Mᴏᴏʀᴠɪʟʟᴇ ~ Aᴅᴠᴀɴᴄᴇᴅ Rᴏʟᴇᴘʟᴀʏ discussion

Wars and conflicts

Cold War Conflicts involving the influence of the rival superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States

Korean War (1950–1953) – The war, which lasted from June 25, 1950 until the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953, started as a civil war between North Korea and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). When it began, North and South Korea existed as provisional governments competing for control over the Korean peninsula, due to the division of Korea by outside powers. While originally a civil war, it quickly escalated into a war between the Western powers under the United Nations Command led by the United States and its allies and the communist powers of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. On September 15, General Douglas MacArthur conducted Operation Chromite, an amphibious landing at the city of Inchon (Song Do port). The North Korean army collapsed, and within a few days, MacArthur's army retook Seoul (South Korea's capital). He then pushed north, capturing Pyongyang in October. Chinese intervention the following month drove UN forces south again. MacArthur then planned for a full-scale invasion of China, but this was against the wishes of President Truman and others who wanted a limited war. He was dismissed and replaced by General Matthew Ridgeway. The war then became a bloody stalemate for the next two and a half years while peace negotiations dragged on. The war left 33,742 American soldiers dead, 92,134 wounded, and 80,000 Missing in action (MIA) or Prisoner of war (POW). Estimates place Korean and Chinese casualties at 1,000,000–1,400,000 dead or wounded, and 140,000 MIA or POW.

The Vietnam War Began in 1959. Diem instituted a policy of death penalty against any communist activity in 1956. The Vietminh began an assassination campaign in early 1957. An article by French scholar Bernard Fall published in July 1958 concluded that a new war had begun. The first official large unit military action was on September 26, 1959, when the Vietcong ambushed two ARVN companies.

Arab–Israeli conflict (Early 20th century-present)

Suez Crisis (1956) – The Suez Crisis was a war fought on Egyptian territory in 1956. Following the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956 by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the United Kingdom, France and Israel subsequently invaded. The operation was a military success, but after the United States and Soviet Union united in opposition to the invasion, the invaders were forced to withdraw. This was seen as a major humiliation, especially for the two Western European countries, and symbolizes the beginning of the end of colonialism and the weakening of European global importance, specifically the collapse of the British Empire.

Algerian War (1954–1962) – An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, use of torture on both sides and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. The war eventually led to the independence of Algeria from France.

Internal conflicts

Cuban Revolution (1953–1959) – The 1959 overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and other forces resulted in the creation of the first communist government in the Western hemisphere.

The Mau Mau began retaliating against the British in Kenya. This led to concentration camps in Kenya, a British military victory, and the election of moderate nationalist Jomo Kenyatta as leader of Kenya.

The wind of destruction began in Rwanda in 1959, following the beating up of Hutu politician Dominique Mbonyumutwa by Tutsi forces. This was the beginning of decades of ethnic violence in the country, which culminated in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.

Decolonization and Independence

Decolonization of former European Colonial empires. The French Fourth Republic in particular faced conflict on two fronts within the French Union, the Algerian War and the First Indo-China War. The Federation of Malaya peacefully gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1957. French rule ended in Algeria in 1958, Vietnam left French Indo-china in 1954. The rival states of North Vietnam and South Vietnam were formed. Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos also gained independence, effectively ending French presence in Southeast Asia. Elsewhere the Belgian Congo and other African nations gained their independence from France, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

Large-scale decolonization in Africa first began in the 1950s. In 1951, Libya became the first African country to gain independence in the decade, and in 1954 the Algerian War began. 1956 saw Sudan, Morocco, and Tunisia become independent, and the next year Ghana became the first sub-saharan African nation to gain independence.

Prominent political events

European Common Market – The European Communities (or Common Markets), the precursor of the European Union, was established with the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

Presidential Assassination Attempt On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists staged an attempted assassination on U.S. President Harry S. Truman. The leader of the team Griselio Torresola had firearm experience and Oscar Collazo was his accomplice. They made their assault at the Blair House where President Truman and his family were staying. Torresola mortally wounded a White House policeman, Leslie Coffelt, who shot Torresola dead before expiring himself. Collazo, as a co-conspirator in a felony that turned into a homicide, was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death in 1952 but then his sentence was later commuted to life in prison.

International issues

Establishment of the Non-aligned Movement, consisting of nations not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc.

Africa

Africa experienced the beginning of large-scale top-down economic interventions in the 1950s that failed to cause improvement and led to charitable exhaustion by the West as the century went on. The widespread corruption was not dealt with and war, disease, and famine continued to be constant problems in the region.
Egyptian general Gamel Abdel Nasser overthrew the Egyptian monarchy, establishing himself as President of Egypt. Nasser became an influential leader in the Middle East in the 1950s, leading Arab states into war with Israel, becoming a major leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and promoting pan-Arab unification.

America

In the 1950s America was the center of covert and overt conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Their varying collusion with national, populist, and elitist interests destabilized the region. The United States CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the Guatemalan government in 1954. In 1958 the military dictatorship of Venezuela was overthrown. This continued a pattern of regional revolution and warfare making extensive use of ground forces.
In 1957, Dr. François Duvalier came to power in an election in Haiti. He later declared himself president for life, and ruled until his death in 1971.
in 1959, Alaska (3 January) and Hawaii (21 August) became the 49th and 50th states respectively of the United States.
In 1959 Fidel Castro overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, establishing a communist government in the country. Although Castro initially sought aid from the US, he was rebuffed and later turned to the Soviet Union.
NORAD signed in 1959 by Canada and the United States creating a unified North American air defense system.
Brasília was built in 41 months, from 1956, and on April 21, 1960, became the capital of Brazil

Asia

The U.S. ended its occupation of Japan, which became fully independent. Japan held democratic elections and recovered economically.
Within a year of its establishment, the People's Republic of China had reclaimed Tibet and intervened in the Korean War, causing years of hostility and estrangement from the United States. Mao admired Stalin and rejected the changes in Moscow after Stalin's death in 1953, leading to growing tension with the Soviet Union.
In 1950-1953 France tried to contain a growing communist insurgency led by Ho Chi Minh. After their defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 France granted independence to the nations of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. At the Geneva Conference of 1954 France and the Communists agreed to divide Vietnam and hold elections in 1956. The U.S. and South Vietnam rejected the Geneva accords and the division became permanent.

Europe

With the help of the Marshall Plan, post-war reconstruction succeeded, with some countries (including West Germany) adopting free market capitalism while others adopted Keynesian-policy welfare states. Europe continued to be divided into Western and Soviet bloc countries. The geographical point of this division came to be called the Iron Curtain.
Because previous attempts for a unified state failed, Germany remained divided into two states: the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany in the west and the socialist German Democratic Republic in the east. The Federal Republic identified itself as the legal successor to the fascist dictatorship and was obliged in paying war reparations. The GDR, however, denounced the fascist past completely and did not recognize itself as responsible for paying reparations on behalf of the Nazi regime. The GDR's more harsh attitude in suppressing anti-communist and Russophobic sentiment lingering in the post-Nazi society resulted in increased emigration to the west.
While the United States military maintained its bases in western Europe, the Soviet Union maintained its bases in the east. In 1953 Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, died. This led to the rise of Nikita Khrushchev, who denounced Stalin and pursued a more liberal domestic and foreign policy, stressing peaceful competition with the West rather than overt hostility. There were anti-Stalinist uprisings in East Germany and Poland in 1953 and Hungary in 1956.

Disasters

Natural:

On 15 August 1950 an earthquake and floods in Assam, India killed 574 and left 5,000,000 homeless.
On 18 January 1951 Mount Lamington erupted in Papua New Guinea, killing 3,000 people.
On 31 January 1953 the North Sea flood of 1953 killed 1,835 people in the southwestern Netherlands (especially Zeeland) and 307 in the United Kingdom
On 9 September 1954 an earthquake centered on the city of Orléansville, Algeria killed 1,500 and left thousands homeless.
On 11 October 1954 Hurricane Hazel crossed over Haiti, killing 1,000.
On 19 August 1955 Hurricane Diane hit the northeastern United States, killing over 200 people, and causing over $1.0 billion in damage.
On 27 June 1957 Hurricane Audrey demolished Cameron, Louisiana, US, killing 400 people.
In April 1959, the Río Negro flooded central Uruguay.
Typhoon Vera hit central Honshū on 26 September 1959, killing an estimated 5,098, injuring another 38,921, and leaving 1,533,000 homeless. Most of the damage was centered in the Nagoya area.
On 2 December 1959, Malpasset Dam in southern France collapsed and water flowed over the town of Frejus, killing 412.

Non-natural:

On 12 March 1950 an Avro Tudor plane carrying a rugby team crashed in Wales, killing 80 people.
On 18 June 1953, a USAF Douglas C-124 Globemaster II crashed after takeoff from Tachikawa, Japan, killing all 129 on board.
On 10 January 1954 BOAC Flight 781, a new de Havilland Comet jetliner, disintegrated in mid-air due to structural failure and crashed off the Italian coast, killing all 35 on board.
On 30 June 1956 a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 and a Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation collided above the Grand Canyon in Arizona, killing all 128 people on board both aircraft.
On 25 July 1956 the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish ocean liner MS Stockholm off the Nantucket, Massachusetts coastline. 51 people were killed and the SS Andrea Doria sank the next morning.
On 6 February 1958 British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany. 23 people on board were killed (including 8 players of the Manchester United F.C. soccer team).
On 21 April 1958, a mid-air collision between United Airlines Flight 736 and a USAF fighter jet killed 49 people.
On 14 August 1958, a KLM Lockheed Constellation crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland, killing all 99 people aboard.

Economics

The United States was the most influential economic power in the world after WWII under the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Inflation was moderate during the decade of the 1950's. The first few months had a deflationary hangover from the 1940's but the first full year ended with what looked like the beginnings of massive inflation with annual inflation rates ranging from 8% to 9% a year. Fortunately, by 1952 inflation subsided. 1954 and 1955 flirted with deflation again but the remainder of the decade had moderate inflation ranging from 1% to 3.7%. The average annual inflation for the entire decade was only 2.04%.

Technology

Technology

Television, which first reached the marketplace in the 1940s, attained maturity during the 50s and by the end of the decade, most American households owned a TV set. A rush to produce larger screens than the tiny ones found on 40s models occurred during 1950-52. In 1954, RCA introduced the CTC-1, the first color TV to utilize the NTSC video standard. It was expensive however, and black-and-white sets would remain the norm for the next decade. The Chevrolet Corvette becomes the first car to have an all-fiberglass body in 1953. In 1954 Bell Telephone Labs produced the first Solar battery. In 1954 you could get a yard of contact paper for only 59 cents. Polypropylene was invented in 1954. In 1955 Jonas Salk invented a polio vaccine which was given to more than seven million American students. In 1956 a solar powered wrist watch was invented. A surprise came in 1957; a 184-pound (83 kg) satellite named Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviets. The space race began 4 months later as the United States launched a smaller satellite. In 1958 the first plastic Coke bottle appeared.

Charles H. Townes builds the Maser in 1953 at the Columbia University.

The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth on October 4, 1957.

The United States conducts its first hydrogen bomb explosion test.

The invention of the modern Solar cell.

Passenger jets enter service.

The U.S uses Federal prisons, mental institutions and pharmalogical testing volunteers to test drugs like LSD and chlorpromazine. Also started experimenting with the transorbital lobotomy.

Science

Francis Crick and James Watson discover the double-helix structure of DNA. Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of the double helix structure.

An immunization vaccine is produced for polio.


The first successful ultrasound test of the heart activity.

The CERN is established.

The world's first nuclear power plant is opened in Obninsk near Moscow.

NASA is organized.

President Harry S. Truman inaugurated transcontinental television service on September 4, 1951 when he made a speech to the nation. AT&T carried his address from San Francisco and it was viewed from the west coast to the east coast at the same time.

The first human [cervical] cancer cells were cultured outside of a body in 1951, from Henrietta Lacks, the cells are known as the immortal cells

Popular culture

Music

Popular music in the early 1950s was essentially a continuation of the crooner sound of the previous decade. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Patti Page, Judy Garland, Johnnie Ray, Kay Starr, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Dean Martin, Georgia Gibbs, Eddie Fisher, Teresa Brewer, Dinah Shore, Kitty Kallen, Joni James, Peggy Lee, Julie London, Toni Arden, June Valli, Doris Day, Arthur Godfrey, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Guy Mitchell, Nat King Cole, and vocal groups like The Mills Brothers, The Ink Spots, The Four Lads, The Four Aces, The Chordettes, Fontane Sisters, The Hilltoppers and The Ames Brothers. Jo Stafford's You Belong To Me was the #1 song of 1952 on the Billboard Top 100 chart.

The middle of the decade saw a sudden, volcanic change in the popular music landscape as classic pop was swept off the charts by rock-and-roll. Crooners such as Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, and Patti Page, who had dominated the first half of the decade, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed by the decade's end. Doo Wop entered the pop charts in the 1950s. Its popularity soon spawns the parody "Who Put the Bomp."

Novelty songs come into popularity, such as "Beep Beep"

Rock-n-Roll emerged in the mid-50s with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, James Brown, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens, Duane Eddy, Eddie Cochran, Brenda Lee, Bobby Vee, Connie Frances, Johnny Mathis, Neil Sedaka, Pat Boone and Ricky Nelson being notable exponents. In the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. Chuck Berry, with "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music. Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Johnny Horton, and Marty Robbins were Rockabilly musicians. Doo Wop was another popular genre at the time. Popular Doo Wop and Rock-n-Roll bands of the mid to late 1950s include The Platters, The Flamingos, The Dells, The Silhouettes, Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Danny and the Juniors, The Coasters, The Drifters, The Del-Vikings and Dion and the Belmonts.

The new music differed from previous styles in that it was primarily targeted at the teenager market, which became a distinct entity for the first time in the 1950s as growing prosperity meant that young people did not have to grow up as quickly or be expected to support a family. Rock-and-roll proved to be a difficult phenomenon for older Americans to accept and there were widespread accusations of it being a communist-orchestrated scheme to corrupt the youth.

Jazz stars in the 1950s who came into prominence in their genres called Bebop, Hard bop, Cool jazz and the Blues, at this time included Lester Young, Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, Oscar Peterson, Gil Evans, Jerry Mulligan, Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Art Blakey, Max Roach, the Miles Davis Quintet, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Billie Holiday.

The American folk music revival became a phenomenon in the United States in the 1950s to mid-1960s with the initial success of the Weavers who popularized the genre. Their sound, and their broad repertoire of traditional folk material and topical songs inspired other groups such as the Kingston Trio, the Chad Mitchell Trio, The New Christy Minstrels, and the "collegiate folk" groups such as The Brothers Four, The Four Freshmen, The Four Preps, and The Highwaymen. All featured tight vocal harmonies and a repertoire at least initially rooted in folk music and topical songs.

On 3 February 1959, a chartered plane transporting the three American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson goes down in foggy conditions near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all four occupants on board, including pilot Roger Peterson. The tragedy is later termed "The Day the Music Died", popularized in Don McLean's 1972 song "American Pie". This event, combined with the conscription of Elvis into the US Army, is often taken to mark the point where the era of 50s rock-and-roll ended.

Film

Cary Grant as Roger O. Thornhill in North by Northwest (1959)
European cinema experienced a renaissance in the '50s following the deprivations of World War II. Italian director Federico Fellini won the first foreign language film Academy Award with La strada and garnered another Academy Award with Nights of Cabiria. In 1955, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman earned a Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with Smiles of a Summer Night and followed the film with masterpieces The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. Jean Cocteau's Orphée, a film central to his Orphic Trilogy, starred Jean Marais and was released in 1950. French director Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge is now widely considered the first film of the French New Wave. Notable European film stars of the period include Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Max von Sydow, and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Japanese cinema reached its zenith with films from director Akira Kurosawa including Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and The Hidden Fortress. Other distinguished Japanese directors of the period were Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. Russian fantasy director Aleksandr Ptushko's mythological epics Sadko, Ilya Muromets, and Sampo were internationally acclaimed as was Ballad of a Soldier, a 1959 Soviet film directed by Grigori Chukhrai

In Hollywood, the epic Ben-Hur grabbed a record 11 Academy Awards in 1959 and its success gave a new lease of life to Hollywood studio MGM.

The "Golden Era" of 3-D cinematography transpired during the 1950s.

Television

The 1950s are known as The Golden Age of Television by some people. Sales of TV sets rose tremendously in the 1950s and by 1950 4.4 million families in America had a television set. Americans devoted most of their free time to watching television broadcasts. People spent so much time watching TV, that movie attendance dropped and so did the number of radio listeners. Television revolutionized the way Americans see themselves and the world around them. TV affects all aspects of American culture. "Television affects what we wear, the music we listen to, what we eat, and the news we receive."

Art movements
In the early 1950s Abstract expressionism and artists Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning were enormously influential. However by the late 1950s Color Field painting and Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko's paintings became more in focus to the next generation.

Pop Art used the iconography of television, photography, comics, cinema and advertising. With its roots in dadaism, it started to take form towards the end of the 1950s when some European artists started to make the symbols and products of the world of advertising and propaganda the main subject of their artistic work. This return of figurative art, in opposition to the abstract expressionism that dominated the aesthetic scene since the end of World War II was dominated by Great Britain until the early 1960s when Andy Warhol, the most known artist of this movement began to show Pop Art in galleries in the United States.

Sports

Olympics
1952 Summer Olympics held in Helsinki, Finland
1952 Winter Olympics held in Oslo, Norway
1956 Summer Olympics held in Melbourne, Australia
1956 Winter Olympics held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy

FIFA World Cups
1950 World Cup hosted by Brazil, won by Uruguay
1954 World Cup hosted by Switzerland, won by West Germany
1958 World Cup hosted by Sweden, won by Brazil

People

World leaders

President Iskander Mirza (Pakistan)
President Ayub Khan (Pakistan)
General Secretary Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union)
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet Union)
Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (United Kingdom)
Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden (United Kingdom)
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (United Kingdom)
President Juho Kusti Paasikivi (Finland)
President Urho Kekkonen (Finland)
President Laureano Gómez (Colombia)
President Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez (Colombia)
President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (Colombia)
President Harry S. Truman (United States)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower (United States)
President Charles de Gaulle (France)
President Vincent Auriol (France)
President René Coty (France)
President Miguel Alemán Valdés (Mexico)
President Adolfo Ruiz (Mexico)
President Adolfo López Mateos (Mexico)
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (Israel)
President Arturo Frondizi (Argentina)
President Juan Perón (Argentina)
Prime Minister Robert Menzies (Australia)
President Getúlio Vargas (Brazil)
President Juscelino Kubitschek (Brazil)
Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent (Canada)
Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (Canada)
President Carlos Prío Socarrás (Cuba)
President Fulgencio Batista (Cuba)
President Anselmo Alliegro y Milá (Cuba) (interim)
President Carlos Manuel Piedra (Cuba)
President Manuel Urrutia Lleó (Cuba)
President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado (Cuba) - from 1959
Prime Minister Kim Il Sung (North Korea)
Chairman Mao Zedong (People's Republic of China)
President Chiang Kai-shek (Republic of China on Taiwan)
King George VI (Commonwealth realms)
Elizabeth II (Commonwealth realms)
Prime Minister Lester Pearson (Canada)
President Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia)
President Antonín Zápotocký (Czechoslovakia)
President Antonín Novotný (Czechoslovakia)
President Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt)
Emperor Haile Selassie (Ethiopia)
President Juho Kusti Paasikivi (Finland)
President Urho Kekkonen (Finland)
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (India)
President Sukarno (Indonesia)
Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran)
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Iran)
King Faisal II (Iraq)
President Muhammad Najib ar-Ruba'i (Iraq)
Taoiseach John A. Costello (Ireland)
Taoiseach Éamon de Valera (Ireland)
Taoiseach Seán Lemass (Ireland)
Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi (Italy)
Emperor Hirohito (Japan)
President Bolesław Bierut (Poland)
King Idris (Libya) - from 1951
Prime Minister George Borg Olivier (Malta)
Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar (Portugal)
Generalissimo Francisco Franco (Spain)
Prime Minister Tage Erlander (Sweden)
President Celal Bayar (Turkey)
Prime Minister Adnan Menderes (Turkey)
Pope Pius XII (Vatican)
Pope John XXIII (Vatican)
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (West Germany)
President Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia)
Tunku Abdul Rahman (Malaya)
Marcos Pérez Jiménez (Venezuela)

Politics

Aleksey Innokentevich Antonov, Chief of General Staff of the Unified Armed Forces Warsaw Treaty Organization
Eugene R. Black, President World Bank
William Sterling Cole, Director-general International Atomic Energy Agency
Manuel Fraga Iribarne, Secretary-general Latin Union
André François-Poncet, Chairman of the Standing Commission International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
Louis Goffin, Secretary-general Western European Union
Walter Hallstein, President of the European Commission
Fritz Hess, Director Universal Postal Union
Ivan Stepanovich Konev, Commander-in-chief of the Unified Armed Forces Warsaw Treaty Organization
Henri St. Leger, Secretary-general International Organization for Standardization
Robert C. Lonati, Secretary-general World Tourism Organization
David A. Morse, Director-general International Labour Organization
Arnold Duncan McNair, Baron McNair, President of the European Court of Human Rights
Ove Nielsen, Secretary-general International Maritime Organization
Maurice Pate, Executive Director United Nations Children's Fund
Robert Schuman, President of the European Parliamentary Assembly
Gustav Swoboda, Chief of the Secretariat World Meteorological Organization
José Guillermo Trabanino Guerrero, Secretary-general Organization of Central American States
Eric Wyndham White, Executive Secretary World Trade Organization

Entertainers

Steve Allen
Desi Arnaz
Fred Astaire
Gene Autry
Lauren Bacall
Lucille Ball
Brigitte Bardot
Harry Belafonte
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jack Benny
Ingrid Bergman
Vivian Blaine
Humphrey Bogart
Marlon Brando
Lloyd Bridges
Yul Brynner
Richard Burton
James Cagney
Cab Calloway
Johnny Carson
Montgomery Clift
Clay Cole
Gary Cooper
Joan Crawford
Bing Crosby
Tony Curtis
Peter Cushing
Dorothy Dandridge
Bette Davis
Doris Day
James Dean
Anne Francis
Sandra Dee
Brandon deWilde
Marlene Dietrich
Cliff Robertson
Jon Provost
Troy Donahue
Diana Dors
Kirk Douglas
Clint Eastwood
Henry Fonda
Errol Flynn
William Frawley
Clark Gable
Ava Gardner
Judy Garland
Cary Grant
John Gregson
Alec Guinness
Tony Hancock
Julie Harris
Susan Hayward
Rita Hayworth
Audrey Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Charlton Heston
William Holden
Judy Holliday
Bob Hope
Rock Hudson
Van Johnson
Jessica Jones
Gene Kelly
Grace Kelly
Deborah Kerr
Alan Ladd
Burt Lancaster
Janet Leigh
Jack Lemmon
Jerry Lewis
Sophia Loren
Shirley MacLaine
Jayne Mansfield
Dean Martin
Giulietta Masina
James Mason
Marcello Mastroianni
Jerry Mathers
Toshiro Mifune
Sal Mineo
Ray Milland
Hayley Mills
Robert Mitchum
Marilyn Monroe
Yves Montand
Ricky Nelson
Paul Newman
Kim Novak
Laurence Olivier
Jack Palance
Geraldine Page
Gregory Peck
Anthony Quinn
George Reeves
Steve Reeves
Tommy Rettig
Debbie Reynolds
Thelma Ritter
Roy Rogers
Cesar Romero
Jane Russell
Rosalind Russell
Eva Marie Saint
Frank Sinatra
Kim Stanley
Barbara Stanwyck
James Stewart
Max von Sydow
Elizabeth Taylor
Robert Taylor
Lana Turner
Spencer Tracy
Vivian Vance
Robert Wagner
John Wayne
Richard Widmark
Shelley Winters
Jack Webb
Orson Welles

Musicians

Black Ace
Johnny Ace
Arthur Alexander
Lee Allen
Gene Allison
Marian Anderson
Pink Anderson
Paul Anka
Louis Armstrong
Eddy Arnold
Chet Atkins
Gene Autry
Frankie Avalon
Charles Aznavour
LaVern Baker
Hank Ballard
Sidney Bechet
Harry Belafonte
Jesse Belvin
Tex Beneke
Boyd Bennett
Tony Bennett
Chuck Berry
Richard Berry
Otis Blackwell
Scrapper Blackwell
Blind Blake
The Big Bopper
Johnny Bond
Pat Boone
Jimmy Bowen
Calvin Boze
Jackie Brenston
Teresa Brewer
Big Bill Broonzy
Charles Brown
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown
James Brown
Nappy Brown
Roy Brown
Ruth Brown
Dave Brubeck
Jimmy Bryant
Solomon Burke
Johnny Burnette
James Burton
Erskine Butterfield
Sam Butera
Maria Callas
Glen Campbell
Martha Carson
Goree Carter
Johnny Cash
Bobby Charles
Ray Charles
Boozoo Chavis
Chubby Checker
Clifton Chenier
Lou Christie
June Christy
Eugene Church
Joe Clay
Dee Clark
Patsy Cline
Rosemary Clooney
Eddie Cochran
Nat "King" Cole
John Coltrane
Perry Como
Floyd Council
Pee Wee Crayton
Mac Curtis
Bing Crosby
Bob Crosby
Gary Crosby
Arthur Crudup
Dick Dale
Dick Dale (singer)
Dalida
Bobby Darin
Hal David
Miles Davis
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Bobby Day
Doris Day
Bo Diddley
Willie Dixon
Carl Dobkins, Jr.
Bill Doggett
Fats Domino
Lonnie Donegan
Jimmy Dorsey
Lee Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
K. C. Douglas
Rusty Draper
Champion Jack Dupree
Jimmy Durante
Leroy Van Dyke
Werly Fairburn
H-Bomb Ferguson
Eddie Fisher
Miss Toni Fisher
Sonny Fisher
Ella Fitzgerald
Connie Francis
Ernie Freeman
Mary Ford
Tennessee Ernie Ford
Helen Forrest
Alan Freed
Johnny Fuller
Billy Fury
Earl Gaines
Hank Garland
Judy Garland
Clarence Garlow
Georgia Gibbs
Dizzy Gillespie
Dick Glasser
Arthur Godfrey
Benny Goodman
Eydie Gormé
Charlie Gracie
Gogi Grant
Jack Guthrie
Roy Hamilton
Lionel Hampton
Pat Hare
Slim Harpo
Homer Harris
Peppermint Harris
Wynonie Harris
Hawkshaw Hawkins
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Al Hibbler
Chuck Higgins
Earl Hines
Silas Hogan
Smokey Hogg
Ron Holden
Billie Holiday
Buddy Holly
John Lee Hooker
Lightnin' Hopkins
Johnny Horton
David Houston
Ivory Joe Hunter
Bull Moose Jackson
Mahalia Jackson
Elmore James
Etta James
Harry James
Homesick James
Joni James
Sonny James
Waylon Jennings
Dr. John
Little Willie John
Jimmy Jones
Louis Jordan
Don Julian
Kitty Kallen
Chris Kenner
Anita Kerr
Albert King
B.B. King
Ben E. King
Earl King
Freddie King
Pee Wee King
Saunders King
Christine Kittrell
Baker Knight
Sonny Knight
Buddy Knox
Gene Krupa
Frankie Laine
Major Lance
Mario Lanza
Ellis Larkins
Brenda Lee
Dickie Lee
Peggy Lee
Lazy Lester
Jerry Lee Lewis
Smiley Lewis
Little Willie Littlefield
Julie London
Joe Hill Louis
Willie Love
Frankie Lymon
Loretta Lynn
Dean Martin
Grady Martin
Janis Martin
Johnny Mathis
Jimmy McCracklin
Skeets McDonald
Big Jay McNeely
Clyde McPhatter
Max Merritt
Big Maceo Merriweather
Amos Milburn
Chuck Miller
Mitch Miller
Roy Milton
Garnet Mimms
Bobby Mitchell
Guy Mitchell
Charles Mingus
Thelonious Monk
Bill Monroe
Vaughn Monroe
Wes Montgomery
Benny Moré
Rose Murphy
Jimmy Nelson
Ricky Nelson
Robert Nighthawk
Jimmy Nolen
Nervous Norvus
Donald O'Conner
St. Louis Jimmy Oden
Odetta
Gene O'Quin
Roy Orbison
Johnny Otis
Patti Page
Charlie Parker
Dolly Parton
Les Paul
Art Pepper
Carl Perkins
Oscar Peterson
Phil Phillips
Webb Pierce
Gene Pitney
Pérez Prado
Elvis Presley
Johnny Preston
Jimmy Preston
Lloyd Price
Louis Prima
Johnnie Ray
Tampa Red
Jerry Reed
Jimmy Reed
Della Reese
Django Reinhardt
Buddy Rich
Cliff Richard
Little Richard
Tommy Ridgley
Billy Lee Riley
Tex Ritter
Johnny Rivers
Max Roach
Marty Robbins
Jimmie Rodgers
Arsenio Rodríguez
Kenny Rogers
Bobby Rydell
Kyu Sakamoto
Washboard Sam
Tommy Sands
Mabel Scott
Neil Sedaka
Pete Seeger
Johnny Shines
Dinah Shore
Frank Sinatra
Memphis Slim
Sunnyland Slim
Huey "Piano" Smith
Ray Smith
Kay Starr
Joan Sutherland
Art Tatum
Jesse Thomas
Rufus Thomas
Hank Thompson
Big Mama Thornton
Johnny Tillotson
Merle Travis
Big Joe Turner
Ike Turner
Ritchie Valens
Bobby Vee
Gene Vincent
T-Bone Walker
Little Walter
Mercy Dee Walton
Baby Boy Warren
Muddy Waters
Johnny "Guitar" Watson
Joe Weaver
Ben Webster
Lenny Welch
Speedy West
Josh White
Slim Whitman
Andy Williams
Big Joe Williams
Cootie Williams
Hank Williams
Larry Williams
Otis Williams
Tex Williams
Ralph Willis
Bob Wills
Howlin' Wolf
Johnny "Man" Young

Bands

Jay & The Americans
The Ames Brothers
The Andrews Sisters
Dave Appell & the Applejacks
The Bell Notes
The Belmonts
Dion & The Belmonts
The Bobbettes
The Bonnie Sisters
The Bosstones
The Buchanan Brothers
The Cadets
The Cadillacs
The Capris
The Cardinals
The Champs
The Chantels
The Charioteers
Otis Williams and the Charms
The Chimes
The Chips
The Chordettes
The Chords
The Cleftones
The Clovers
The Coasters
The Collegians
Bill Haley and the Comets
The Corsairs
The Counts
The Crew Cuts
The Crescendos
The Crests
The Crows
Danny & the Juniors
Jan & Dean
The Dells
The Del-Satins
The Delta Rhythm Boys
The Del-Vikings
Deep River Boys
The Dovells
The Dubs
The Duprees
The Diamonds
The Drifters
The Earls
The Echoes
The Edsels
The El Dorados
The Elegants
The Emotions
The Escorts
The Everly Brothers
The Fairfield Four
The Falcons
The Flamingos
The Flairs
The Fleetwoods
The Fiestas
The Five Satins
The Five Discs
The Five Keys
The Five Sharps
The Fontane Sisters
The Four Aces
The Four Buddies
The Four Freshmen
The Four Knights
The Four Lads
The Four Lovers
The Four Preps
The Four Tunes
The Gaylords
The G-Clefs
The Golden Gate Quartet
The Harptones
The Hearts
The Heathertones
The Hilltoppers
The Hollywood Flames
Johnny & The Hurricanes
The Impalas
Little Anthony and the Imperials
The Ink Spots
The Isley Brothers
The Jewels
The Jesters
The Jive Bombers
The Jive Five
Marvin & Johnny
Robert & Johnny
Don & Juan
The Jubalaires
The Kingston Trio
The Larks
The Lettermen
Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers
The McGuire Sisters
The Medallions
The Mello-Kings
The Mello-Moods
The Mills Brothers
The Midnighters
The Monotones
The Moonglows
The Mystics
The Nutmegs
The Oak Ridge Boys
The Orioles
The Paragons
The Penguins
The Pied Pipers
The Platters
The Pony-Tails
The Quarrymen
The Quotations
Randy & The Rainbows
The Ravens
The Rays
The Regents
The Righteous Brothers
Norman Fox & The Rob-Roys
The Robins
The Sensations
The Shadows
The Shepherd Sisters
The Silhouettes
The Solitaires
Sons of The Pioneers
The Spaniels
The Sparkletones
The Spiders
The Spinners
Joey Dee & The Starliters
The Stereos
The Swallows
Mickey & Sylvia
Tátrai Quartet
The Teenagers
The Teen Queens
The Tokens
The Tornados
The Turbans
The Tymes
The Valentines
The Ventures
The Virtues
The Volumes
Billy Ward & The Dominoes
The Wrens
Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs
Windsbacher Knabenchor

Sports Figures

Henry Aaron (baseball player)
Ernie Banks (baseball player)
Roger Bannister (English track and field athlete)
Carmen Basilio (boxing)
Yogi Berra (baseball player)
Jim Brown (football player)
Roy Campanella (baseball player)
Ezzard Charles (boxing)
Maureen Connolly (tennis player)
Bob Cousy (basketball player)
Joe Dimaggio (baseball player)
Whitey Ford (baseball player)
Gordie Howe (Canadian ice hockey player)
Ben Hogan (golf)
Ingemar Johansson (boxing)
Al Kaline (baseball player)
John Landy (Australian track and field athlete)
Mickey Mantle (baseball player)
Rocky Marciano (boxer)
Eddie Mathews (baseball player)
Willie Mays (baseball player)
Archie Moore (boxing)
Stan Musial (baseball player)
Bobo Olson (boxing)
Floyd Patterson (boxing)
Pelé (Brazilian association footballer)
Bob Pettit
Ferenc Puskas
Maurice Richard (Canadian ice hockey player)
Jackie Robinson (baseball player)
Frank Robinson (baseball player)
Sugar Ray Robinson (boxer)
Wilma Rudolph
Bill Russell (basketball player)
Sam Snead (golf)
Duke Snider (baseball player)
Warren Spahn (baseball player)
Casey Stengel (baseball manager, former player)
Chuck Taylor
Johnny Unitas (football)
Ted Williams (baseball player)
Lev Yashin
Emil Zátopek

See also

1950s in music
1950s in television
1950s in literature
United States in the 1950s
List of musicians of the 1950s
Post-World War II boom