SCI-FI ON FILM & THE YEAR 1959

We've finally arrived at the final year of our look at the golden decade of science fiction films. Let's start off by having a brief overview of the major events and people that helped to begin to shape our world for the last 60 years.

Review of the year 1959

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Sci-Fi On Film and the Year 1958

The year 1958 was part of a pivotal decade without which we would not have the kind of modern world in which we live today. In all facets of our lives including music; science and technology; mass communication; international and global politics and civil and social movements & change, we owe a significant debt to the 1950s.

Far from being a quaint far off era that has little bearing on our supposedly more “sophisticated” way of life, the shadow of the 1950s still looms large.

Let’s take a look at the year 1958 and see what it had to offer…..

Read on for more…..

Sci Fi On Film & The Year 1957

In 1957 an average car in the US would set you back by about $2,749 out of your average yearly wages of $4.550.00, but at least it had big fins and a more powerful engine giving it the feel and appearance of a rocket ship! You probably would have purchased your car using credit seeing that 2/3 of all new cars were bought on credit. Speaking of rocket ships, you might’ve heard the news on your car radio that the Soviet Union had launched the world’s first space satellite called Sputnik. If that was too much of a scary prospect, you might’ve turned the dial to listen to some Rock and Roll music from say, an artist like "Little Richard" followed by an ad for a popular toy like a Slinky or a Hula Hoop. Ah! You finally arrive home as you pull in to the driveway of your $12,220.00 new house…..

Sci Fi Films

Four sci-fi films from 1957 in particular stand out for me and have remained etched in my memory for almost 50 years. They are, 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Kronos and The Monolith Monsters. I first saw them in the early 60’s and they scared the heck out of me.

Back in 1957, there was probably enough going on in the world to scare the heck out of people despite a lot of optimism. Many of the sci- fi films at the time played upon the concerns and perceptions that people had. One major concern would’ve been about the possible use of atomic and hydrogen bombs and their likely consequences in terms of the dangers of radioactivity and the possible destruction of humanity.

Science fiction films for the year 1957:

20 Million Miles to Earth	The 27th Day
She Devil	The Amazing Colossal Man
The Astounding She-Monster	Attack of the Crab Monsters
Beginning of the End	The Black Scorpion
The Brain from Planet Arous	The Cyclops
The Deadly Mantis	From Hell It Came
The Giant Claw	Half Human
The Incredible Shrinking Man	Invasion of the Saucer Men
The Invisible Boy	Kronos
The Land Unknown	The Monolith Monsters
Monster from Green	The Monster That Challenged the World
The Mysterians	The Night the World Exploded
Not of This Earth	Quatermass 2
The Secret of Two Oceans	The Strange World of Planet X
The Unearthly	The Unknown Terror

Most of the films from 1957 listed above will be featured in this blog. But first, let’s take a look at the events, forces and personalities from that year that shook the world back then and served to shape life in our own time in the second decade of the 21st Century….

1957: Major Events & People

Popular Culture:

Films & TV

• The Ten Commandments
• Around the World in Eighty Days

“Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley

• “The Bridge on the River Kwai”.A World War II drama starring Alex Guinness, William Holden and Jack Hawkins. Winner of multiple Oscars.
• The Three Faces of Eve
• "Around the World in 80 Days" receives Academy Award for best picture 
• "12 Angry Men," starring Henry Fonda
• Last broadcast of "I Love Lucy" on CBS-TV
• "American Bandstand," a teenage dance show hosted by Dick Clark makes its network debut on ABC-TV. 
• "Wagon Train" premiers
• "Perry Mason," starring Raymond Burr, premiers on CBS-TV
• The television series "Leave It to Beaver" premiers on CBS and continues for 6 seasons
• The movie "Peyton Place," starring Lana Turner had its world premiere in Camden, Maine
• TV series “Sea Hunt” with Lloyd Bridges begins. (I watched this in the Melbourne suburb of Altona in 1962 or 1963 while living in a half-finished building with my parents. I found it fascinating.)
• “Gunsmoke” is the top ranking network show on television for four seasons

Live Theatre & Musicals

• The musical "West Side Story," by Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins opens on Broadway 

Popular books, plays & publications

• “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss
• “From Russia with Love” by Ian Fleming
• “The Guns of Navarone” by Alistair MacLean
• "Long Day's Journey into Night" by Eugene O'Neill wins the Pulitzer Prize for drama

Viking Press publishes "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac who typed out the manuscript in 20 days on a single roll of teletype paper

Popular music

The Banana Boat Song  - Harry Belafonte	Elvis Presley - All Shook Up
That'll Be the Day  - Buddy Holly and the Crickets	Elvis Presley - Loving You
Pat Boone - Love Letters In The Sand	Diamonds - Little Darlin'
Tab Hunter - Young Love	Jimmy Dorsey - So Rare
Pat Boone - Don't Forbid Me	Guy Mitchell  - Singing The Blues
Sonny James - Young Love	Elvis Presley - Too Much
Perry Como - Round And Round	Everly Brothers - Bye Bye Love
Debbie Reynolds    Tammy	Buddy Knox - Party Doll
Elvis Presley - Teddy Bear	Elvis Presley - Jailhouse Rock
Marty Robbins - A White Sport Coat (And A Pink Carnation)	Everly Brothers - Wake Up Little Susie
Sam Cooke - You Send Me	Chuck Berry - School Day
Paul Anka - Diana	Jimmie Rodgers - Honeycomb
Jerry Lee Lewis - Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On	Fats Domino - I'm Walkin'
Ricky Nelson - Be-bop Baby	Larry Williams - Short Fat Fanny
Jim Lowe - The Green Door	Billy Williams - I'm Gonna Sit Rlght Down And Write Myself A Letter
Fats Domino - Blueberry Hill	Fats Domino - Blue Monday
Elvis Presley - Love Me Tender	Steve Lawrence - Party Doll
Chuck Berry Rock and Roll Music	Little Richard - Jenny Jenny
Pat Boone - Bernardine	Little Richard - Keep a Knockin'
Chuck Willis - C.C. Rider	Gene Vincent - Lotta Lovin'
Fats Domino - Valley of Tears	Pat Boone - Remember You're Mine
Guy Mitchell - Rock-a-Billy	Larry Williams - Bony Maronie
Rusty Draper - Freight Train

Science & Technology

• Ultrasound scanning pioneered in Scotland 
• The first nuclear reactor plant opens for production of electricity in Pennsylvania US

• The Soviet Union tests the H Bomb. 
• Great Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb on the Christmas Island.
• A 37-kiloton nuclear fission bomb, code-named Priscilla, is exploded in the Nevada desert at Frenchman Flat. The US has been manufacturing 10 nuclear bombs a day.

• South Africa born gastroenterologist, Basil Hirschowitz, introduces the first prototype “fiberscope.” In 1954 he had already begun work using glass fibers to transmit light. Fiber has since been widely used in telecommunications and surgery. 
• Borazan, a substance harder than diamonds is developed

One of the dreams of science fiction writers and film makers is realized with the start of “The Space Age” when the Soviet Union launches Sputnik (traveler), the first man-made space satellite. The satellite orbits the earth every 96 minutes at a maximum height of 584 miles. The event is timed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution.

• The Soviet Union launches Sputnik Two into orbit, with a dog on board named Laika, the first animal in space 
• A process for concentrating visible light as opposed to microwaves of a maser is developed by Columbia University doctoral student, Gordon Gould. He is the first to coin the term, “ laser.” 
• America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit fails as Vanguard TV3 only rises a few feet before crashing back down on to the launch pad and exploding. 
• The US begins its “Corona” project, a secret attempt to put a reconnaissance satellite into orbit 
• Fritz Wankel brings out his rotary engine 
• AT&T introduces itsTouchtone phones. 
• Seymour Cray co-founds Control Data Corp. where he builds the first computer to use radio transistors instead of vacuum tubes 
• Oral polio vaccine is developed and tested in Congo, Africa 
• Thalidomide is officially introduced to the market. It is later linked to severe birth defects 

International Affairs

• Eisenhower Doctrine: Proposal by US President Eisenhower to offer military assistance to Middle Eastern countries to resist Communist aggression 
• Suez Canal reopens
• France sends troops to Algeria to crush the rebel movement 
• Treaty of Rome is signed establishing the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. The goal is to have people, goods, services and money moving unchecked throughout the Union and to create a common market for all products, especially coal and steel 
• NATO warns the Soviet Union that any attack will be met with all available means, including nuclear weapons
• The Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations designed to detect Soviet bombers approaching North America, goes into operation.
• The United States and Canada agree to create the North American Air Defense Command 
• The International Atomic Energy Agency is established
• B-52 bombers begin full-time flying alert in case of attack by USSR
• Communist leaders meet in Moscow. Mao Zedong predicts that between a third and a half of the world’s population might be killed in a nuclear war and that most of the survivors would be living in the socialist block while “imperialism would be razed to the ground” 
• Policy of "Pre-delegation authority" is established when Pres. Eisenhower gives authority to senior military commanders to retaliate with nuclear weapons if the president cannot be reached or is unable to respond to a nuclear attack against the US 

Social & Political Events, Movements & Reforms

• Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. organizes the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to fight racial segregation by means of nonviolent protests 
• The Georgia Senate approves Sen Leon Butts' bill barring blacks from playing baseball with whites
• The US Supreme Court, in Butler v. Michigan, overturns a Michigan statute making it a misdemeanor to sell books containing obscene language that would tend to corrupt "the morals of youth"
• Mao’s policy of “Let a hundred flowers bloom, and a hundred schools of thought contend is reversed due to criticism and some 300,000 intellectuals are jailed or sent to the countryside to perform manual labor
• South African government approves race separation in universities
• Pope Pius XII published his encyclical ” Invicti Athletae” 
• The Tuskegee boycott begins as blacks boycott city stores

National Guard called out to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. Pres. Eisenhower responds with Federal troops to enforce federal law for integration.

• President Eisenhower signs into law the first civil rights bill to pass Congress since Reconstruction
• NYC is the 1st city to legislate against racial or religious discrimination in the housing market with its Fair Housing Practices Law

The social and literary Beat Movement is born: 

The Beat Generation sport beards, bongo drums and sandals. They have their own style of attire, use “hip” vocabulary and experiment with Zen and pot. Major figures of the movement are novelist Jack Kerouac and poet Allen Ginsberg. Jack Kerouac’s "On the Road" is the beatnik’s bible

• A group of scientists and supporters from around the world gathered in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, to call attention to the risks of nuclear war

World Firsts

• Walter "Fred" Morrison applies for a patent for a "flying toy" which we now know as the “Frisbee.” It is first produced by The Wham-O Company and is called the “Pluto Platter”
• Three B-52's take off from Castle Air Force Base in California on the first nonstop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, which lasts 45 hours and 19 minutes
• The Hamilton Watch Company is the first to introduce an electric watch 
• The Ryan X-13 Vertijet becomes the first jet to take-off and land vertically. Take that Harrier!
• The first experimental sodium nuclear reactor operates 
• The first British hydrogen bomb was detonated on Christmas Island in South Pacific
• “The Seawolf,” the first submarine powered by liquid metal cooled reactor, is completed 
• “Grayback,” the first submarine designed to fire guided missiles, is launched.
• Marine Maj. John Glenn sets a transcontinental speed record when he flies a jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds
• Althea Gibson becomes the first black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title 
• The U.S. surgeon general, Leroy E. Burney reports that there is a direct link between smoking and lung cancer. Whodda thunked it! 
• Santa Susana in Los Angeles County begins receiving the nation’s first commercial electricity from a small, civilian-owned, nuclear reactor. After It is shut down in 1964, scientists will later report that the plant might be responsible hundreds of cancer cases 
• The United States conducts its first underground nuclear test, code-named "Rainier," in the Nevada desert 
• USSR launches the first intercontinental multistage ballistic missile 
• The first balloon flight to exceed 100,000 feet takes off from Crosby, Minnesota
• Market researcher, James Vicary claims that he has invented a new way to get people to buy things, whether they want them or not via a process called “subliminal advertising.” He will later admit that his results were fabricated. In 1898 a book The New Psychology by E.W. Scripture was published which laid out most of the principles of subliminal response

USSR launches the first intercontinental multistage ballistic missile while later the United States successfully test-fires the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time

Personalities

• Humphrey Bogart dies in Los Angeles of cancer of the esophagus 
• Arturo Toscanini, Italian-US conductor dies in NYC
• Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy drinks himself to death
• John Simon Ritchie, later known as Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, is born in England
• French author Albert Camus is awarded the Nobel Prize in literature

Jimmy Hoffa is elected president of the Teamsters Union 

• Elvis Presley is given a draft notice to join US Army for National Service. He also purchases a mansion in Memphis, Tennessee and calls it Graceland and he makes another appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show

Politics

• President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon are sworn in for their second terms of office
• British PM Anthony Eden resigns in the wake of the Suez Crisis
• Harold Macmillan becomes prime minister of Britain, following the resignation of Anthony Eden 
• The Russian government announces that military hero Marshal Georgi Zhukov, has been relieved of his duties as Minister of Defense. Khrushchev accuses Zhukov of promoting his own "cult of personality" and sees him as a threat to his own popularity

Sport

Boxer Middleweight Sugar Ray Robinson loses, then wins and once again loses his title

Crime, Corruption & The Law

• The FBI arrests Jimmy Hoffa on bribery charge
• US Police and customs agents seize copies of “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg 
• Mob underboss Frank Scalice is shot to death at a produce market in the Bronx, New York
• Mob boss Albert Anastasia, the "Lord High Executioner" of "Murder Inc.," is shot to death in a barber shop inside the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York

Strange Stuff

Two US fighter planes are scrambled and ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying object over the English countryside.

Death & Disaster

• More than 500 people are killed after Hurricane Audrey rampages through coastal Louisiana and Texas 
• Windscale plutonium production reactor (Sellafield) fire north of Liverpool, England, spreads radioactive iodine and polonium through the countryside and into the Irish Sea. Livestock in the immediate area are destroyed, along with 500,000 gallons of milk. As many as 1,000, cancer deaths will be linked to the accident. PM Harold Macmillan orders the disaster to be hushed up 
• Colorado Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant fire releases some plutonium in the smoke. The fire was kept secret until 1969 when another fire released more plutonium 
• A flu pandemic begins in China and kills 1-4 million people. It causes some 70,000 deaths in the United States 
• A nuclear waste container explodes at the Mayak plant in the southern Urals of the USSR releasing 20 million curies of deadly strontium and cesium and contaminating some 9,200 square miles 

Other Interesting People & Events

• The Cavern Club ( the venue where the Beetles started) opens in Liverpool . Coincidentally, it is this very year that John Lennon meets Paul McCartney and invites him to join his Quarrymen. McCartney will soon introduce Lennon to George Harrison

And somewhat ambiguously….

In 1957, Vice-president Richard Nixon was stoned in Caracas 

(Take that any way you wish to!) 

Ah, 1957…What A Year!

©Chris Christopoulos 2015

Sci Fi On Film & The World Of 1956

We ended our Sci-Fi film journey through 1955 with an alien threat to Earth in the blockbuster, This Island Earth. We also saw our planet being threatened by alien menaces in The Beast with a Million Eyes and The Quatermass Xperiment.

As we saw, such fears did not stop us from venturing out into space and facing the perils of the final frontier in the ground-breaking film, Conquest of Space.

Threats to our survival came not only from outer space but also from that other little known frontier, the seas and oceans of the world in such films as, It Came from Beneath the Sea and Revenge of the Creature.

Of course, there were also threats to our survival that were largely of our own making such as in Creature with the Atom Brain, Day the World Ended and Tarantula.

We’ll be beginning our journey through Sci-Fi on film for the year 1956 in much the same way as we ended our look at the previous year. We’ll start off with an alien threat to Earth in the classic, Earth vs The Flying Saucers. Other films from 1956 that will be featured include;

• 1984 (See Sci-Fi screen gems) 
• The Beast of Hollow Mountain 
• The Creature Walks Among Us 
• Fire Maidens from Outer Space
• Forbidden Planet 
• The Gamma People 
• Godzilla, King of the Monsters
• Indestructible Man 
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers 
• It Conquered the World 
• The Man Who Turned to Stone 
• The Mole People 
• The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues
• Rodan
• World Without End 
• X the Unknown

First, let’s see what was going on back in 1956......

Overview

The yearly Inflation rate in the USA was 1.52% while in the UK it was 4.7%. On average, buying a house might set you back $11.700.00 while you might be earning $4.450.00 per year. A gallon of gas was 22 cents which would run a new car you might’ve bought for $2,050.00. 

Along with an increase in living standards there was an increase in college education with 1 in 3 high school graduates going to college. On TV you’d probably be watching "As The World Turns" and "The Price is Right" along with the Ed Sullivan show which even featured a certain Elvis Presley who entered the music charts for the first time with his hit, "Heartbreak Hotel." By his third and final appearance on the Sullivan show, Elvis was filmed from only the waist-up. due to complaints about his suggestive hip-swivelling gyrations! Oh, and Hallelujah for disposable diapers and tefal non-stick frying pans!

Then & Now

Events, conflicts, advancements in science and technology and the way we live today have their genesis in the time period which is the focus of this blog.

Then as now, countries try to extend their power and influence by means of direct interference in the affairs of other nations, leaving future generations with a mighty mess to clean up.

Since the fifties the conflicts in the Middle East have proven to be intractable. Tensions between the Muslim world and the Western world have been strained.

Palestinians are still trying to obtain their own state and reclaim basic dignity and human rights by breaking out of the apartheid-like system they have been forced to endure.

Deranged criminal acts of terrorism are still being perpetrated resulting in the deaths of children who simply attend school to get an education or in the deaths of civilians who are merely enjoying a coffee at a café or watching a marathon running race

Racial conflict and inequality is still being grappled with in the US and elsewhere with incidents involving the death of unarmed black civilians at the hands of law enforcement officers providing the trigger for the release of pent up feelings of injustice and discrimination.

We still like to build more and more roads that attract more and more cars requiring the construction of even more roads!

Oh, by the way, at the time of writing, the failed 55 year old US policy of embargo on Cuba appears to be on the verge of being revoked.

And did I mention that we still have the capacity to destroy the world several times over with the nuclear weapons we have at our disposal?

Distrust of government and authorities? Surely not! In 1956 the CIA engaged in a secret program called MK-ULTRA that included dosing hundreds of unsuspecting subjects (people) with LSD and other hallucinogens! We can trust ‘em now, right? right?

Let’s see what was happening back in 1956 and the kind of legacy that was left to future generations…….

International Events

Dwight Eisenhower is re-elected President of USA.

Soviet leader Khrushchev publicly denounces Stalin, ushering in the process of "de-Stalinization."

Egyptian President Nasser pledged to reconquer Palestine. His government made Islam the state religion.

Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal to provide revenue for the construction of the high Aswan dam. His speech in Alexandria, which included the code word “De Lesseps,” triggered the army to start the seizure of the canal. Egypt seized the Suez Canal and then Britain and France responded with force.

Britain and France had announced economic pressure on Egypt to accept international control over the Suez Canal. This was followed by British, French, US agreement to establish an association to operate the Suez. Nasser viewed this as an attempt to provoke war.

An Israeli delegation presented France with a fabricated reason for war in Egypt. Israel proposed to invade Egypt and then let France and Britain come in as peacekeepers and occupy the Suez Canal.

British Prime Minister Anthony Eden had agreed with the French that once fighting began, they would send in paratroopers under the pretext of separating the fighting factions, but would actually support Israel, seize the canal and undermine Nasser.

Israel invades Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Paratroopers under Ariel Sharon dropped into Sinai to open the Straits of Tiran. The Sinai Campaign, also known as Operation Kadesh, lasted eight days.

At Kafr Kassem village 49 Palestinians were massacred by Israeli border guards enforcing a curfew.

Gaza was occupied by the Israeli army and evacuated in March 1957.

Britain and France land troops in Egypt during fighting between Egyptian and Israeli forces around the Suez Canal. A cease-fire was declared two days later.

The UN created an emergency force (UNEF) to supervise a cease fire.

Britain surrendered to American demands and stopped British operations in Egypt’s Canal Zone.

Soviet troops suppress a popular uprising against the communist regime in Hungary. Russian troops and tanks attacked Budapest and crushed the Hungarian revolt. Martial law was proclaimed and mass arrests followed. 25,000 people were killed. 

Fidel Castro begins a revolution in Cuba. He and 81 rebel exiles departed Mexico to liberate Cuba from the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Pakistan became an independent republic within the British Commonwealth. Pakistan (Islamic Republic of Pakistan) became the first Islamic republic. 

Khrushchev announced that the USSR would produce an H-bomb guided missile. He also told Western diplomats "We will bury you." (Also translated as “be present at the funeral” of the West.)

The Sino-Soviet ideological rift developed. (These days we tend to snuggle up to China due to its influence and economic clout despite it being a one party dictatorship with questionable conduct toward those who display dissent or seek independence. We jumped into bed with Russia for a while but they’re once again the bad boy on the block. It would be interesting if Russia and China suddenly discovered a new found love for each other! And so it goes on and on….)

The future dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein joined the Arab Baath Socialist Party. (We know where his career path led….)

After the French withdrew from Vietnam, the US installed and financially supported the political puppet regime of South Viet Nam. South Vietnam was essentially a creation of the US. Later on there were US advisers and support staff and then full-scale involvement. (Sound a bit familiar?)

Economic & Business Developments

US Congress approves the Highway Act, which allows for construction of the U.S. interstate highway system. (Ah, nothing like dependence on oil and the motor car. Love the smell of petrol fumes first thing in the morning!)

Atomic Energy Commission approves development of commercial nuclear power plants.

The US Federal Hourly Minimum Wage was set at $1.00 an hour

Science & Technology

The first transatlantic telephone cable goes into operation

Dr. Albert Sabin develops an oral polio vaccine.

Ampex Corporation demonstrated its first commercial videotape recorder,

The first known airborne US hydrogen bomb was tested over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. 

The Bell X-2 rocket plane set a world aircraft speed record of 3,050 kph.

IBM’s Model 305 computer was capable of storing 20 megabytes of data.

IBM lab leader Reynold B. Johnson developed a way to store computer data on a metal disk instead of on tape or drum. 

The first commercial disk drive, called RAMAC (random access method of accounting and control) used 50 disk platters, each 2-feet in diameter and held (a whopping!) 5 megabytes of data! It was the start of the disk drive industry and many thanks to them. (I have a compact 1 terabyte storage device next to me that would've made the developers curl up in a foetal position!)

The first all-colour TV station was NBC-TV in Chicago.

The neutrino, an atomic particle with no charge, was produced at the Los Alamos laboratory in the US.

The cosmic-ray neutron intensity monitor collected the first evidence indicating the existence of the heliosphere, the region of space dominated by the Sun. The edge of the heliosphere is a magnetic bubble-like medium and is located far beyond the orbit of recently demoted Pluto. The region is influenced by the sun’s magnetic field.

The computer mouse was invented. The point-and-click graphical interface was introduced by an MIT group working on the Whirlwind computer. The mouse was originally referred to as an "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System." (Not a very furry or friendly term!)

Patent applied for "machine vision device,” now known as bar code scanner technology. (Ding!)

Bell Telephone began to develop the visual telephone.

The newly developed ion microscope made atoms visible.

It was first proposed that “free radicals” caused aging, indicating that antioxidants may slow the process. (And now we have a whole industry based around it!)

Soft contact lenses were invented.

MD Ross and ML Lewis reached 22.8 km in a balloon while Dr Edward Purdy Ney and colleague, John Winckler, built a pyramid-shaped balloon that set a world altitude record of 27 miles. It carried instrumentation for meteorological and cosmic-ray research.

Sporting Events & Achievements

The Olympic Games are held in Melbourne, Australia. The Netherlands and Spain refused to compete in support of Hungary following Russia’s invasion. 45 athletes from Hungary defected during the games. Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq boycotted the games as a protest over British and French involvement in the Suez Canal crisis. China also boycotted the Games in protest at the inclusion of athletes from Taiwan.

Australian swimmer, Murray Rose became an Olympic champion winning the first of his three gold medals at the Melbourne Games in the 4 x 200m freestyle relay.

Light heavyweight boxer Rocky Marciano announced his retirement with a record of 43 knockouts and having won every fight in his professional career.

At age 21, Floyd Patterson became the youngest boxer to win the heavyweight crown when he knocked out Archie Moore.

Entertainment & Popular Culture

Movies included The Ten Commandments, Around the World in 80 Days, The Man with the Golden Arm and The Seventh Seal

Songs included Don’t Be Cruel, Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog and I Could Have Danced All Night. Rock and roll becomes a national phenomenon, in large part due to the popularity of Elvis Presley.

Little Richard released "Tutti Frutti" while Buddy Holly recorded "Blue Days Black Night" in Nashville.

Rockabilly performer, Carl Perkins’ song "Blue Suede Shoes" hit the top of the charts.

The Man In Black, Johnny Cash recorded "Folsom Prison Blues" and "I Walk the Line."

John Lennon formed a British band called the Quarrymen. (We all know what that band morphed into!)

Popular TV Shows included, Danny Thomas Show, Perry Como Show, Ed Sullivan Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and This is Your Life.

My Fair Lady opened in New York amd the beautiful Grace Kelly married Monaco’s Prince Rainier III.

The Arts

Artist Jackson Pollock died in an automobile accident in East Hampton, N.Y.

Eugene O'Neill wrote his play "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

The first edition of "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg is published.

C. Wright Mills’ "The Power Elite," was published in which it was asserted that a small group of powerful decision makers drove national events. (Whoda thunked it?Required reading back in my college days in the 1970s!)

Race Relations

Autherine Lucy arrived at the Tuscaloosa branch of the University of Alabama and became the first black person to enrol there. She had been accepted in 1952 and then was denied because of her race.

The US Montgomery Boycott sparked arrests that included Martin Luther King.

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the ban on segregation in public schools in Brown vs. Board of Education and also ended race segregation on buses.

Tennessee National Guardsmen halted rioters protesting the admission of 12 African-Americans to schools in Clinton, Tennessee.

In South Africa the government ordered over 100,000 non-whites to leave their homes in Johannesburg within a year, in order to make room for whites.

Nelson Mandela and 156 others were arrested for political activities in South Africa. They were charged with treason for supporting the Freedom Charter, which called for a non-racial and socialist-based economy.

REMEMBER....

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" 

George Santayana (1863-1952)

You have to know the past to understand the present

REMEMBER.......

©Chris Christopoulos 2014