Long Ago

Preparing Us For The Moment


School Days School Daze.......
Remember when you you just couldn't wait to grow up and be an adult? You'd get a job, get married, live in your own house, have a new car and at last you'd have it made and you could forget all those worries you had in school. Want to take a look back at the things that were important to us then and caused all those worries we had to shoulder?
The Beginnings.... 1949

The Beginnings.... 1949

Let's begin by looking at the world of 1950. Most of us were 6 years old and for most this was the first year of schooling. Kindergarten was available and optional, but only a handful of the class was fortunate enough to go, so this is the first  year for most of us. It's also the beginning of a great era in American history - The 50's !!!! It seems like only yesterday, yet so very long ago..............
1950 - U.S. Statistics
President: Harry S Truman
Population: 152,271,417
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 5.3
Vice President: Alben W. Barkley
Life expectancy: 68.2 years
Truman orders development of hydrogen bomb (Jan. 31).
Assassination attempt on President Truman by Puerto Rican nationalists (Nov. 1).
Era of McCarthyism Begins
Federal spending: $42.56 billion
Consumer Price Index: 24.1
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.03
US GDP (1998 dollars): $294.6 billion
Federal debt: $256.9 billion
Unemployment: 5.9%
Sports:

World Series:  NY Yankees d. Philadelphia Phillies (4-0)
NBA Championship:   Minneapolis Lakers d. Syracuse (4-2)
Stanley Cup:   Detroit d. NY Rangers (4-3)
Wimbledon -Women:  Louise Brough d. M. duPont (6-1 3-6 6-1)
                          Men: Budge Patty d. F. Sedgman (6-1 8-10 6-2 6-3)
Kentucky Derby Champion:  Middleground
NCAA Basketball Championship:   CCNY d. Bradley (71-68)
NCAA Football Champions:  Oklahoma (10-1-0)
World Cup Uruguay d. Brazil (2-1)
Entertainment:

Saturday morning children's programming begins.

Phonevision, the first pay-per-view service, becomes available.

Broadway classic Guys and Dolls debuts at the 46th Street Theatre and becomes an instant hit. The show ran for three years and became one of the Great White Way's longest-running shows, with 1,200 performances.

Charles Schulz introduces the Peanuts comic strip.

Movies:
 Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, Born Yesterday, The Third Man

Books:

Paul Bowles, The Delicate Prey
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and Into the Trees
Mary McCarthy, Cast a Cold Eye
Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Family Moskat
Wallace Stevens, The Auroras of Autumn
Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination

Science:

Col. David C. Schilling (USAF) makes the first nonstop transatlantic jet flight in 10 hours and 1 minute (Sept. 22).

The first Xerox machine is produced.

The first self-service elevator is installed by Otis Elevator in Dallas.

Richard Lawler (US) performs the first successful kidney transplant at Loyola University.

Deaths

Al Jolson        George Orwell           George Bernard Shaw
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