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1953 | |||||||||||||||||
| April 25, 1953 - The description of a double helix DNA molecule is published by British physicist Francis Crick and American scientist James D. Watson. They, along with New Zealand born scientist Maurice Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery in 1962. July 27, 1953 - Fighting ceased in the Korean War. North Korea, South Korea, the United States, and the Republic of China sign an armistice agreement. August 19, 1953 - The United States CIA assists in the overthrow of the government in Iran, and retains the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne. October 30, 1953 - The Cold War continues in earnest when President Dwight D. Eisenhower approves a top secret document stating that the U.S. nuclear arsenal must be expanded to combat the communist threat around the world. December 30, 1953 - The first color televisions go on sale. | |||||||||||||||||
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1954 | |||||||||||||||||
| February 23, 1953 - The first large scale vaccination of children against polio begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. April 22, 1954 - Joseph McCarthy begins televised Senate hearings into alleged Communist influence in the United States Army. Later this year, on December 2, the U.S. Congress votes to condemn Senator McCarthy for his conduct during the Army investigation hearings. May 17, 1954 - Racial segregation in public schools is declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Brown vs. the Board of Education. The ruling of the court stated that racial segregation violated the 14th Amendment's clause that guaranteed equal protection. The Monroe School in Topeka, Kansas had segregated Linda Brown in its classes. September 8, 1954 - In Bangkok, Thailand, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization is formed by the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand, creating a mutual defense pact. In 1954, Ray Kroc founds the idea for the McDonald's corporation, agreeing to franchise the idea of Dick and Mac McDonald, who had started the first McDonald's restaurant in 1940 and had eight restaurants by 1954. Kroc would incorporate the entity on March 2, 1955 and open his first franchise on April 15 in Des Plaines, Illinois. He would buy out the McDonald's brothers in 1961. | |||||||||||||||||
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1955 | |||||||||||||||||
| February 12, 1955 - The United States government agrees to train South Vietnamese troops. May 31, 1955 - The Supreme Court of the United States orders that all public school be integrated with "deliberate speed." July 17, 1955 - The brainchild of Walt Disney, whose father had worked at previous world's fair and inspired his son, Disneyland, opens in Anaheim, California, with the backing of the new television network, ABC. December 1, 1955 - Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress, refuses to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, prompting the boycott and NAACP protect that would lead to the declaration that bus segregation laws were unconstitutional by a federal court. December 5, 1955 - The two largest American labor unions, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, merge to form the AFL-CIO, boasting membership of fifteen million. | |||||||||||||||||
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1956 | |||||||||||||||||
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1957 | |||||||||||||||||
| January 21, 1957 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated for his second term in office. March 13, 1957 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrest labor leader Jimmy Hoffa under a bribery charge. April 29, 1957 - U.S. Congress approves the first civil rights bill since reconstruction with additional protection of voting rights. September 4, 1957 - National Guard called to duty by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus bar nine black students from attending previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. He withdrew the troops on September 21 and the students were allowed entrance to class two days later. A threat of violence caused President Eisenhower to dispatch federal troops to Little Rock on September 24 to enforce the edict. December 6, 1957 - The first attempt by the United States to launch a satellite into space fails when it explodes on the launchpad. Gordon Gould, an American physicist, invents the laser, It would take him until 1977 to win a protracted legal battle over patent rights, and he did not start receiving royalties on his work until 1988. Gould was elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1991. | |||||||||||||||||
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1958 | |||||||||||||||||
| January 31, 1958 - Explorer I, the first U.S. space satellite, is launched by the Army at Cape Canaveral. It would discover the Van Allen radiation belt. April 17, 1958 - The first major world's fair since the end of World War II opens in Brussels, Belgium and evokes a Cold War debate between the pavilions of the Soviet Union and the United States. Their competing visions of the world vie for the attention of the over 41 million visitors to the event, also noted for the Atomium atom molecular structure that stood as the fair's theme. The expo, sanctioned by the Bureau of International Exhibitions, closed on October 19, 1958. July 8, 1958 - The Lituya Bay, Alaska earthquake registers 7.5 on the Richter scale, producing a landslide that caused a megatsunami with a 520 meter high wave. Only two people were killed in the incident, due to the desolate nature of the area involved. The wave dissipated when reaching the open sea. December 10, 1958 - Jet airline passenger service inaugurated in the United States by National Airlines with a flight between New York City and Miami, Florida. | |||||||||||||||||
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1959 | |||||||||||||||||
| January 3, 1959 - Alaska is admitted to the United States as the 49th state to be followed on August 21 by Hawaii. January 7, 1959 - The United States recognizes the new Cuban government under rebel leader Fidel Castro. Castro becomes the Premier of Cuba on February 16. April 9, 1959 - NASA selects the first seven military pilots to become the Mercury Seven, first astronauts of the United States. The Mercury Seven included John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepherd, and Deke Slayton. April 25, 1959 - The St. Lawrence Seaway is opened along the Canada and United States borders, allowing increased ship traffic between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. February 22, 1959 - The Daytona 500 stock car race is run for the first time with Lee Petty taking the first checkered flag. September 26, 1959 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower hosts Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev at his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during the first visit of any Soviet Union leader to the United States. (Picture below) Eisenhower National Historic Site, site of the Kruschchev/Eisenhower meetings in 1959. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. | |||||||||||||||||
Historic Travel Tip
America's Best History Historic Travel Tip
A visit to Eisenhower National Historic Site should not be missed if you are visiting Gettysburg. Its home and farm evoke the time of the general and his wife, with period furnishings and tales of not only his presidency and the meetings with world and national leaders at the farm, but his life in Gettysburg and prior to that, in World War II. The farm was the only home Eisenhower owned in his lifetime.
