We Didn't Start the Fire

Doris Day

(1922-present) An American actress, singer, and animal welfare activist.Her strong commitment to animal welfare began in 1971, when she co-founded Actors and Others for Animals. She started her own non-profit organization in the 1970s, the Doris Day Animal Foundation and, later, the Doris Day Animal League (DDAL). Establishing the annual observance Spay Day USA in 1995, the Doris Day Animal League now partners with The Humane Society of the United States and continues to be a leading advocacy organization.

The Catcher in the Rye

A 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. A controversial novel originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage angst and alienation. Critical reviews affirm that the novel accurately reflected the teenage colloquial speech of the time.

Peter Pan

A 1953 American animated fantasy-adventure film produced by Walt Disney and based on the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie. It is the 14th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and was originally released on February 5, 1953 by RKO Radio Pictures. Peter Pan is the final Disney animated feature released through RKO before Walt Disney's founding of his own distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution, later in 1953 after the film was released. Peter Pan is also the final Disney film in which all nine members of Disney's Nine Old Men worked together as directing animators and the second Disney animated film starring Kathryn Beaumont, Heather Angel, and Bill Thompson after their roles in the animated feature Alice in Wonderland.

Peyton Place

A 1956 novel by Grace Metalious. The novel describes how three women are forced to come to terms with their identity, both as women and as sexual beings, in a small, conservative, gossipy New England town, with recurring themes of hypocrisy, social inequities and class privilege in a tale that includes incest, abortion, adultery, lust and murder. Twentieth Century-Fox adapted it as a major motion picture in 1957, and it was adapted again in 1964, in what became a wildly successful prime time television series for 20th Century Fox Television that ran until 1969, and the term "Peyton Place" - an allusion to any small town or group that holds scandalous secrets - entered into the American lexicon.

Psycho

A 1960 American psychological horror thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Vera Miles and Martin Balsam. The screenplay by Joseph Stefano was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film centers on the encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Leigh), who ends up at a secluded motel after embezzling money from her employer, and the motel's disturbed owner-manager, Norman Bates (Perkins), and its aftermath. Psycho initially received mixed reviews, but outstanding box office returns prompted reconsideration which led to overwhelming critical acclaim and four Academy Award nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Leigh and Best Director for Hitchcock.

Stranger in a Strange Land

A 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and eventual transformation of—terrestrial culture. The title is an allusion to the phrase in Exodus 2:22. According to Heinlein, the novel's working title was The Heretic. Several later editions of the book have promoted it as "The most famous Science Fiction Novel ever written".

Lawrence of Arabia

A 1962 epic historical drama film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential films in the history of cinema. The dramatic score by Maurice Jarre and the Super Panavision 70 cinematography by Freddie Young are also highly acclaimed.[4] The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won seven in total including Best Director, Best Sound Editing, Best Film Editing, and Best Picture.

Bridge on the River Kwai

A British-American 1957 World War II epic film directed by David Lean and starring William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, and Sessue Hayakawa. Based on the novel Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai (1952) by Pierre Boulle, the film is a work of fiction, but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942-43 for its historical setting. The movie was filmed in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka). Carl Foreman was the initial screenwriter, but Lean replaced him with Michael Wilson. Both writers had to work in secret, as they were on the Hollywood blacklist. As a result, Boulle (who did not speak English) was credited and received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; many years later, Foreman and Wilson posthumously received the Academy Award.

Castro

A Cuban politician and revolutionary who governed the Republic of Cuba as its Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as its President from 1976 to 2008. Politically a Marxist-Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.

Bardot

A French actress, singer and fashion model, who later became an animal rights activist. She was one of the best known sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s and was widely referred to by her initials, B.B.

Charles de Gaulle

A French military general and statesman. He was the leader of Free France (1940-44) and the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944-46). In 1958, he founded the Fifth Republic and was elected as the 18th President of France, until his resignation in 1969. He was the dominant figure of France during the Cold War era and his memory continues to influence French politics.

Eichmann

A German Nazi Lieutenant Colonel and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was charged by General/Lieutenant General Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel's intelligence service. Following a widely publicised trial in Israel, he was found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1962.

Einstein

A German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"). He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "services to theoretical physics", in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory.

Syngman Rhee

A Korean statesman, the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and the first president of the Republic of Korea (commonly referred to as South Korea). His three-term presidency of South Korea (August 1948 to April 1960) was strongly affected by Cold War tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Rhee was regarded as an anti-Communist and a strongman, and he led South Korea through the Korean War. His presidency ended in resignation following popular protests against a disputed election. He died in exile in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Prokofiev

A Russian and Soviet composer, pianist and conductor. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous musical genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred him to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. In 1948 Prokofiev was criticized for "anti-democratic formalism" and, with his income severely curtailed, was forced to compose Stalinist works, such as On Guard for Peace.

Pasternak

A Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russian, Pasternak's first book of poems, My Sister, Life (1917), is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language. Pasternak's translations of stage plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderon and Shakespeare remain very popular with Russian audiences. Outside Russia, Pasternak is best known as the author of Doctor Zhivago (1957), a novel which takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the First World War. Due to the novel's independent-minded stance on the socialist state, Doctor Zhivago was rejected for publication in the USSR. At the instigation of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Doctor Zhivago was smuggled to Milan and published in 1957. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958.

Malenkov

A Soviet politician and Communist Party leader. His family connections with Vladimir Lenin speeded his promotion in the party, and in 1925 he was put in charge of the party records. This brought him into close association with Joseph Stalin, and he was heavily involved in the purges of the 1930s. During World War II, he was given sole responsibility for the Soviet missile program. Later he gained favor with Stalin by discrediting Marshal Georgy Zhukov for supposed disloyalty, and supporting Stalin's campaign to erase all the glories of Leningrad in the public mind, in order to promote Moscow as the cultural capital.

Ho Chi Minh

A Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945-55) and president (1945-69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Việt Cộng (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War. He led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems, but remained a highly visible figurehead and inspiration for those Vietnamese fighting for his cause—a united, communist Vietnam—until his death. After the war, Saigon, the former capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

A failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. A counter-revolutionary military, trained and funded by the United States government's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Brigade 2506 fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF) and intended to overthrow the increasingly communist government of Fidel Castro. Launched from Guatemala, the invading force was defeated within three days by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, under the direct command of Prime Minister Fidel Castro.

Davy Crockett

A five-part serial which aired on ABC from 1954-1955 in one-hour episodes, on the Disneyland series. The series stars Fess Parker as real-life frontiersman Davy Crockett and Buddy Ebsen as his friend, George Russel.

John Glenn

A former Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, and United States senator. He was selected as one of the "Mercury Seven" group of military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA to become America's first astronauts and fly the Project Mercury spacecraft. On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission and became the first American to orbit the Earth and the fifth person in space, after cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov and the sub-orbital flights of Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom. Glenn is the earliest-born American to go to orbit, and the second earliest-born man overall after Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy. Glenn received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, and was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990.

Watergate

A major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s, following a break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. and President Richard Nixon's administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the U.S. Congress, the Nixon administration's resistance to its probes led to a constitutional crisis. The term Watergate has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Nixon and his close aides ordered harassment of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Woodstock

A music festival attracting an audience of 400,000 people, scheduled over three days on a dairy farm in New York state from August 15 to 17, 1969 but which ran over four days to August 18, 1969. Billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music", it was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre (240 ha; 0.94 sq mi) dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel. Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining Ulster County. During the sometimes rainy weekend, 32 acts performed outdoors. It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, as well as the definitive nexus for the larger counterculture generation

South Pacific

A musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan.The plot centers on an American nurse stationed on a South Pacific island during World War II, who falls in love with a middle-aged expatriate French plantation owner but struggles to accept his mixed-race children. A secondary romance, between a U.S. lieutenant and a young Tonkinese woman, explores his fears of the social consequences should he marry his Asian sweetheart. The issue of racial prejudice is candidly explored throughout the musical, most controversially in the lieutenant's song, "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught".

The King and I

A musical, the fifth by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon, which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. The issue of racial prejudice is candidly explored throughout the musical, most controversially in the lieutenant's song, "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught".

Santayana Goodbye

A philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Spanish-born, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American, although he always kept a valid Spanish passport. In 1912, Santayana resigned his position at Harvard to spend the rest of his life in Europe. He had saved money and been aided by a legacy from his mother. After some years in Ávila, Paris and Oxford, after 1920, he began to winter in Rome, eventually living there year-round until his death in 1952. During his forty years in Europe, he wrote nineteen books and declined several prestigious academic positions.

Khrushchev

A politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.

Red China

A term, used during Cold War years primarily in the West to designate the People's Republic of China in a way that identified it as part of the Communist bloc which was seen as the ideological enemy of the West, and also to distinguish it from the term "Nationalist China" which referred to the Western allied government on the island of Taiwan. Use of Red in the sense of "communist" was chosen by the Bolsheviks in 1917; for example, the Red Army. The Flag of China is red with gold stars, where the red color represents the Communist Revolution.

H-Bomb

A thermonuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon that uses the energy from a primary nuclear fission reaction to compress and ignite a secondary nuclear fusion reaction. It is colloquially referred to as a hydrogen bomb or H-bomb because it employs fusion of isotopes of hydrogen. The idea of a thermonuclear fusion bomb ignited by a smaller fission bomb was first proposed by Enrico Fermi to his colleague Edward Teller in 1941 at the start of what would become the Manhattan Project. The "George" shot of Operation Greenhouse of 9 May 1951 tested the basic concept for the first time on a very small scale.

Hula-Hoops

A toy hoop that is twirled around the waist, limbs or neck. The modern hula hoop was invented in 1958 by Arthur K. "Spud" Melin and Richard Knerr, but children and adults around the world have played with hoops, twirling, rolling and throwing them throughout history. Hula hoops for children generally measure approximately 71 centimetres (28 in) in diameter, and those for adults around 1.02 metres (40 in). Traditional materials for hoops include willow, rattan (a flexible and strong vine), grapevines and stiff grasses. Today, they are usually made of plastic tubing.

Mafia

A type of organized crime syndicate whose primary activities are protection racketeering, the arbitration of disputes between criminals, and the organizing and oversight of illegal agreements and transactions. Secondary activities may be practiced such as gambling, loan sharking, drug-trafficking, and fraud. In 1951, a U.S. Senate committee called the Kefauver Hearings determined that a "sinister criminal organization" known as the Mafia operated in the nation. Many suspected mobsters were subpoenaed for questioning, but few testified and none gave any meaningful information. In 1957, New York State Police uncovered a meeting and arrested major figures from around the country in Apalachin, New York. The event (dubbed the "Apalachin Meeting") forced the FBI to recognize organized crime as a serious problem in the United States and changed the way law enforcement investigated it. In 1963, Joe Valachi became the first Mafia member to turn state's evidence, and provided detailed information of its inner workings and secrets. More importantly, he revealed Mafia's existence to the law, which enabled the Federal Bureau of Investigations to begin an aggressive assault on the Mafia's National Crime Syndicate.

North Korea

After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into two zones by the United States and the Soviet Union, with the north occupied by the Soviets and the south by the Americans. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the Republic of Korea in the south. Soviet general Terentii Shtykov recommended the establishment of the Soviet Civil Authority in October 1945, and supported Kim Il-sung as chairman of the Provisional People's Committee for North Korea, established in February 1946.

Rosenbergs

American citizens who spied for the Soviet Union and were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage and for passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviets. The trial of the Rosenbergs and Sobell began on March 6, 1951.

Malcolm X

An American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. After a period of travel in Africa and the Middle East, which included completing the Hajj, he repudiated the Nation of Islam, disavowed racism and founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He continued to emphasize Pan-Africanism, black self-determination, and black self-defense. In February 1965, he was assassinated by three members of the Nation of Islam.

James Dean

An American actor. He is a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956). Dean's premature death in a car crash cemented his legendary status. He became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations.

Marilyn Monroe

An American actress and model. Famous for playing "dumb blonde" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s, emblematic of the era's attitudes towards sexuality. Although she was a top-billed actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962. She had two highly publicized marriages, to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, which both ended in divorce.

Roy Cohn

An American attorney who became famous during Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into Communist activity in the United States during the Second Red Scare. Cohn gained special prominence during the Army-McCarthy hearings. He was also a member of the U.S. Department of Justice's prosecution team at the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Cohn died of complications from AIDS.

Campanella

An American baseball player, primarily as a catcher. The Philadelphia native played for the Negro leagues and Mexican League for several seasons before moving into the minor leagues in 1946. He made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut in 1948. His playing career ended in 1958 when he was paralyzed by an automobile accident.

Rockefeller

An American businessman, philanthropist, public servant, and politician. He served as the 41st Vice President of the United States (1974-77) under President Gerald Ford, and as the 49th Governor of New York (1959-73). He also served in the administrations of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt regarding Latin America and Dwight Eisenhower regarding welfare programs. A member of the wealthy Rockefeller family, he was also a noted art collector, as well as administrator of Rockefeller Center.

Elvis Presley

An American musician and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as "the King of Rock and Roll", or simply, "the King".

Buddy Holly

An American musician, singer-songwriter, and guitarist for the Crickets, who was a central figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. His style was influenced by gospel music, country music and rhythm and blues acts, and he performed in Lubbock with his friends from high school.

Walter Winchell

An American newspaper and radio gossip commentator. Winchell was Jewish and was one of the first commentators in America to attack Adolf Hitler and American pro-fascist and pro-Nazi organizations such as the German-American Bund. He was a staunch supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal throughout the Depression era, and frequently served as the Roosevelt Administration's mouthpiece in favor of interventionism as the European war crisis loomed in the late 1930s.

Kerouac

An American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his method of spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. He became an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. In 1969, aged 47, Kerouac died from internal bleeding due to long-term alcohol abuse.

Hemingway

An American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Additional works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.

Liberace

An American pianist, singer, and actor. A child prodigy and the son of working class immigrants, Liberace enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordings, television, motion pictures, and endorsements. Liberace was recognized during his career with two Emmy Awards, six gold albums and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Throughout his entire life and career, Liberace publicly denied his homosexual orientation. When the Daily Mirror newspaper and Confidential magazine reported some of his gay relationships, he sued both publications and won damages and legal fees. Toward the end of his life, he was unsuccessfully sued for palimony, slander and conversion of property by his former chauffeur and lover, Scott Thorson.

Eisenhower

An American politician and General who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942-43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944-45 from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first Supreme Commander of NATO.

Joe McCarthy

An American politician who served as a U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. The term "McCarthyism" was coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices.

Kennedy

An American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the establishment of the Peace Corps, developments in the Space Race, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Trade Expansion Act to lower tariffs, the Civil Rights Movement, the "New Frontier" domestic program, and abolition of the federal death penalty in the District of Columbia all took place during his presidency. Kennedy also avoided any significant increase in the American presence in Vietnam, refusing to commit combat troops and keeping the level of others, mostly military advisors, to only 16,000, compared to the 536,000 troops committed by his successor, Lyndon Johnson, by 1968.

Mickey Mantle

An American professional baseball player, nicknamed "The Commerce Comet" and "The Mick". Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the New York Yankees as a center fielder and first baseman, from 1951 through 1968. Mantle was one of the best players and sluggers, and is regarded by many as the greatest switch hitter in baseball history. Mantle was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974 and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999.

Marciano

An American professional boxer who held the world heavyweight title from September 23, 1952 to April 27, 1956. Marciano went undefeated in his career and defended his title six times. Rocky Marciano was the inspiration for the name, iconography, and fighting style of the title character Rocky Balboa from Sylvester Stallone's American classic Rocky movie series.

Sugar Ray

An American professional boxer. Frequently cited as the greatest boxer of all time, Robinson's performances in the welterweight and middleweight divisions prompted sportswriters to create "pound for pound" rankings, where they compared fighters regardless of weight. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

Johnnie Ray

An American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Extremely popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor of what would become rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage personality. Tony Bennett credits Ray as being the true father of rock and roll.

Dylan

An American singer-songwriter, artist and writer. He has been influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when his songs chronicled social unrest, although Dylan repudiated suggestions from journalists that he was a spokesman for his generation. Nevertheless, early songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" became anthems for the American civil rights and anti-war movements. After he left his initial base in the American folk music revival, his six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" altered the range of popular music in 1965. His mid-1960s recordings, backed by rock musicians, reached the top end of the United States music charts while also attracting denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.

Chubby Checker

An American singer-songwriter. He is widely known for popularizing the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard's R&B hit "The Twist". He also popularized the Limbo Rock and its trademark limbo dance, as well as various dance styles such as the fly. Checker is the only recording artist to place five albums in the Top 12 all at once.

Starkweather Homicide

An American teenaged spree killer who murdered eleven people in the states of Nebraska and Wyoming in a two-month murder spree between December 1957 and January 1958. All but one of Starkweather's victims were killed between January 21 and January 29, 1958, the date of his arrest. During the murders committed in 1958, Starkweather was accompanied by his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate. Starkweather was executed 17 months after the events, and Fugate served 17 years in prison before her release in 1976. The Starkweather-Fugate spree has inspired several films, including The Sadist (1963), Badlands (1973), Kalifornia (1993), and Natural Born Killers (1994).

Juan Peron

An Argentine lieutenant general and politician. After serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President, he was thrice elected President of Argentina, serving from June 1946 to September 1955, when he was overthrown in a coup d'état, and then from October 1973 until his death in July 1974.

Toscanini

An Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and of the 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Later in his career he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937-54)

Edsel is a No-Go

An automobile marque that was planned, developed, and manufactured by the Ford Motor Company for model years 1958-1960. With the Edsel, Ford had expected to make significant inroads into the market share of both General Motors and Chrysler and close the gap between itself and GM in the domestic American automotive market. But contrary to Ford's internal plans and projections, the Edsel never gained popularity with contemporary American car buyers and sold poorly. The Ford Motor Company lost millions of dollars on the Edsel's development, manufacturing and marketing. The very word "Edsel" became a popular symbol for a commercial failure.

Space Monkey

Before humans went into space, several animals were launched into space, including numerous non-human primates, so that scientists could investigate the biological effects of space travel. The United States launched flights containing primate cargo primarily between 1948-1961 with one flight in 1969 and one in 1985. The first ever primate astronaut was Albert, a rhesus monkey, who on June 11, 1948, rode to over 63 km (39 mi) on a V2 rocket. Albert died of suffocation during the flight. On May 28, 1959, aboard the JUPITER AM-18, Able, a rhesus monkey, and Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey flew a successful mission.

Ben Hur

Ben-Hur is a 1959 American epic historical drama film, directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Hugh Griffith and Haya Harareet. A remake of the 1925 silent film with the same name, Ben-Hur was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry.

Joe DiMaggio

Born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, nicknamed "Joltin' Joe" and "The Yankee Clipper", was an American Major League Baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. Giuseppe and Rosalia DiMaggio were among the thousands of German, Japanese and Italian immigrants classified as "enemy aliens" by the government after Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan. He eloped with Marilyn Monroe in San Francisco City Hall on January 14, 1954. Later Marilyn contracted the services of celebrity attorney Jerry Giesler and filed for divorce on grounds of mental cruelty 274 days after the wedding. After the failure of their marriage, DiMaggio had undergone therapy, stopped drinking alcohol and expanded his interests beyond baseball: he and Monroe read poetry together in their later years.

Dien Bien Phu falls

Dien Bien Phu is a town of northwest Vietnam near the Laos border. The French military base here fell to Vietminh troops on May 7, 1954, after a 56-day siege, leading to the end of France's involvement in Indochina.

England's got a New Queen

Elizabeth II became the queen of England after King George VI died. On 6 February 1952, Philip broke the news to the new Queen. She was proclaimed queen throughout her realms and the royal party hastily returned to the United Kingdom. She and the Duke of Edinburgh moved into Buckingham Palace.

Princess Grace

Grace Patricia Kelley is an American actress who, after marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956, became Princess of Monaco.

Birth Control

In the United States, a flurry of legal actions in the 1960s and 1970s changed the landscape of reproductive rights: in 1965, the Supreme Court ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut that it was unconstitutional for the government to prohibit married couples from using birth control. Bill Baird fought for five years until Eisenstadt v. Baird legalized birth control for all Americans on March 22, 1972. Eisenstadt v. Baird, a landmark right to privacy decision, became the foundation for such cases as Roe v. Wade and the 2003 gay rights victory Lawrence v. Texas. In the early 1950s, philanthropist Katharine McCormick provided funding for biologist Gregory Pincus to develop the birth control pill, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1960. The pill became very popular and had a major impact on society and culture. It contributed to a sharp increase in college attendance and graduation rates for women

JFK blown Away

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald while traveling with his wife, Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife, Nellie, in a presidential motorcade. A ten-month investigation from November 1963 to September 1964 by the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in shooting Kennedy, and that Jack Ruby also acted alone when he killed Oswald before he could stand trial. Kennedy's death marked the fourth and latest successful assassination of an American President. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson became President upon Kennedy's death, taking the constitutionally prescribed oath of office onboard Air Force One at Dallas' Love Field airport before departing for Washington, D.C.

South Korea

Korea was annexed by Imperial Japan in 1910, after whose surrender in 1945, it was divided into North and South Korea. In the South Syngman Rhee, an opponent of communism, who had been backed and appointed by the United States as head of the provisional government, won the first presidential elections of the newly declared Republic of Korea in May

Liston beats Patterson

Liston, an American professional boxer, was known for his toughness, punching power and intimidating appearance. A long-avoided contender, he became world heavyweight champion in 1962 by knocking out Floyd Patterson in the first round, repeating the knockout in a defense of the title. Although widely regarded as unbeatable, Liston lost the title in 1964 to 7-1 underdog Muhammad Ali. Controversy followed with claims he had been drinking heavily the night before the fight. In the rematch Liston suffered a shocking first round knock-out that led to unresolved suspicions of a fix.

Richard Nixon

Nixon had previously served as a U.S. Representative and Senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961(Vice President of Eisenhower).

Budapest

On 23 October 1956 citizens held a large peaceful demonstration in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, demanding democratic reform. The demonstrators went to the Budapest radio station and demanded to publish their demands. The regime ordered troops to shoot into the crowd. Hungarian soldiers gave rifles to the demonstrators who were now able to capture the building. This initiated the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

Dacron

PET (or Dacron for the US) was patented in 1941 by John Rex Whinfield, James Tennant Dickson and their employer the Calico Printers' Association of Manchester, England. E. I. DuPont de Nemours in Delaware, USA, first used the trademark Mylar in June 1951 and received registration of it in 1952.

Panmunjom

Panmunjom, now located in North Hwanghae Province, was a village just north of the de facto border between North and South Korea, where the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement that paused the Korean War was signed.

Payola

Payola, in the music industry, is the illegal practice of payment or other inducement by record companies for the broadcast of recordings on commercial radio in which the song is presented as being part of the normal day's broadcast. Under U.S. law, 47 U.S.C. § 317, a radio station can play a specific song in exchange for money, but this must be disclosed on the air as being sponsored airtime, and that play of the song should not be counted as a "regular airplay".Prosecution for payola in the 1950s was in part a reaction of the traditional music establishment against newcomers. Hit radio was a threat to the wages of song-pluggers. Radio hits also threatened old revenue streams; for example, by the middle of the 1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in the USA went into jukeboxes. Still, in the 1950s, independent record companies or music publishers frequently used payola to promote rock and roll on American radio; it promoted cultural diversity and disc jockeys were less inclined to indulge their own personal and racial biases. The Congressional Payola Investigations occurred in 1959.

Pope Paul

Pope Paul (Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini) reigned as Pope from 21 June 1963 to his death in 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms, and fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestants, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements. Montini served in the Vatican's Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954. While in the Secretariat of State, Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest and most influential colleagues of Pope Pius XII, who in 1954 named him Archbishop of Milan, the largest Italian diocese. Montini automatically became the Secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference. John XXIII elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after the death of John XXIII, Montini was considered one of his most likely successors.

Children of Thalidomide

Researchers at Chemie Grünenthal also found that thalidomide was a particularly effective antiemetic that had an inhibitory effect on morning sickness. Hence, on October 1, 1957, the company launched thalidomide and began aggressively marketing it under the trade name Contergan. It was proclaimed a "wonder drug" for insomnia, coughs, colds and headaches. During this time period, the use of medications during pregnancy was not strictly controlled, and drugs were not thoroughly tested for potential harm to the fetus. Thousands of pregnant women took the drug to relieve their symptoms. There soon appeared reports of findings of abnormalities in children being born, traced back to the use of the drug thalidomide. In late 1959, it was noticed that peripheral neuritis developed in patients who took the drug over a period of time, and it was only after this point that thalidomide ceased to be provided over the counter

Studebaker

Studebaker entered the automotive business in 1902 with electric vehicles and in 1904 with gasoline vehicles, all sold under the name "Studebaker Automobile Company". Until 1911, its automotive division operated in partnership with the Garford Company of Elyria, Ohio, and after 1909 with the E-M-F Company. The first gasoline automobiles to be fully manufactured by Studebaker were marketed in August 1912. Over the next 50 years, the company established a reputation for quality and reliability.

Television

Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s. After World War II, an improved form became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the US and most other developed countries.

Brooklyn's got a Winning Team

The 1955 World Series matched the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees, with the Dodgers winning the Series in seven games to capture their first championship in franchise history. It would be the only Series the Dodgers won in Brooklyn. This Series also marked the end of a long period of invulnerability for the Yankees in World Series. It was the Yankees' first loss in a World Series since 1942 and only their second since 1926.

Lebanon

The 1958 Lebanon crisis was a Lebanese political crisis caused by political and religious tensions (In July 1958, Lebanon was threatened by a civil war between Maronite Christians and Muslims) in the country that included a U.S. military intervention . The intervention lasted around three months until President Camille Chamoun, who had requested the assistance, completed his term as president of Lebanon. American and Lebanese government forces successfully occupied the port and international airport of Beirut. The crisis over, the United States withdrew shortly after.

U-2

The 1960 U-2 incident happened during the Cold War on 1 May 1960, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev, when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace. The aircraft, flown by Central Intelligence Agency pilot Francis Gary Powers, was performing photographic aerial reconnaissance when it was hit by an S-75 Dvina (SA-2 Guideline) surface-to-air missile and crashed in Sverdlovsk. Powers parachuted safely and was captured.

Richard Nixon back again

The 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974 when he became the only U.S. president to resign the office.

Moonshot

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished landing the first humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. First conceived during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-man spacecraft to follow the one-man Project Mercury which put the first Americans in space, Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the 1960s, which he proposed in a May 25, 1961, address to Congress. Project Mercury was followed by the two-man Project Gemini (1962-66). The first manned flight of Apollo was in 1968. Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command/Service Module (CSM), and all three landed safely on Earth on July 24.

Belgians in the Congo

The Congo Crisis was a period of political upheaval and conflict in the Republic of the Congo (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo) between 1960 and 1965. It began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu.

Little Rock

The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

California Baseball

The Los Angeles Dodgers are a professional baseball team in Los Angeles, California, who are members of the National League West division of Major League Baseball (MLB). Established in 1883 in Brooklyn, New York, the team moved to Los Angeles before the 1958 season. The Dodgers were the first Major League Baseball team to ever play in Los Angeles. On April 18, 1958, the Dodgers played their first LA game, defeating the former New York and now new San Francisco Giants, 6-5, before 78,672 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Alabama

The Montgomery bus boycott, a seminal event in the Civil Rights Movement, was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955—when Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person—to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.

Ole Miss

The Ole Miss riot of 1962, or Battle of Oxford, was fought between Southern segregationist civilians and federal and state forces beginning the night of September 30, 1962; segregationists were protesting the enrollment of James Meredith, a black US military veteran, at the University of Mississippi (known affectionately as Ole Miss) at Oxford, Mississippi. Two civilians were killed during the night, including a French journalist, and over 300 people were injured, including one third of the US Marshals deployed. Meredith won a lawsuit that allowed him admission to The University of Mississippi in September 1962. He attempted to enter campus on September 20, September 25, and again on September 26, only to be blocked by Mississippi Governor Ross R. Barnett. After the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held both Barnett and Lieutenant Governor Paul B. Johnson, Jr. in contempt with fines of more than $10,000 for each day they refused to allow Meredith to enroll, Meredith, escorted by a force of U.S. Marshals, entered the campus on September 30, 1962

British Politician Sex

The Profumo affair was a British political scandal that originated with a brief sexual relationship in 1961 between John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's government, and Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old would-be model. In March 1963, Profumo denied any impropriety in a personal statement to the House of Commons, but was forced to admit the truth a few weeks later. He resigned from the government and from Parliament. The repercussions of the affair severely damaged Macmillan's self-confidence, and he resigned as prime minister on health grounds in October 1963. His Conservative Party was marked by the scandal, which may have contributed to its defeat by Labour in the 1964 general election.

Trouble in the Suez

The Suez Crisis, also named the Tripartite Aggression and the Kadesh Operation, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain Western control of the Suez Canal and to remove Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser from power. After the fighting had started, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations forced the three invaders to withdraw. The episode humiliated Great Britain and France and strengthened Nasser.

Berlin

The capital of Germany. In 1961, East Germany began the building of the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin, and events escalated to a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie. West Berlin was now de facto a part of West Germany with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was de facto a part of East Germany. John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" - speech in 1963 underlining the US support for the Western part of the city. Berlin was completely divided. Although it was possible for Westerners to pass from one to the other side through strictly controlled checkpoints, for most Easterners travel to West Berlin or West Germany was prohibited by government of East Germany.

Chou En-Lai

The first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Mao Zedong and was instrumental in consolidating the control of the Communist Party's rise to power, forming foreign policy, and developing the Chinese economy.

Sputnik

The first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on October 4, 1957. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses. It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses were detectable. This surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War.

Vaccine

The first effective polio vaccine was developed in 1952 by Jonas Salk and a team at the University of Pittsburgh that included Julius Youngner, Byron Bennett, L. James Lewis, and Lorraine Friedman, but it required years of subsequent testing.

Disneyland

The first of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, opened on July 17, 1955. It is the only theme park designed and built under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Walt Disney came up with the concept of Disneyland after visiting various amusement parks with his daughters in the 1930s and 1940s. After hiring a consultant to help him determine an appropriate site for his project, Disney bought a 160-acre (65 ha) site near Anaheim in 1953. Construction began in 1954 and the park was unveiled during a special televised press event on the ABC Television Network on July 17, 1955.

Joseph Stalin

The leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. He led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War.

Communist Bloc

The name used to denote groupings of states aligned with the Soviet Union.

British Beatlemania

The phenomenon known as Beatlemania originated in the United Kingdom, birthplace of the Beatles, when the band first realised enormous popularity there in 1963. Returning in 1962 from a highly formative two-year residency in Germany, the Beatles achieved a commercial breakthrough with their second UK single release, "Please Please Me" early in 1963, but gained "Superstar" status with the release of "She Loves You" later that year. There followed an almost non-stop series of concerts and tours, attended with feverish enthusiasm across the UK, for the whole of the following year.

Nasser

The second President of Egypt, serving from 1956 until his death. Nasser led the 1952 overthrow of the monarchy and introduced far-reaching land reforms the following year. Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal and his emergence as the political victor from the subsequent Suez Crisis substantially elevated his popularity in Egypt and the Arab world. Calls for pan-Arab unity under his leadership increased, culminating with the formation of the United Arab Republic with Syria (1958-1961).

Rock Around the Clock

The third album of rock and roll music by Bill Haley and His Comets. Released by Decca Records in December 1955 it was, like the two albums that preceded it, a compilation album of previously issued singles. Unlike the previous release, which was in the 10-inch format, the new album was a full 12-inch release and included additional tracks from 1955. It was also the first Haley album to make the Billboard charts, and was one of the very first album releases of the rock and roll genre to do so.

Harry Truman

Vice president of FDR and later 33rd president of the US after FDR died in his fourth term. He led the country through the end of WW2 and made the controversial decision to drop the atom bomb on Japan in August 1945 (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and was crucial in the implementation of the Marshall Plan, a plan for rebuilding Europe and containing communism. He also enforced desegregation of the armed forces in 1948 and established NATO.