Many disk jockeys were exposed for taking bribes to pay certain songs on the radio, thus biasing the record sales. Top national disk jockey Allen Freed was convicted of payola. American Bandstand TV dance show host Dick Clark was accused of payola but found innocent.
Syngman Rhee was the first President of South Korea, serving from 1948 to 1960. His method of rule became unpopular, and he was forced to resign by a student-led democratic movement.
The United States had been sending the secret U-2 high-flying spy plane over the Soviet Union to take pictures and gather information, when one was shot down by a Russian missile. The pilot Gary Francis Powers was taken prisoner and later released in an exchange for a Soviet spy who had been arrested in the U.S.
An interesting note is that Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was stationed at the military base where Powers' U-2 took off for the flight. No connection was ever made, but it did seem suspicious,
Ford Motor Company came out with a new car, the Edsel--named after Edsel Ford. The car was to fit in between the Ford and Mercury, but it was the wrong car at the wrong time and lasted only a few years until it was discontinued.
Dr. Fidel Castro--who received his doctoral college degree at Columbia University in the U.S.--overthrew dictator Batista and started up a Communist dictatorship in Cuba.
Hula Hoops became a national fad. Everywhere, you would see children and even adults trying to spin the large plastic hoop around their waste. TV celebrities would also display their skills with the hoop. The fad peaked and died out quickly.
The Mafia was one of the most powerful gangs in the U.S... Their empire was international...Mafia leaders met in upstate New York to get better organized.
Ham the space monkey was sent up in an American space satellite as a prelude to sending a man in space. He was a mean little guy who would often try to bite the workers who put him in the space capsule.
Ham was not really a monkey, but a chimpanzee. The actual year he went into space was 1961.
Ben Hur was a spectacular movie starring Charlton Heston. It was set around the time of Christ.
Buddy Holly was a popular singer and leader of the Crickets rock group. He was killed in a plane crash, along with singers The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens. In the 1980s, the hit song American Pie referred to his death in the line "...the day the music died."
Children of women who took the drug Thalidomide during pregnancy were born with only stubs for arms. After this tragedy, the drug was taken off the market.
Charles Starkweather was a serial killer who made the news 1958 because of his gruesome murders. Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Fugate, went on a killing spree of 11 to 15 people over a span of a month and a half. They were captured and he was executed in 1959.
The Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team moved to Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to San Francisco.
U.S. President Eisenhower ordered U.S. Marines into Lebanon at the request of Lebanese President Chamoun to help stop riots that were occurring in the country.
The Bridge on the River Kwai was a 1957 Academy Award winning movie about a World War II Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.
Chou En-Lai (Zhou Enlai) was the Premier and Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China (also called Red China by Western journalists). He was a popular and practical administrator during the "Great Leap Forward" of 1958 and later pushed for modernization to undo damage caused by the "Cultural Revolution" of 1966 to 1976. Zhou was largely responsible for the re-establishment of contacts with the West during the Nixon presidency.
Sputnik was the name of the first orbiting satellite sent into space by the USSR. Turmoil over its launch in the United States initiated the race for supremacy in space.
Jack Kerouac was the author of the best-selling book On the Road, which epitomized the Beat Generation of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Upon achieving fame, Kerouac became a serious alcoholic and died at an early age.
Mickey Mantle was a great baseball player for the New York Yankee team. He batted both left- and right-handed, hit at a leading batting average, as well as led the league in home runs.
Boris Pasternak was a Russian poet and writer. He is best known in the West for his monumental novel on Soviet Russia, Doctor Zhivago. The book was also made into an award-winning movie.
Although he was celebrated in Russia as a great poet, his book was banned in the Soviet Union for many years.
Nine African-American students enrolled at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Governor Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High School to keep the nine students from entering the school, because he believed black and whites should be segregated, despite Federal laws on integration. President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to insure the safety of the students. The crisis gained world-wide attention.
After Britain and the USA withdrew their financial support for the Egyptian Aswan dam project, General Nasser nationalized the important Suez Canal. Egypt was then invaded by British, French and Israeli forces. Under pressure from the United States the invaders left Egypt and a UN emergency force was sent to Egypt.
The book Peyton Place became the number-1 best-seller. Teens often marked the "good parts" in the book, as they passed it among each other.
The book is quite tame according to today's standards.
Actress Grace Kelly left Hollywood to marry Prince Ranier of Monaco. She then attained the title of Princess Grace.
Nikita Khrushchev emerged as a leader in the Soviet Union after the death of dictator Josef Stalin. In 1956, he advocated reform and indirectly criticized Stalin and his methods. He became the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1958 to 1974.
In 1955, African-American Rosa Parks sat in a Montgomery, Alabama bus seat designated "for whites only". She was then arrested for her act of defiance. That arrest resulted in demonstrations and a boycott of Montgomery buses by African-Americans that lasted until December 1956.
Since the boycott was costing downtown stores and white businesses considerable money, negotiations where made to stop the action. But it took a Supreme Court ruling in November 1956 that segregation on transportation is unconstitutional to finally integrate the buses.
This event was also a starting point for the Civil Rights movement of Martin Luther King and others.
Anti-communist riots took part in Budapest, Hungary. Soviet troops put down the revolt and arrested many Hungarians, especially students.
Disneyland opened in 1955 in Anaheim, California. It was a theme park, developed by Walt Disney and based around his cartoon characters. It was designated as a place for family entertainment.
An interesting and little-known fact is that although Disney forbade the serving of alcoholic beverages in Disneyland, he had a private suite in the park where bartenders would serve drinks to his personal guests.
Singer Elvis Presley became a national phenomenon with such number 1 hit songs as Heartbreak Hotel, Don't Be Cruel and Hound Dog. He was called "Elvis the Pelvis" because of the way he shook his hips while dancing. Many religious leaders and school officials banned his songs, which only made them more popular. He later went on to be nicknamed "The King" as the most popular singer ever.
Peter Pan was a top Broadway play starring Mary Martin, who flew through the air as Peter Pan.
Actor Fess Parker starred in the highly popular TV series Davy Crockett. A novelty song by that title became the number-1 hit for a short time.
The Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team finally won the World Series over the New York Yankees. They later moved to Los Angeles.
James Dean was a movie star who became a symbol of young people for his role in the movie Rebel Without a Cause. After completing his next movie Giant, Dean decided to drive his new 1955 Porsche Spyder to Salinas, California to enter in a sports car race there. His mechanic rode with him. On the way there, Dean's car was struck by another vehicle which crossed the centerline. James Dean was the only one killed in the accident. The driver of the other car had minor injuries, while the mechanic was thrown from the car and suffered some broken bones.
James Dean was a movie star who became a symbol of young people for his role in the movie Rebel Without a Cause. After completing his next movie Giant, Dean decided to drive his new 1955 Porsche Spyder to Salinas, California to enter in a sports car race there. His mechanic rode with him. On the way there, Dean's car was struck by another vehicle which crossed the centerline. James Dean was the only one killed in the accident. The driver of the other car had minor injuries, while the mechanic was thrown from the car and suffered some broken bones.
Albert Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity in 1903 and was considered one the world's smartest scientists. He became a popular figure in the later years of his life. He died in 1955.
Bill Haley and the Comets came out with what was considered the first rock-and-roll hit song, Rock Around the Clock. It was the theme music for the popular movie Blackboard Jungle.
The French lose control over Indo-China, now known as Vietnam with the fall of the city Dien Bien Phu
Juan Perón was a popular leader in Argentina, elected first in 1946 and then again in 1952. Perón pursued social policies aimed at empowering the working class. His wife Evita was known for helping the poor. He was strongly anti-American and anti-British, confiscating much of the British and American-owed assets in Argentina. In 1955, he was overthrown by a military coup. It wasn't until 1973 that he returned to power. He died shortly afterward in 1974.
Roy Cohn was the advisor to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the McCarthy Hearings on Communists in the movie industry and government.
Roy Campanella was the all-star catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. His career was cut short by a paralyzing car accident.
Nelson and Winthrop Rockefeller were grandsons of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller.
In 1953, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Nelson as chair of the President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization. He served as Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973. He was the 41st Vice President of the United States of America from December 19, 1974 to January 20, 1977.
Also in 1953, Winthrop Rockefeller--who was known as a playboy and hard drinker--moved from Florida and New York to Arkansas. It was jokingly said he moved there because he loved playing the banjo. Winthrop became Governor of Arkansas in 1966 and was said to be a great influence on future Arkansas Governor and U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Winthrop was probably the Rockefeller that Billy Joel was referring to, since his playboy antics were more in the news than things that Nelson was doing.
Nelson and Winthrop Rockefeller were the only brothers in U.S. history to serve as Governor at the same time.
Georgy Malenkov was a Soviet politician and Communist Party leader, and a close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. He briefly became leader of the USSR (March 1953-February 1955) after Stalin's death.
Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Soviet Union. He was a harsh leader who had millions of his people executed or sent to labor camps in Siberia. On his way to political power, he changed his name to Stalin, which means steel in Russian.
