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Comic book bans in the 1950s
Comic books, as we know them, first appeared in 1935 with the publication of Now Fun. This was not the first appearance, however, of comics in a book form. As early as 1896, a compilation of comics from newspapers was published, but not as a series. These compilations appeared in print in 1896 and 1911. -
The Hiss Affair
Alger Hiss was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official. Hiss was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950. -
Book burning in Nazi Germany
The Nazi Book burnings were a campaign that was made by the German student union to burn books in the Nazi Germany and Austria by classical liberal, anarchist, socialist, pacifist, Communist, Jewish. And other authors whose writings were viewed as disruptive or whose ideologies weakened the National Socialist administration. -
The Cold War
The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War 2 between powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact). -
Blacklisting in the entertaining industry
The Hollywood blacklist was the mid 20th century practice of denying employment to screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals because of their suspected political beliefs or associations. Artists were taken away from work because of their sympathy with the American Communist Party, involvement in progressive political causes that enforcers of the blacklist associated with communism, and refusal to assist investigations into Communist Party activity. -
Peace Treaty ending WW2
The victorious wartime Allied powers (principally the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and France) negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland. The treaties allowed them to reassume their responsibilities as sovereign states in international affairs and to qualify for membership in the United Nations. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States of America fought for the South, and China fought for the North, also helped by the Soviet Union. The war arose from the division of Korea at the end of World War 2 and from the global tensions of the Cold War that developed immediately afterwards. -
Brown vs. Board of Education
Brown vs. Board of Education was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education -
Development of new technologies
Video technology was first developed for television systems, but several new technologies for video display devices have since been invented. Charles Ginsburg led an Ampex research team developing one of the first practical video tape recorder (VTR). In 1951 the first video tape recorder captured live images from television cameras by converting the camera's electrical impulses and saving the information onto magnetic video tape. -
Rise of Suburbia/Levittown, PA
What set Levittown apart from other developments at the time was that it was built as a complete community. Levitt & Sons designed neighborhoods with traffic-calming curvilinear roads, in which there were no four-way intersections. Each neighborhood had within its boundaries a site donated by Levitt & Sons for a public elementary school. -
Loyalty Oath Controversy at University of California
The oath was an effort to forestall action on the part of the California Committee on Un-American Activities, of which Senator Jack Tenney was chairman, to place a constitutional amendment on the state ballot giving the legislature authority over the University in matters of loyalty. To anticipate, the Supreme Court of California rendered its decision in Tolman vs. Underhill, giving non-signers reinstatement to their positions on the ironic gounds of legislative authority in the field. -
The McCarthy Hearings
The McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations between April 1954 and June 1954. The hearings were held for the purpose of investigating conflicting accusations between the United States Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy.
