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MAJOR WORLD EVENTS:
- Nikita Khrushchev wins power struggle in Soviet Union after the death of Josef Stalin.
- Soviet Union detonates its first hydrogen bomb Joseph Stalin dies (March 5).
- East Berliners rise against Communist rule quelled by tanks (June 17).
- Korean armistice signed (July 27).
- Moscow announces explosion of hydrogen bomb (Aug. 20).
- Josip Broz Tito becomes president of Yugoslavia
- Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes premier of Egypt
US PROFILE/EVENTS:
- President: Dwight D. Eisenhower; Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
- Population: 163,025,854
- Life Expectancy: 69.6 years
- Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted nationally televised inquiries into the communist
infiltration of show business and the armed forces. His activities
eventually inspired a backlash and a condemnation by the Senate.
An Edward R. Murrow interview in which Senator Joseph McCarthy was
caught in several lies helped end McCarthy's witch-hunt for Communists.
The Senate report on the notorious Republican "Commie hunter,"
said much of "McCarthyism" was promoted and motivated by his
self-interests. The
Senate voted in Dec. to condemn Sen. McCarthy
for his tactics and behavior.
- Convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed in Sing Sing prison (June 19)
- Alleged Communist Charlie
Chaplin leaves U.S. permanently. Justice
Dept. warns him any attempt to reenter the country will be challenged.
- CIA intervenes in Guatemala, helping to overthrow government
- Radical
Puerto Rican nationalists attack House of Representatives
- Physicist and nuclear pioneer J. Robert Oppenheimer dismissed from government projects due to his
political beliefs.
- The U.S.
Supreme Court unanimously ruled to ban racial
segregation in public schools.
- Congress and the Pentagon authorized creation of the U.S. Air Force Academy.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
- New York Stock Exchange prices reach their highest level since 1929.
- President Eisenhower ends all wage, salary and price controls.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:
- The U.S.'s first hydrogen bomb detonation took place at Eniwetok Atoll
- U.S. Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager sets speed record in X-1 rocket plane
- The USS Nautilus, the first atomic submarine, was commissioned at Groton, Connecticut.
- Boeing tested the 707, the first jet-powered transport plane.
- An expedition led by Sir Edmund Hillary is the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (This is considered a mystery by most males)
- Dr. Jonas Salk discovered an anti-polio vaccine - 400,000 school children are given vaccine.
- Heart Surgery was performed on all 4 valves.
- Scabies fades out
- First clear evidence was presented linking lung cancer to cigarette smoking.
- First successful kidney transplant was performed