Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 65

Beat the Clock

First televised by CBS in 1950, Beat the Clock was an American television game show that required its contestants to accomplish various stunts within 60 seconds. Contestants were chosen from the studio audience and usually were married couples.

The show had several sponsors over its run, with the most longstanding being the electronics company Sylvania.

After its first run ended in 1961, Beat the Clock was revived several times over the years. Its most recent revival began on Universal Kids on February 6, 2018.

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Taiwan

Brittanica.com

By the end of 1949, most of mainland China was under Communist control.

Official Communist figures counted some 1.5 million dead and wounded among the People’s Liberation Army.

~600,000 Nationalists troops were killed in combat, while roughly three times that many defected to the Communists.

Nearly 7 million Nationalist troops were captured during four years of combat.

Approximately 5 million civilians died as a result of combat, famine, and disease.

As they steadily lost ground to the Communist forces, Chinese Nationalist leaders left mainland China for the island of Taiwan, where they established their new capital.

In 1542 Portuguese sailors named the uncharted island (福爾摩沙) Ilha Formosa (beautiful island). With the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture in 1684, the current Chinese name Taiwan (臺灣) became official.

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American Shopping Mall

Pinterest

In April 1950 Northgate Center, the first urban shopping mall, was opened in Seattle.

Originally an open air complex where the stores faced each other, Northgate began adding a roof over the concourse in 1962 and was completely enclosed by 1974.

Today.com

In August 2019 Seattle’s premiere retailer, Nordstrom, an original Mall tenant, chose to leave Northgate.

One reason for the Nordstrom closure is the National Hockey League Seattle plans to turn part of the area into its headquarters—but the move is widely interpreted as signaling the end of the suburban shopping mall era that began in Seattle in 1950.

Eventually, the American fascination with malls hit a feverish peak—in 1990, 19 new malls opened across America. But beginning in the late 1990s, the culture that once fed the American mall started to change. Shopping centers that hadn’t been renovated in years began to show signs of wear and tear, and the middle-aged, middle-class shoppers that once flooded their shops began to disappear, turning the once sterile suburban shopping centers into perceived havens for crime. Increasingly rundown and redundant, malls started turning into ghost towns—first losing shoppers and then losing stores. Today, the vacancy rate in America’s regional malls hovers around 7.9 percent; at its peak, in 2011, vacancy at regional malls was 9.4 percent.

Source: The Smithsonian

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NSC 68 ~ No Preventive War

NSC 68 the United States Objectives and Programs for National Security was issued by U.S. President Truman’s National Security Council in April 1950.

Classified top secret until 1975, the document defined American foreign policy during the Truman presidency designed to “assure the integrity and vitality of our free society.”

NSC 68 stated the Soviet Union’s fundamental design was “the complete subversion or forcible destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society in the countries of the non-Soviet world.”

NSC 68 ruled out a pre-emptive U.S. nuclear strike against the USSR—but concluded that a rapid and sustained build-up of the political, economic and military strength of the free world was necessary to “frustrate the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will.“

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First Black NBA Player

In 1950 Chuck Cooper an All-American basketball player from Duquesne University (a private Catholic school in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania) was selected in the second round by the Boston Celtics.

Cooper thus became the first African-American to play in the professional National Basketball Association league.

After college, Cooper first signed onto the Harlem Globetrotters, but in April 1950, was drafted into the NBA when the Celtics chose him on the 14th overall pick.

Later in the draft, the Washington Capitols, a charter team in the Basketball Association of America (forerunner of the NBA), selected Earl Lloyd and Harold Hunter.

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Color TV

In 1950, the first public demonstration of the RCA system for color television, the all electronic tri-color picture tube, was made at a press conference in Washington, DC.

The RCA system was eventually accepted by the Federal Communications Commission over a competing system designed by CBS, and became the standard for broadcasting.

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U.S. Navy Plane Shot Down

Consolidated Vultee PB4Y-2 Privateer

In April 1950, Soviet fighters shot down a US Navy PB4Y-2 Privateer patrol bomber over the Baltic Sea. At the time, Privateers were used by the US Navy for signals intelligence flights off of the coast of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

The Soviet Foreign Ministry acknowledged the attack, but stated the aircraft was flying in Soviet airspace, and had fired on Soviet fighters when they attempted to signal it to land.  The Soviet government also stated it had no information about survivors from this flight.

American search and rescue efforts were unsuccessful, but two unmanned life rafts and some wreckage were eventually recovered.

The United States maintained that the crew members were captured and held in Soviet Gulags until their death. The Soviets denied this.

Source: Remembering Crew Members of U.S. Navy PB4Y-2 Shoot Down, April 8, 1950 – And Shocking Cold War Case Study – Station HYPO

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Father of the Bride

IN 1950 director Vincente Minelli‘s comedy Father of the Bride (adapted from a book of the same title by Edward Streeter) told the story of a man (Spencer Tracy) dealing with his daughter’s upcoming wedding. 

The cast included  Joan Bennett, Elizabeth Taylor, Don Taylor, Billie Burke and Leo G. Carroll.

Father of the Bride was one of the top grossing films of the year and received Academy Award nominations for best leading actor, best picture and best screenplay.

Steve Martin and Diane Keaton starred in the 1991 version Father of the Bride and its 1995 sequel Father of the Bride-Part 2.

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There Will Come Soft Rains

In May 1950, at the height of the Cold War, science fiction writer Ray Bradbury published the short story There Will Come Soft Rains in Collier’s magazine. Later that year the story was included in  The Martian Chronicles .

Plot Summary: An overnight nuclear catastrophe desolates a city in California except for a single preserved house where the daily routine continues – automatic systems within the home prepare breakfast, clean the house, make beds, wash dishes, and address the former residents without any knowledge of their current state as burnt silhouettes on one of the walls.

In spite of the homeowners’ evident deaths, the house’s systems zealously uphold its sanctity, frightening off surviving birds by closing the window shutters. One afternoon, a dog is allowed into the house when it is recognized as the family pet, but it soon dies.

That evening, the house recites to the absent hostess her favorite poem, “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Sara Teasdale.

A kitchen fire spreads throughout the house. Although systems desperately attempt to salvage the house, it burns to the ground overnight. At dawn a voice from the lone surviving wall endlessly repeats the time and date.

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“Communist” Wisconsin

On May Day 1950 fake Communists took over Mosinee Wisconsin.

Conceived by John Decker, a WWII veteran lawyer, and backed by the American Legion, the event was intended to highlight what liberties Americans would lose in an actual Communist takeover.

picclick.com

Ironically, the event planned for the traditional May Day worker’s holiday, was joined by American Communist Party members who distributed issues of the Daily Worker around town asking: “So this is supposed to be communism; says who?”

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