Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 45

Eisenhower Describes Domino Theory

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower described the domino theory during an April 1954, news conference, when referring to communism in Indochina.

The geopolitical theory stated that if one country fell to a communist takeover, the surrounding countries would fall like a collapsing row of dominoes.

 The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world.

Source: Wikipedia

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Brown v. Board of Education

In the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. 

The case became one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all.

Source: History.com

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Edward R. Murrow vs. Joseph McCarthy

Edward Roscoe Murrow was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent who first gained radio prominence with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe during WWII.

In the spring of 1954 the US Senate held a series of hearings to investigate conflicting accusations between the US Army and Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. TV coverage of the hearings contributed to McCarthy’s decline in popularity and his eventual censure by the Senate the following December.

Murrow’s reports on his television program See It Now  helped lead to the censure of Senator McCarthy.

Source: Wikipedia

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Rock and Roll Music

Rock and roll music evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s from gospel, blues, jazz, boogie woogie, rhythm and blues and country music.

Many maintain that the first rock and roll single was Rocket 88, written by Ike Turner, sung by Jackie Brenston (saxophone player from Turner’s band The Kings of Rhythm) and recorded by Sam Phillips, who later went on to found Sun records (and discover Elvis Presley).

The instrumental in Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 reminds me of my all time favorite True Fine Mama by Little Richard in 1957.

Early rock and roll typically featured the piano or saxophone as the lead instrument.

Guitars became prominent in the mid 1950s with an accentuated backbeat often provided by a snare drum.

Classic rock and roll usually features lead and rhythm electric guitars and a string bass.

Source: Wikipedia

Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock was the first rock and roll record heard by millions of people worldwide.

Shake, Rattle and Roll was a twelve bar blues-form rock and roll song, written in 1954 by Jesse Stone and originally recorded by Big Joe Turner; and later popularized by Bill Haley & His Comets.

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Five Shot In U.S. Congress

In March 1954 four Puerto Rican nationalists wanting independence from US rule, shot 30 rounds from semi-automatic pistols from the balcony of the House of Representatives chamber in the United States Capitol. 

The nationalists unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and began shooting as Representatives were debating an immigration bill.

Five Representatives were wounded, one seriously, but all recovered.

The assailants were arrested, tried and convicted in federal court, and sentenced effectively to life imprisonment.

In 1978 and 1979, their sentences were commuted by President Jimmy Carter. All four returned to Puerto Rico.

Source: Wikipedia

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Godzilla, Them and the Creature from the Black Lagoon

1954 was a great year for classic monster movies.

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Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine

The first effective polio vaccine was developed in 1952 by Jonas Salk and his team at the University of Pittsburgh. Shortly thereafter, a key laboratory technique that enabled mass production of the vaccine was invented by Leone N. Farrell and her team in Toronto.

In February 1953 Pittsburg, Pennsylvania launched the first mass childhood Salk Vaccine inoculation program against polio.

In February 1954, the vaccine was tested at Arsenal Elementary School and the Watson Home for Children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In 1955 the Salk vaccine was found to be 60–70% effective against PV1 (poliovirus type 1), >90% effective against PV2 and PV3 and 94% effective against the development of bulbar polio. 

Soon many children’s vaccination campaigns were launched and promoted by the March of Dimes,

The annual number of polio cases fell from 35,000 in 1953 to 5,600 by 1957.

By 1961 only 161 cases were recorded in the US.

Main Source: Wikipedia

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Marilyn Monroe Marries Joe DiMaggio

In January 1954, Marilyn Monroe and and baseball star Joe DiMaggio were mobbed by reporters and fans when they married in San Francisco.

On their honeymoon in Japan, Monroe was asked to perform for American soldiers stationed in Korea. She went, leaving her new husband in Japan. Back in the United States, tension continued to build, particularly around DiMaggio’s discomfort with Marilyn’s sexy image.

In September 1954, on the set of the Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch, her skirt blew up with air from a New York City subway grate as a crowd of onlookers and press gathered. The crowd cheered and DiMaggio, who was on set, became irate.

Wikipedia

DiMaggio and Monroe were divorced in October 1954, just 274 days after they were married.

Source: History.com

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USS Nautilus – First Nuclear-Powered Submarine

Named after both Captain Nemo’s fictional submarine in  Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the WWII submarine USS Nautilus (SS-168) ,the new nuclear-powered Nautilus was launched in 1954.

Because the USS Nautilus nuclear propulsion allowed prolonged submersion far longer than diesel-electric submarines, she broke many records in her first years of operation and traveled to locations previously beyond the limits of submarines (including beneath the North Pole).

Source: Wikipedia

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Vintage Commercials

With a shift in government spending at the end of the Korean War, the American GDP dropped by 2.2% and unemployment peaked at ~6%. Although the U.S. Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy to curb inflation, spiking interest rates decreased consumer demand. The Fed eased its policies in 1954, allowing the economy to rebound after a 10-month recession. Consumer spending increased.

Source: CNBC

Some familiar TV commercials from 1954.

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