• Time Person Of The Year: Mohammed Mossadegh
   
• Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, officially Ending WWII. The treaty was signed in San Francisco by 49 nations.  
   
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted and sentenced to death for passing atomic secrets to Russians.
   
• General Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his duties by President Truman, bade farewell to Congress.
   
• The U.S. Congress ratifies the Twenty-second Amendment, limiting presidents to two terms in office.
   
• The Temple Beth Israel of Meridian, Mississippi becomes the first Jewish congregation to allow women to perform the functions of a rabbi.
   
• The first section of the New Jersey Turnpike opens.
   
• There are now 8.2 million trucks in the U.S.
   
• There were 36,996 motor vehicle related deaths. While in the air, there were 11 accidents resulting in 185 fatalities.
   
• In Cincinnati, Ohio, a Crosley automobile with a steering wheel on the right side became the first such vehicle placed in service for mail delivery.
   
• There are 900 fewer inmates in prison than the previous year although that still leaves 164,896 in jail.
   
• The U.S. produced 400,000 lbs. of penicillin
   
• UNIVAC 1 is the first commercial computer.
   
• A.E.C. produces electricity from atomic energy.
   
• Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, New Jersey called his counterpart Mayor Frank Osborn in Alameda, California. 

#ReturnToIndex1951

• Spurred by Schuman Plan, six nations form European Coal and Steel Community effective 1952. This is a major step toward the European Common Market.
   
• Winston Churchill again becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.
   
• American casualties in Korea by the end of 1951 are 15,000 dead and 75,000 wounded.
   
• South Africans forced to carry ID Cards identifying their race.
   
• Florence Chadwick swims the English Channel from England to France in 16 hours.
   
• J. Andre-Thomas invents the first heart-lung machine, which allows advanced life-support during open-heart surgery.
   
• Libya gains independence.

 #ReturnToIndex1951

• US GNP (Gross National Product) is $329.6 billion.
   
• Unemployment: 3.3%.
   
• There was a 30.7% business failure rate.
   
• The U.S. produced 100 million tons of steel.
   
• American automobile manufacturer Chrysler Corporation introduces power steering, which they called Hydraguide.
   
• The still camera gets built-in flash units.
   
• Tupperware introduced.
   
• The first Jack-in-the-Box opens in San Diego.  
   
• S&H Green Stampsget their start at the Denver store chain King Sooper.
   
• Topps Company started its first baseball card series, consisting of two individual sets of 52 cards each.
   
• Gerber Products starts using MSG (monsodium glutamate) in its baby foods to make them taste better. 
   
• Swanson introduces beef, chicken, turkey pot pies.
   
• Tom Fears, Otto Graham, Johnny Lujack, (football) and George Kell, Bob Lemon and Ralph Kiner (baseball) get their own Wheaties boxes!
   
• Duncan Hines introduced a cake mix.
   
• Tropicana Orange and Grapefruit juices introduced. 

#ReturnToIndex1951 

• The population of the United States as reported by the 1950 Census is 150,697,361.  

• 64% of Americans now live in cities.

• There were 34,763 motor vehicle related deaths. While in the air, there were 6 accidents resulting in 144 fatalities.

• Median age for 1st marriage is 22.8 years old for men and 20.3 for women. By 1998, it will be 26.7 years old for men and 25 for women.

• 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%).

• Time Person Of The Year: American Fighting-Man, Representing Korean War troops. (First Abstract Chosen)

• Antihistamines enter popular use for treatment of allergies and head-colds.

• Telephone Answering Machine created by Bell Laboratories and Western Electric.

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

• Smokey the Bear gains national popularity.

• Truman orders development of hydrogen bomb. Albert Einstein warns against the hydrogen bomb.

• Assassination attempt on President Truman by Puerto Rican nationalists.

• Senator Joseph McCarthy Begins Communist Witch Hunt.

• Alger Hiss is convicted.

• FBI institutes the 10 Most Wanted List.

• Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the Port Authority open in NYC.

• In 17 minutes, 11 men robbed Brinks in Boston of $2.8 million.

• President Harry Truman ordered the Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.

• The U.S. produced 400,000 lbs. of penicillin.
   

• J. Andre-Thomas invents the first heart-lung machine, allowing advanced life-support during open-heart surgery.

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• The population of the world is approximately 2.5 billion.

• Nobel peace prize awarded to Ralph J. Bunche. This first Black recipient was Undersecretary of the U.N. at the time.

• Mother Teresa founded the first Mission of Charity in Calcutta, India.

• North Korea invades South Korea. Truman orders the U.S. into the war. Three million soldiers and civilians will be killed or wounded before it ends in 1953.

• Robert Schuman proposes Schuman Plan, forerunner to Common Market, to pool European coal and steel.

• USSR announces they have developed the atomic bomb.

• Swiss parliament refuses voting right for women.

• Death penalty abolished in Belgium.

• Prince Rainer becomes ruler of Monaco.  

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COMMERCE IN 1950
 

• US GNP (Gross National Product) is $288.5 billion.
   
• Twenty-one and six tenth percent (21.6) of wives work outside the home. By 1960, that number hits 30.5 percent.
   
• There was a 34.3% business failure rate.
   
• Unemployment is 5.3%.
   
• Sixty-three percent of all advertising dollars are spent on newspapers; 3.3% on TV.  
   
• First Modern Credit Card Introduced: Diners Club.
   
• 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.
   
• 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 ballpoint pen in 1950.
   
• Haloid Corporation (later renamed Xerox) develops the first xerographic copy machine.
   
• There are 407 beer breweries in operation. 
   
• Silly Putty is introduced!
   
• Minute Rice is launched with the first consumer advertising ever put behind rice.
   
• KRAFT® Deluxe process cheese slices - the first commercially packaged sliced process cheese - are introduced.
   
• The Pillsbury Company launches its annual "Bake-off" to promote flour. Sugar Pops are introduced.
   
• Ball-O-Fire gumballs introduced.
   
• Rice Chex and Wheat Chex.
   
• Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book is a best seller.  

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  ENTERTAINMENT NEWS OF 1950
 

• Nobel for literature awarded to William Faulkner.

• Pulitzer prize awarded to Rodgers & Hammerstein for South Pacific.

• Guys & Dolls opens on Broadway. 

• Hank Snow makes his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry.

• Paul Harvey begins his national radio broadcast.

• Walt Disney's Cinderella opens in theaters. 

• There are now 2,200 drive-in movie theatres, twice as many as in 1949.    

• Cartoonist Hank Ketcham created one of the most enduringly irresistible imps in the world., Dennis the Menace. By 2000, the comic panel appears in more than 1,200 newspapers in 48 countries and in 19 languages.  

• First Peanuts Cartoon Strip penned.  

• RCA 45 RPM record attachment - now you can play RCA's new 45's!

• Seeburg begins selling jukeboxes which play 45 RPM records. 

• Leo Fender's guitar company introduced their Broadcaster and Esquire models, the first mass-produced solid body electric guitars. 

• CBS receives an FCC license to begin broadcasting in color.

• Hopalong Cassidy starring William Boyd, debuted on TV and 600,000 Hoppy lunchboxes were sold in 1950 alone.

• Zenith introduces "lazy bones" tuning - change all television stations from the comfort of your easy chair. Hand held device plugs into TV.

• A.C. Nielsen's Audimeters track viewer watching.

• There are 10,500,000 TV sets in 10,400,000 homes.

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ACADEMY AWARDS OF 1950

• PICTURE:  All about Eve, 20th Century-Fox
   
• ACTOR: José Ferrer, Cyrano de Bergerac
   
• ACTRESS: Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday 
   
• SONG: Mona Lisa from Captain Carey, U.S.A.; Music and Lyrics by Ray Evans and Jay  Livingston  

#ReturnToIndex

MOST POPULAR FILMS OF 1950
 

2. Cinderella
When Cinderella's cruel stepmother prevents her from attending the Royal Ball, she gets some unexpected help from the lovable mice Gus and Jaq, and from her Fairy Godmother.
Dir: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson; With: Ilene Woods, James MacDonald, Eleanor Audley               

3. All About Eve
An ingenue insinuates herself in to the company of an established but aging stage actress and her circle of theater friends.Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz; With: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders

5. Harvey

Elwood P. Dowd is a mild-mannered, pleasant man, who just happens (he says) to have an invisible friend resembling a 6-foot rabbit.
Dir: Henry Koster; With: James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Peggy Dow

6. Orpheus
Orphee is a poet who becomes obsessed with Death (the Princess). They fall in love. Orphee's wife, Eurydice
Dir: Jean Cocteau; With: Jean Marais, François Périer, María Casares

7. Two Flags Wes
tDir: Robert Wise; With: Joseph Cotten, Linda Darnell, Jeff Chandler

8. No Way OutThe Biddle brothers, shot while robbing a gas station, are taken to the prison ward of the County Hospital.Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz; With: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally

9. In a Lonely Place
A potentially violent screenwriter is a murder suspect until his lovely neighbor clears him. But she begins to have doubts.Dir: Nicholas Ray; With: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy

10. The White TowerSix people come together in the Swiss Alps to climb a mountain, known as 'The White Tower,' which has never been climbed. While struggling together to conquer the obstacle, each climber shows his true worth, or lack of.
Dir: Ted Tetzlaff; With: Claude Rains, Glenn Ford, Alida Valli

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TOP RATED TV SHOWS OF 1950
(October 1950 - April 1951)

• Texaco Star Theatre

• Fireside Theatre

• Philco TV Playhouse

• Your Show of Shows 

• The Colgate Comedy Hour

• Gillette Cavalcade of Stars

• The Lone Ranger 

• Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts

• Hopalong Cassidy

• Mama 

• Robert Montgomery Presents 

• Martin Lane, Private Eye

• Man Against Crime

• Kraft Televison Theatre

• The Toast of the Town

#ReturnToIndex
 

TOP 10 SONGS OF 1950
(Songs listed are from rock and roll and related genres. These songs are ranked based on their initial and lasting popularity, as well as their influence and impact on the evolution of rock and related genres. Songs are listed strictly in the year that they were originally released in.)

• The Fat Man, Fats Domino
   
• Please Send Me Someone To Love, Percy Mayfield  
   
• Teardrops From My Eyes, Ruth Brown  
   
• Mona Lisa, Nat "King" Cole 
   
• Tennessee Waltz, Patti Page 
   
• Long Gone Lonesome Blues, Hank Williams

• Mardi Gras In New Orleans, Professor Longhair  
   
• I'm Movin' On, Hank Snow 
   
• Rollin' Stone, Muddy Waters  

• Double Crossing Blues, Johnny Otis (Little Esther & the Robins) 

#ReturnToIndex

HIT-PARADE SONGS OF 1950
(Songs are the overall best sellers for the calendar year as tabulated by Cash Box magazine)

•  Music! Music! Music! Teresa Brewer

• Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think), Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians

• I Wanna Be Loved, The Andrews Sisters  
   
• A Bushel and a Peck, Betty Hutton
   
• My Foolish Heart, Gordon Jenkins
   
• Play a Simple Melody, Gary Crosby  
   
• The Cry of the Wild Goose, Frankie Laine
   
• All My Love, Patti Page  
   
• Sentimental Me, The Ames Brothers
   
• There's No Tomorrow, Tony Martin
   
• I'll Never Be Free, Kay Starr
   
• Harbor Lights, Sammy Kaye
   
• Hoop-Dee-Doo, The Fontane Sisters
   
• I Can Dream, Can't I? The Andrews Sisters
   
• Mona Lisa, Nat King Cole
   
• Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You), The Mills Brothers
   
• Goodnight Irene, The Weavers
   
• Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Doris Day
   
• Rag Mop, The Ames Brothers  
   
• Bonaparte's Retreat, Kay Starr
   
• La Vie en Rose, Tony Martin
   
• The Tennessee Waltz, Patti Page
   
• Dear Hearts and Gentle People, Bing Crosby

• It Isn't Fair, Sammy Kaye

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MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL OF 1950

1950 MLB AWARDS AND HONORS
 MOST VALUABLE PLAYER:

• (AL) Phil Rizzuto, New York Yankees, SS

• (NL) Jim Konstanty, Philadelphia Phillies, P

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR:

• Walt Dropo, Boston Red Sox, 1B

• Sam Jethroe, Boston Braves, OF

THE SPORTING NEWS PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Phil Rizzuto, New York Yankees

THE SPORTING NEWS MANAGER OF THE YEAR: Red Rolfe, Detroit Tigers
 

1950 MLB STATISTICAL LEADERS
AMERICAN  LEAGUE                                          

• AVG:  Billy Goodman,  BOS,  .354 
   
• HR:   Al Rosen,  CLE,  37    
   
• RBI:  Walt Dropo,  BOS,  144
          & Vern Stephens,  BOS,  144  
   
• WINS:  Bob Lemon,  CLE,  23    
   
• ERA:  Early Wynn,  CLE,  3.20 
   
• Ks:    Bob Lemon,  CLE,  170 
   

• AVG:   Stan Musial,  STL,  .346
   
• HR:    Ralph Kiner,  PIT,  47
   
• RBI:   Del Ennis,  PHI,  126
   
• WINS:  Warren Spahn,  BSB,  21
   
• ERA:   Sal Maglie,  NYG,  2.71
   
• Ks:    Warren Spahn,  BSB,  191

The Phillies, a particularly young team which came to be known as the "Whiz Kids", had won the National League pennant in dramatic fashion on the final day of the season to garner their second pennant - their first in 35 years. Their Cinderella story would end there as the Yankees swept the series in four games for their second consecutive championship, and their thirteenth overall.

1950 MLB ALL-STAR GAME: National League wins 4-3 in 14 innings.

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IMPORTANT FOOTBALL OF 1950
 

1950 CHICAGO PREP BOWL: Mount Carmel 45, Lane Technical 20

1950 NFL MVP: No Selection

• PASSING YARDS: Bobby Layne,  2,323, DET
     
• PASSES COMPLETED: Y.A. Tittle, 161, BAL
                                         
• RUSHING YARDS LEADER: Marion Motley, 810, CLE
     
• TOUCHDOWNS: Bob Shaw, 12, CRD
    
• RECEIVING YARDS: Tom Fears, 1,116,  RAM

1950 NFL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Cleveland over Los Angeles, (30-28)

For the first time, deadlocks occurred in both conferences and playoffs were necessary. The Browns defeated the Giants in the American and the Rams defeated the Bears in the National. Cleveland defeated Los Angeles 30-28 in the NFL Championship Game, December 24.

• SCORE: American Conference 28, National Conference 27
                         
• MVP: Otto Graham, Cleveland Browns, Quarterback  
        
• COACHES: Paul Brown, Cleveland, (AC) and Joe Stydahar, Los Angeles, (NC)

OTHER 1950 NFL NEWS
 

• Horning accepts Heisman as Bears beat Cardinals at Soldiers Field.

• Unlimited free substitution was restored, opening the way for the era of two platoons and specialization in pro football.

• The name National Football League was restored after about three months as the National-American Football League. The American and National conferences were created to replace the Eastern and Western divisions.

• The Los Angeles Rams became the first NFL team to have all of its games - both home and away - televised. The Washington Redskins followed the Rams in arranging to televise their games; other teams made deals to put selected games on television.  

#ReturnToIndex

NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
 

When Rochester took the first three games of the finals, a quick knockout seemed in order. But the Knicks stormed back, winning three games by margins of six, three and seven points to send the series to a seventh and deciding game in Rochester.

The Royals led by as many as 16 points during the first half, but the Knicks battled back to take a two-point lead with two minutes to go. With 40 seconds left and the score tied, Davies was fouled on a drive to the basket and sank two free throws. The Royals hung on for a 79-75 victory, and temporarily interrupted the Minneapolis dynasty.

 #ReturnToIndex 

• NASCAR: Bill Rexford  
    
• INDIANAPOLIS 500: Johnnie Parsons
  
   

1950 BOXING: Ezzard Charles retains his World Heavyweight Championship with a 15 round unanimous decision over Joe Louis in New York City.

• MEN'S: Dick Button, USA
   
• WOMEN'S: Alena Vrzanova, Czechoslovakia
   
• PAIRS: Karol Kennedy & Peter Kennedy, USA

1950 MEN'S GOLF
 

• THE MASTERS: Jimmy Demaret
   
• US OPEN: Ben Hogan
   
• BRITISH OPEN: Bobby Locke
   
• PGA CHAMPIONSHIP: Chandler Harper
   
• 1950 PGA tour's leading money winner: Sam Snead, $35,759 
   

1950 TRIPLE CROWN HORSERACING

• KENTUCKY DERBY: Middleground 
   
• PREAKNESS STAKES: Hill Prince  
   
• BELMONT STAKES: Middleground

1950 ICE HOCKEY

• ART ROSS MEMORIAL TROPHY (Leading scorer during regular season): Ted Lindsay, Detroit Red Wings
   
• HART MEMORIOAL TROPHY (Most Valuable Player): Charlie Rayner, New York Rangers
   
   
• STANLEY CUP: Detroit Red Wings win 4 games to 3 over the New York Rangers
  
   

• AUSTRALIAN OPEN: Frank Sedgman
   
• FRENCH OPEN: Budge Patty
   
• WIMBLETON: Budge Patty
   
• US OPEN: Arthur Larsen
   
• DAVIS CUP: Australia won 4 to 1 over the United States

• AUSTRALIAN OPEN: Louise Brough
   
• FRENCH OPEN: Doris Hart
   
• WIMBLETON: Louise Brough
   
• US OPEN: Margaret Osborne du Pont

OTHER TENNIS NEWS OF 1950: Tennis admits first Black woman, Althea Gibson.

#ReturnToIndex 

JUST FOR YOU
I remember 1950 . . .
 

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