1950

A TRIP BACK TO THE 1950's
bullet Population of the United States as reported by the 1950 Census is150,697,361.
bullet Population of the world is approximately 2.5 billion.
bullet Sixty-four percent [64%] of Americans now live in cities.
bullet There are 1,667,231 marriages to 385,144 divorces [23%].
bullet By 1998 there will be 2,256,000 marriages and 955,000 divorces [43%].
bullet Median age for marriage is 22.8-years-old for men & 20.3 for women.
bullet A. C. Neilson's Audiometers track viewer watching [TV]
bullet Walt Disney's Cinderella opens in theaters.
bullet Sugar Pops are introduced.
bullet Antihistamines enter popular use for treatment of allergies and head colds.
bullet RCA 45 RPM record attachment....now you can play RCA's new 45's.....it includes 6 records.....$12.95.
bullet Zenith introduces "Lazy Bones" tuning.....change all TV stations from the comfort of your easy chair. Hand held device plugs into TV.
bullet Silly Putty is introduced.
bullet 21.6% of wives worked outside the home. By 1960, that number hit 30.5%.
bullet The Pillsbury Company launches it's annual "Bake-off" to promote it's flour.
bullet Pillsbury and General Mills introduce prepared cake mixes.
bullet CBS receives an FCC license to begin broadcasting in color.
bullet Ball-O-Fire Gumballs arrive on the scene!
bullet KRAFT Deluxe Process Cheese Slices...the first commercially packaged sliced process cheese is introduced.
bullet North Korea invades South Korea. Truman orders U.S. into the war. Three million soldiers and civilians will be killed or wounded before it ends in 1953.
bullet 36.3% of all advertising dollars are spent on newspapers. 3.3% on TV.
bullet The U.S. will import 21,287 passenger cars. That number will climb to 668,070 by 1959 which will be a stellar year for imports.
bullet Guys & Dolls opens on Broadway.
bullet Albert Einstein warns against hydrogen bomb, which President Truman okays building.
bullet USSR announces they have developed the Atomic Bomb.
bullet Brooklyn-Battery tunnel and the Port Authority open in NYC.
bullet Swiss Parliament refuses voting rights for women.
bullet Hank Snow makes his first appearance on the "Grand Ole Opry."
bullet Hopalong Cassidy. starring William Boyd, debuted on TV an 600,000 Hoppy lunch boxes were sold in 1950 alone.
bullet Seeburg began selling jukeboxes which played 45RPM records, which became THE jukebox for soda shops, bowling alleys, and bars.
bullet Nobel for literature awarded to William Faulkner.
bullet Paul Harvey begins his national radio broadcast.
bullet Death penalty is abolished in Belgium.
bullet Prince Rainier III becomes ruler of Monaco.
bullet Brinks robbery in Boston....11men....$2.8 million....17 minutes.
bullet Alger Hiss is convicted.
bullet U.S. GNP [Gross National Product] is $284 million.
bullet Smokey the Bear gains national popularity.
bullet Minute Rice is launched with the first consumer advertising ever put behind rice.
bullet The Open Kettle, a coffee and donut shop in Quincy, Mass. is renamed Dunkin' Donuts. The first franchise is offered in 1955.
bullet PaperMate is the first leak-proof pen in 1950.
bullet Haloid Corporation [later renamed Xerox] develops the first xerographic copy machine.
bullet Tennis admits first Black woman, Althea Gibson.
bullet There are now 2,200 drive-in movie theaters, twice as many as in 1949.
bullet Diner's Club becomes the first credit card.
bullet Peanuts debuted on October 2, 1950.
bullet FBI institutes the 10 Most Wanted List.
bullet Cartoonist Hank Ketcham created one of the most enduringly irresistible imps in the world, "Dennis the Menace." [By 2000, the comic panel appeared in more than 1,200 newspapers in 48 countries and in 19 languages.
bullet There were 407 beer breweries in operation.
bullet Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Ralph J. Bunche. This first black recipient was undersecretary of the UN at the time.
bullet Telephone answering machine created by Bell Laboratories and Western Electric.
bullet Mother Teresa founded the first Mission of Charity in Calcutta, India.
bullet President Harry Truman ordered the Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.
bullet There were 10,500,000 TV sets in 10,400,000 homes.
bullet The first self-service elevator was installed by Otis Elevator in Dallas, Texas.
bullet Leo Fender's guitar company introduced their broadcaster and Esquire models, the first mass-produced solid body electric guitars
bullet There was a 34.3% business failure rate.
bullet There were 34,763 motor vehicle related deaths. While in the air, there were 6 accidents resulting in 144 fatalities.
bullet Unemployment was 5.3%.

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