Hi,
i was hoping someone could help me.  I am a writter and i am looking for big events that happened in the 50's. Could anyone help me out?  I am looking for anything at all.
thank you

Frankie

Alaska and Hawaii both became states in 1959

This website might help Faldema.

http://cdcga.org/HTMLs/decades/1950s.htm

great web site !!

I was born.

Quoting:
Hi,
i was hoping someone could help me.  I am a writter and i am looking for big events that happened in the 50's.
Frankie
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McCarthyism
Spunik
Heart of the baby boom
Hydrogen bomb
Korean War



Cat

HAHA, thank you but somehow i don't think i can use that

FRankie

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I was born.

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Thank you.  You've all been so helpful

Frankie

The interstate highway system went into effect, all those interstates started being construted to link us all together...


not really sure of what u are looking for to write about...


give us a hint and we may be able to help u more...with our input of how it affected us

Doo-Wop happened in the 50's.

Howard

Elvis Presley
Bill Haley & His Comets

Tv had just become popular.

:D :D :D :DElvis,the Everly brothers,Little Richard,Brenda Lee,and the Coasters all became big in the 50s.Cheers!

David Halberstam wrote a book called "The Fifties."
The American Peoples Encyclopedia (does it still exist?) did a yearbook for every year when I was a kid.

Jimmy Rodgers sang, "Honeycomb"

"it's a darn good life when you got a wife like honeycomb"

I don't know if any of this would help, as it's mostly entertainment-based, but:

Disney's animated films and others:
1950:  Cinderella
1951:  Alice In Wonderland
1953:  Peter Pan
1955:  Lady & the Tramp
 (also Disneyland, and the Mickey Mouse Club)
1957:  Zorro
1959:  Sleeping Beauty

Songs:
1953:  When I Fall In Love (remade in 1993 with Celine Dion & Clive Davis)
1954:  Bip Bam (Clyde McPhatter & the Drifters)

Other:
1956:  Someone, I forget his name, had an idea to play games on the TV.  This would later evolve into video games.  (read it on a far side calendar for 2000)

I was doing a web search for 1950s icons and found a few interesting sites:

http://www.interaccess.org/kpa/icons/1950s.html

http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson148.shtml

There may be more out there though.

-Rock n' roll was created (likely from "Rock Around the Clock"?)
-the polio outbreak
-Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens die in a plane crash on February (the 3rd?) of '59

Two words:  Poodle skirts

I was born in 1947 but I remember in the 50's and early to mid 60's the race riots in America. Little Rock, Arkansas was especially bad. There were still bathroom signs and signs in restaurants designating places for 'whites only'. I had a beautiful friend in high school. She was black. She came to dinner at our home once and the next day, someone threw a rock through our front window with a piece of paper attached which included racial vulgarities and slurs. Schools were 'segrigated' meaning only whites could attend certain schools and other schools were for blacks. Afro Americans were not referred to as people but as N... I refuse to use that word....My uncle was a klansman...(KKK) I was scared to death of him because he knew of my friend. I remember the crosses they burned and the white, pointed hoods and the horrible lynchings and the klan was so powerful that even those who symphasized with the blacks didn't dare defend them out of fear of the klan.

Prayer was legal in schools. Every day began with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord's Prayer (said out loud)

Some people built bomb shelters with 3-5ft. thick walls to protect their families in case of atomic attacks.

We had air raid drills in school. Everyone was instructed to keep away from outside walls, especially those with windows.
At the sound of the sirens, we were to walk single file into the hallway and stand facing the wall and cover our heads with our arms and wait for the end of the drill.

In the 50's, I don't think anyone even heard of an artificial Christmas tree...people still took to the woods and cut one with an ax. We always would avoid those with a double top and a crooked trunk. No matter how perfect it looked in the woods, it always had a flaw of some sort once it was set up. Sometimes we had to tie it up in a corner because it was too crooked to stand in the standard.

There were no smoke detectors in stores or homes. Yes for the public schools...Private schools were still exempt for some reason.  

Mom made all our school clothes from some of her old dresses.
We had no electricity so she used a treadle machine.

We played music on a Victrola. They were 78 RPM's and you had to stay near so when the record was finished you could lift the arm and move it to the beginning of the record again.
Then 45 RPM records came in and then 33's. The 45's you could use an adaptor if needed.
Later on, transistor radios were popular...they were about the size of a 3x5 index card and had only AM frequencies.

TV sets were not in every home...and all were B/W with channel selectors. No remote controls, no color.

Telephones were mostly party lines, meaning your neighbor shared the line, and when you lift the receiver, an operator verbally asked..."Number please?" then you tell her the number and she would ring it for you. Dial phones came later.
Area codes were non-existant. Phone numbers consisted of an exchange and a number something like...Olive Place-2, 4509.

The local grocery store had uncovered wooden floors and a man behind a meat counter. The milk was delivered a couple times a week by the local dairy.

Farmers still milked by hand and pour it into stainless steel milk cans and placed at roadside where a truck would pick it up and leave you fresh, clean cans for the next milking.

Our home heat was a wood stove that would smoke up the house. Dad got up during the night to stoke the fire. (add wood so it would continue burning through the night) Sometimes we would awake to a cold house and get ready for school FAST so we didn't get too cold.

There was no free school lunch program as we know it today.
School lunches were 20 cents/day, milk (half-pint) was 2 cents, and we had great, hot lunches with free 2nds.

Later when we did get electricity, we did the wash every Saturday afternoon and hung it out to dry. They would freeze stiff in the winter so in 2-3 days on the line, we would bring them inside and hang on wooden clother bars to finish drying.
Our hands were always red and chapped as were our cheeks and lips.

Were these the good old days?  Some were and others no.
I am happy to be living in this new century where I don't have to worry about cutting enough wood for the winter. I like knowing I can call 911 in emergency. I am happy not to have chains on my tires to get home. I am, however, saddened that prayer in schools is a thing of the past.
Many things of the 50s were good and many things of today are good...now if only we could combine the past with the present, this would be a better world.

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1954 - elvis presley recorded "that's all right mama" at sun records
1956 - elvis presley made it big

1959, feb 3. - the day the music died; buddy holly, ritchie valens and the big bopper died in a plane crash over iowa.

Has anyone mentioned:
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (number one in importance for my family as I was growing up)
The Sues crisis, also 1956
The death of Stalin, 1953
The launching of Sputnik, 1957, which began the space race