Important People of the 1950s

Important People of the 1950s

If you are a baby boomer, (or know a baby boomer), you might be interested to read about some important people of the 1950s. These people were either icons in their time, or became famous later on.

1955 Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress and secretary of the Montgomery NAACP, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, as she sat in a section of a bus just behind the area reserved for whites. She refused to move to the back the bus, which defied the South’s segregationist laws. This started the Dec. 5 bus boycott, a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks, which launched the Civil Rights movement in the United States.

Jonas Salk During the 1950s, Salk developed, tested and refined the first successful killed-virus polio vaccine, using inactive (dead) poliovirus cells that were injected into the body.

George Catlett Marshall General,President American Red Cross, ex-Secretary of State and of Defense, Delegate to the U.N. Originator of the "Marshall Plan"'.

More Important People of the 1950s

1955 Perry Como recorded his big hit "Hot-Diggety-Dog."

1953 Tenley Albright became the first American to win the women’s world figure skating championship at a competition in Davos, Switzerland.

1953 F.M. Adams became the 1st US commissioned woman army doctor.

1955 Apr 15, Ray Kroc acquired the McDonald’s chain of fast food restaurants. He was a food service equipment salesman who owned the national marketing rights to the milk-shake mixers used at the chain. He purchased the chain from Richard and Maurice McDonald who started the operation in California in 1948.

1955 Dec 9, Sugar Ray Robinson won the middle-weight boxing crown for the third time when he knocked out Carl "Bobo" Olson in Chicago.

1959 Fidel Castro took over Cuba. Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.

1959 The "Bozo the Clown" live children's show premiered on TV.

Elizabeth Taylor starred in A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958).

Doris Day (real name Doris von Kappelhoff ) starred in The Pajama Game (1957) and Pillow Talk (1959.

Lucille Ball starred in I Love Lucy from 1951-1957.

James Dean starred in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), East of Eden (1955), and Giant (1956). He died at an early age in 1955.

Frank Sinatra won an Oscar for From Here to Eternity in 1953.