattle branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
David Bohm writes a text book entitled Quantum Theory, which is still a classic in the field, while he is an assistant professor at Princeton University (he took the job in 1947), while completing this work, he became acquainted with Albert Einstein, who was also at Princeton at the time
Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli get divorced
1952
Harry S. Truman is president of the USA/Alben W. Barkley is vice president – King George VI dies on February 6 and Elizabeth becomes queen (she’s crowned next year)
New Years Day, Zakaria Goneim’s crew find an unfinished wall while looking for the Lost Pyramid, it dates to somewhere between 2080 B.C. and 1950 B.C. and has graffiti/construction notes carved into it
February 6, King George VI of England dies, aged 56 (b. 1895) at Sandringham House, Norfolk (this is the king that the movie The Kings Speech is based on)
April 9, Hugh Hefner (founder of Playboy magazine) turns 26 years old
“By the early 1950s, in the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, [Francis] Crick began his research on the DNA structure with James Watson, who shared the same interest as Crick in genetics and studying the structure of DNA…During this time, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, researches at King’s College in London, obtained images from the X-ray diffraction they performed on DNA fibers. Franklin’s X-ray photographs had established unequivocally the structure of DNA” https://stmuscholars.org/watson-and-crick-the-discovery-of-the-dna-structure/
Albert Einstein is offered the presidency of Israel, which he declines saying he thought he was too naïve for politics
The Korean War continues to be fought between North Korea and South Korea
The movie Singing in the Rain releases in theaters
October 7, the first episode of American Bandstand airs (Photo: The Associated Press, 1958)
October 14, the United Nations meets for their 7th session at the newly completed UN Building in New York, the Korean War is still ongoing, so there are truce talks
November 4, Prescott Bush (grandfather of George W. Bush) becomes the senator from Connecticut (1952-1963); Bush was still able to secure this seat even after he had his assets in the bank he co-owned held under the Trading with the Enemy Act in 1942 for the duration of WWII (Photo: Prescott and Dorthy Bush in 1952; Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Winfried Otto Schumann, a German physicist, begins studying the theoretical aspects of the global resonances of the earth-ionosphere waveguide system (today known as the Schumann Resonances), between 1952 and 1954, Schumann, together with H.L. König, attempt to measure the resonant frequencies (although it wasn’t until measurements made by Balser and Wagner in 1960-1963 that adequate analysis techniques were available to extract the resonance information from the background noise); Since then, there has been an increasing interest in the Schumann resonances in a wide variety of fields, according to NASA, there are about 2,000 thunderstorms on the earth at any given moment, with 50 flashes per second; The amazing thing is, these scientists will discover that the Schuman Resonance (or earth resonance) is the same as the frequency of human Alpha brain waves, which are our awake-but-resting brain waves; The Schuman Resonance is often referred to as EARTH'S HEARTBEAT
Ages in Chaos, by Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) is published, in it he writes of parallels he found between Biblical and Egyptian history from the Exodus to the early Divided Monarchy era
Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia has the Hohenzollern Castle in Germany furnished with valuable works of art, as well as works of art that are historically significant to the history of Prussia and its kings (Photo clockwise from left: Prince Ferdinand at his desk, The Prussian Flag and later the German Empire Flag during WWII, Hohenzollern Castle in Germany, Steps inside Hohenzollern Castle)
A photo is taken of an episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour with Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and Rosemary Clooney (George Clooney's aunt)
1953
Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the 34th president of the United States / Richard Nixon becomes the vice president – Queen Elizabeth II is on the throne of England (first year of queenship)
January 8, Elvis Presley turns 18 years old, his music career won’t start until next year in 1954
January 3, John F. Kennedy becomes the United States Senator from Massachusetts (he’s 35 years old, will become president in 8 years)
January 20, Jeffery Epstein is born New York City, NY to Pauline (née Stolofsky, 1918-2004) and Seymour Epstein (1916-1991)
February 28, after discovering that the DNA is a double helix, Francis Crick and James Watson construct the FIRST MODEL OF A DNA STRAND https://stmuscholars.org/watson-and-crick-the-discovery-of-the-dna-structure/
March 19, the 25th Academy Awards ceremony is held at the Pantages Theatre, it’s hosted by Bob Hope and Conrad Nagel and has 40 million viewers, The Greatest Show on Earth wins Best Picture (Wikipedia)
April 10, the newly appointed director of the CIA delivers a speech to a gathering of Princeton alumni, though the event is mundane, global tensions are running high, the Korean War is coming to an end, and earlier this week, the New York Times published a startling story asserting that American POWs returning from the country may have been “converted” by “Communist brain-washers,” just three days after Dulles gives his speech decrying Soviet tactics in “Brain Warfare,” he approves MK-Ultra, a top secret CIA program for “covert use of biological and chemical materials” for “mind control” experiments generally centered around behavior modification via electro-shock therapy, hypnosis, polygraphs, radiation and a variety of drugs, toxins, and chemicals (it is worth noting that NASA is founded four years after this) ( https://www.history.com/mkultra-operation-midnight-climax-cia-lsd-experiments )
May 29, John F. Kennedy turns 36 years old (b. 1917)
June 2, Queen Elizabeth II is crowned in Westminster Abbey
June 11, Nelson Rockefeller becomes the 1st Under Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare—THE POSITION IS ESTABLISHED, HE IS THE FIRST ONE TO HOLD THIS OFFICE, it lasts until 1979 when it is split up and renamed
August 27, Roman Holiday releases in theaters, this is Audrey Hepburn’s “break out” film and she becomes very popular
September 7, The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis is published
September 28, Edwin Hubble dies in San Marino, CA
November 4, Calamity Jane releases in theaters starring Doris Day
In 1953 alone, 1 million air conditioners were sold in the U.S. as they had now become affordable thanks to the increased prosperity after WWII
1954
Dwight D. Eisenhower is president/Richard Nixon is vice president – Elizabeth II is queen of England
January 20, Jeffery Epstein turns 1 year old
April 29, Jerry Seinfeld is born
March 9, Zakaria Goneim assembles the press to photograph as they finally enter the Lost Pyramid, but their progress is stopped when they find that the ceiling caved in at some point during history, it wasn’t until June 26 that they finally got through and found the tomb chamber with the sarcophagus—which ended up being empty! UTP 26)
Nelson Rockefeller continues as the 1st Under Secretary of Health Education and Welfare until December 22, when the office is given to Herold Christian Hunt who had been Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools since 1947
Manly P. Hall becomes an honorary Freemason, since he has done so much research on them
The U.S. Supreme Court outlaws racial segregation in public schools in the ruling of Brown Vs. Board of Education
1955
Dwight D. Eisenhower is president – Queen Elizabeth is on the throne of England
July 17, Disneyland opens
Steve Jobs is born
Vietnam War begins (goes on for 19 years)
Albert Einstein dies in NJ
October 28, Bill Gates is born in Seattle, WA
Final episode of the Colgate Comedy Hour airs
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis is published
“In God We Trust” on all U.S. currency is required by law (but doesn’t show up until 1957)
1956
Dwight D. Eisenhower is president – Queen Elizabeth is on the throne of England
January 27, Elvis Presley’s first single Heartbreak Hotel releases
Dick Clark takes over hosting American Bandstand
Grace Kelly (American Actress) marries the prince of Monaco (a French, City State), Rainier III (reigned May 9, 1949 - April 6, 2005 when he died)
July 9, Actor Tom Hanks is born in Concord, California, he will receive the Medal of Freedom from President Obama in the year 2016 (Obama will be born in five years); In the photo below you'll see Bill Gates (who is one year old right now in 1956), and Ellen DeGeneres (who will be born in two years in 1958); Both Gates and DeGeneres will also receive medals; just wanted to put this here for perspective)
George Soros moves to New York from Hungary, he is 25 years old right now in 1956, and will work for F.M. Mayer as an arbitrage trader until 1959 (Photo is of him in the year 2011 at the World Economic Forum conference; The World Economic Forum will be founded in 1971; Soros is 91 years old in the year 2022)
1957
Dwight D. Eisenhower is president (starts 2nd term) – Queen Elizabeth is on the throne of England
The first washing machine to have buttons that can control water temps and spin speeds is developed
Scientists observe comet Wirtanen breaking apart while still inside the orbit of Saturn, well over 800 million miles from the sun (by the 1950s, the consensus was that comets were ice snowballs, so then how was the comet breaking apart already, that far away in from the sun in freezing space?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8k7AwmKs90
“In God We Trust” first appears on all U.S. currency
March 22, Elvis Presley's single I'm All Shook Up releases
March 25, the Treaty of Rome is signed creating the European Economic Community (under European Union)
July 9, Tom Hanks turns 1 year old
August 12, May Britt (who marries Sammy Davis Jr.) is on the cover of LIFE magazine, it says “One of Hollywood’s Swedish Charmers: May Britt,” other articles are “The Jews of America and the State of Israel” and “Russia’s Pitch to World Youth”
George Soros is still working for F.M. Mayer in New York
November 29, C.S. Lewis turns 58 years old
1958
Dwight D. Eisenhower is president – Elizabeth II is queen of England
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is created in response to the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union; President Eisenhower created DARPA to sort out and organize competing American missile and space projects and to delineate boundaries separating military from civilian space research (see 1960 next)
January 20, Jeffery Epstein turns 5 years old
January 26, Ellen DeGeneres is born
End of Kingdom of Iraq when the monarchy is overthrown and the beginning of the Republic of Iraq—for the next two decades Iraq is ruled by a series of military and civilian governments (history.com)
July 9, Tom Hanks turns 2 years old
August 29, Michael Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana
September 25, Viktor Schauberger dies in Linz Austria (b. 1885); He was an Austrian forest caretaker, naturalist, philosopher, inventor and biomimicry experimenter
October 20, G.H. Lang (George Henry Lang), an English Bible teacher, author and Biblical scholar, dies, aged 83 in Wimborne, Dorset, England (b. 1874, in Greenwich, England); Lang wrote several books, as well as the addition of Chapter 16 in G.H. Pember’s book Earth’s Earliest Ages, in which he begins by saying that England is in danger of becoming paganistic, “England is neither all the world nor is isolated from the rest of the world. Politically, economically, intellectually, and also spiritually the world situation is fast being unified. Satan is aiming at, and working for, one universal kingdom that is to be avowedly under the sovereignty of his nominee, the Man of Sin, Antichrist. To accomplish this grand end, it will be indispensable that those lands where the gospel has had public influence shall again be paganized. At this point England stands in the greatest danger as a prime point of attack by the powers of darkness…” (Earth’s Earliest Ages, 283), It is worth noting that at this time, the Secret Society that had begun with Cecil Rhodes in the 1890’s has now been in power behind the scenes for quite some time; Their aim is to bring the entire world under the banner of Britain (See the book The Anglo American Establishment for a detailed account of their group and its reach into the governments of the world)
After decades of work, “J.C. Kendrew determined the structure of the protein myoglobin using X-ray crystallography; finally, a technique showed the detailed structure of one of the basic components of life. And what was seen? Once again, more complexity. Before the determination of myoglobin’s structure, it was thought that proteins would turn out to be simple and regular structures, like salt crystals…As a result of the X-ray work of Kendrew on proteins and (most famously) Watson and Crick on DNA, for the first time biochemists actually knew the shapes of the molecules that they were working on. The beginning of modern chemistry can be dated to that time. Advances in physics and chemistry, too, have spilled over and created a strong synergism for research on life.” (DBB 12)
A Night to Remember by Walter Lord (an ex-CIA agent) is published, it’s about the sinking of the Titanic, later a movie is made of it, solidifying in the public mind that the Titanic is a tragic, unanticipated event
October 1, NASA is founded
1959
Dwight D. Eisenhower is president – Queen Elizabeth is on the throne of
England – Stephen Hawking begins his university education at University College
Oxford at the age of 17
– Billie Holiday dies in New York City
– January 20, Jeffery Epstein turns 6 years old
– March 3, Lou Costello dies on in Beverly Hills
– Thomas Young’s principle color theory that the eye has three color receptors (to receive the three primary colors) and that perceive all colors, is finally confirmed by two groups in the US, one at the Johns Hopkins University and the other at Harvard University (LMWKE 82)
– May 14, Mom turns 16 years old
– July 9, Tom Hanks turns 3 years old
– July 26, Kevin Spacey Fowler is born in South Orange, New Jersey, he will become good friends with Jeffrey Epstein and fly several times on the Lolita Express to Epstein’s Island, a photo will also be taken of him and Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, on the thrones in Buckingham Palace in 2002 while on a visit with President Clinton
– A picture is taken of Ernest Hemmingway, Gary Cooper, and Bobbie Peterson in Picabo, Idaho while they are out bird-hunting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway
– Solomon Guggenheim (b. 1861) founds the Guggenheim Museum – Nelson Rockefeller (grandson of John D. Rockefeller) becomes governor of New York (he will remain so until 1973—14 years of governorship—and after this, he becomes Vice President)
Leave a comment