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