Celebrating 100 Years of STV
- Historical Context in the 1950s
- January 17, 1950 - The Brinks robbery in Boston occurs when eleven masked bandits steal $2.8 million from an armored car outside their express office.
- June 25, 1950 - The Korean War begins its three year conflict when troops of North Korea, backed with Soviet weaponry, invade South Korea. This act leads to U.S. involvement when two days later, the United States Air Force and Navy are ordered by President Truman to the peninsula.
- September 4, 1951 - The inauguration of trans-continental television occurs with the broadcast of President Truman's speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco.
- December 12, 1951 - Richard Buckminster Fuller patents the Geodesic Dome. The dome building, under his design, would be utilized in many futuristic constructions, particularly by Fuller in world exhibitions, such as his famous United States Pavilion at the Montreal World's Fair of 1967.
- November 1, 1952 - At Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, the first hydrogen bomb, named Mike, is exploded. On January 7, President Harry S. Truman announces the development of the H-Bomb.
- November 1952 - General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a newcomer to politics, gains as easy victory over Democratic challenger Adlai E. Stevenson and becomes president.
- April 25, 1953 - The description of a double helix DNA molecule is published by British physicist Francis Crick and American scientist James D. Watson.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- May 17, 1954 - Racial segregation in public schools is declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Brown vs. the Board of Education.
- 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.
- May 31, 1955 - The Supreme Court of the United States orders that all public schools be integrated.
- 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 that would lead to the declaration that bus segregation laws were unconstitutional by a federal court.
- June 29, 1956 - Interstate highway system begins with the signing of the Federal-Aid Highway Act.
- September 25, 1956 - The first transatlantic telephone cable began operation.
- October 8, 1956 - Dan Larsen pitches the first no-hitter, a perfect game, in post-season baseball history when his New York Yankees best the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 5th game of the 1956 World Series.
- November 6, 1956 - Eisenhower wins an easy victory over Stevenson for the presidency.
- 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.
- December 1957 - Gordon Gould, an American physicist, invents the laser.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- April 9, 1959 - NASA selects seven military pilots to become the country's first astronauts, called the Mercury Seven. The Mercury Seven included John Glenn, Scott.
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