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he was inaugurated
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the communist party of china wins the chinese civil war
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signs his first recording contract with Okeh Records, although he would not become popular for another two years.
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created the films My Dream Is Yours and It's a Great Feeling as well as popular songs like "It's Magic".
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the prize-winning musical, opens on Broadway on April 7.
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is an aggressive radio and newspaper journalist credited with inventing the gossip column.
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and the New York Yankees go to five World Series in the 1940s, winning four of them.
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the U.S. Senator, gains national attention and begins his anti-Communism crusade with his Lincoln Day speech.
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elected to us senate
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a popular car company, begins its financial downfall.
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becomes widespread
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declare war after Northern forces stream south on June 25.
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soars in popularity with five new movies, including The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve.
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Ethel and Julius, were convicted on June 19 for espionage.
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The United States is in the middle of developing the hydrogen bomb as a nuclear weapon; it would be first tested in late 1952.
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a champion boxer, defeats Jake LaMotta in the "St. Valentine's Day Masscre"
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the border village in Korea, is the location of truce talks between the parties of the Korean War
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is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in A Streetcar Named Desire.
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the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, opens on Broadway on March 29.
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a controversial novel by J. D. Salinger, is published.
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first elected as President of the United States, winning by a landslide margin of 442 to 89 electoral votes.
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The vaccine for polio is privately tested by Jonas Salk
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Queen Elizabeth II succeeds to the throne upon the death of her father, George VI, and is crowned the next year.
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defeats Jersey Joe Walcott, becoming the world heavyweight boxing champion.
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Liberace has a popular 1950s television show for his musical entertainment.
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George Santayana, philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist, dies on September 26.
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acts as the true power behind the new Egyptian nation as Muhammad Naguib's minister of the interior.
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succeeds Stalin for six months following his death. Malenkov had presided over Stalin's purges, but would be spared a similar fate by his successor Nikita Khrushchev.
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Sergei Prokofiev, the composer, dies on March 5, the same day as Stalin.
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and his wife Barbara are involved in a highly publicized divorce, culminating in 1954 with a record-breaking $5.5 million settlement.[13]
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an African-American baseball catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, receives the National League's Most Valuable Player award for the second time.
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The uprising of 1953 in East Germany is crushed by the Volkspolizei and the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
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Juan Perón spends his last full year as President of Argentina before a September 1955 coup.
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Arturo Toscanini is at the height of his fame as a conductor, performing regularly with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on national radio.
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Dacron is an early artificial fiber made from the same plastic as polyester.
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A French/Vietnamese camp falls to Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap, signaling the end of French Indochina and leading to the creation of North Vietnam and South Vietnam as separate states.
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"Rock Around the Clock" is a hit single released by Bill Haley & His Comets in May, spurring worldwide interest in rock and roll music.
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opens on July 17, 1955 as Walt Disney's first theme park.
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dies on April 18 at the age of 76.
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achieves success with East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, gets nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and dies in a car accident on September 30 at the age of 24.
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The Brooklyn Dodgers win their first and only World Series before their move to Los Angeles.
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is a Disney television miniseries about the legendary frontiersman of the same name. The show was a huge hit with young boys and inspired a short-lived "coonskin cap" craze.
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A year after Walt Disney Animation Studios released an animated adaption of the play by J. M. Barrie, the 1954 stage musical of the same name starring Mary Martin is broadcast on NBC live and in color.
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signs with RCA Records on November 21, beginning his pop career.
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Makes his famous Secret Speech denouncing Stalin's "Cult of personality" on February 25.
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The Suez crisis boils as Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal on October 29.
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appears in her first mainstream film And God Created Woman and establishes an international reputation as a French "sex kitten".
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Is the capital city of Hungary and site of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
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Is the site of the Montgomery Bus Boycott which ultimately led to the removal of the last race laws in the USA. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr figure prominently.
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Kelly releases her last film, High Society, and marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
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The best-selling novel by Grace Metalious, is published. Though mild compared to today's standards, it shocked the reserved values of the 1950s.
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Becomes the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, making the start of the space race.
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Arkansas is the site of an anti-integration standoff, as governor Orval Faubus stops the Little Rock Nine from attending Little Rock High School and President Eisenhower deploys the 101st Airborne Division to counteract him.
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The Russian author, publishes his novel Doctor Zhivago.
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Is in the middle of his career as a famous new York Yankees outfielder and American League All-Star for the sixth year in a row.
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Publishes his first novel in seven years, On the Road.
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premier of the People's Republic of China, survives an assassination attempt on the charter airliner Kashmir Princess.
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An adaptation of a the 1954 novel, is released and receives seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
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is engulfed in a political and religious crisis that eventually involves U.S. intervention.
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elected first president of the French Fifth Republic following the Algerian Crisis
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begins as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California and become the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, respectively. They are the first teams in Major League Baseball west of Kansas City.
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Starkweather's murder spree, in which he kills eleven people between January 25 and 29 before being caught in a massive manhunt in Douglas, Wyoming, captures the attention of Americans.
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Many pregnant women taking the drug Thalidomide had children born with congenital birth defects.
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Is engulfed in a political and religious crisis that eventually involves U.S intervention.
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Is elected first president of the French Fifth republic following the Algerian Crisis.
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Begins as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California and become the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, respectively. They are the first teams in Major League Baseball west of Kansas city.
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Starkweather's murder spree, in which he kills eleven people between January 25 and 29 before being caught in a massive manhunt in Douglas, Wyoming, captures the attention of Americans.
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dies in a plane crash on February 3 with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, in a day that had a devastating impact on the country and youth culture. Joel prefaces the lyric with a Holly signature vocal hiccup: "Uh-huh, uh-huh."
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a film based around the New Testament starring Charlton Heston, wins eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
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Aboard the flight Jupiter AM-18, Able and Miss Baker become the first two animals to be launched into space and returned to Earth alive.
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are the center of attention for the FBI and public attention builds to this organized crime society with a historically Italian-American origin
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Reach 100 million in sales as the latest toy fad.
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comes to power after a revolution in Cuba and visits the United States later that year on an unofficial twelve-day tour.
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Production of this car marque ends after only three years due to poor sales.
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An American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union, causing the U-2 Crisis of 1960.
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was rescued by the CIA after being forced to resign as leader of South Korea for allegedly fixing an election and embezzling more than US $20 million.
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illegal payments for radio broadcasting of songs, was publicized due to Dick Clark's testimony before Congress and Alan Freed's public disgrace.
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beats Richard Nixon in the November 8 general election.
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An Alfred Hitchcock thriller, based on a pulp novel by Robert Bloch and adapted by Joseph Stefano, which becomes a landmark in graphic violence and cinema sensationalism. The screeching violins heard at this point in the song are a trademark of the film's soundtrack.
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The Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville) was declared independent of Belgium on June 30, with Joseph Kasavubu as President and Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister.
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commits suicide on July 2 after a long battle with depression.
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written by Robert A. Heinlein, is a breakthrough best-seller with themes of sexual freedom and liberation.
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is signed to Columbia Records after a New York Times review by critic Robert Shelton.
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is separated into West Berlin and East Berlin, and from the rest of East Germany, when the Berlin Wall is erected on August 13 to prevent citizens escaping to the West.
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fails, an attempt by United States-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro.
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The Academy Award-winning film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence starring Peter O'Toole premieres in America on December 16.
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The Beatles, a British rock group, gain Ringo Starr as drummer and Brian Epstein as manager, and join the EMI's Parlophone label. They soon become the world's most famous rock band, with the word "Beatlemania" adopted by the press for their fans' unprecedented enthusiasm. It also began the British Invasion in the United States.
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A riot was fought between Southern segregationist civilians and federal and state forces as a result of the forced enrollment of black student James Meredith at the University of Mississippi.
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Flew the first American manned orbital mission termed "Friendship 7" on February 20.
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Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson fight for the world heavyweight championship on September 25, ending in a first-round knockout. This match marked the first time Patterson had ever been knocked out and one of only eight losses in his 20-year professional career.
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Cardinal Giovanni Montini is elected to the papacy and takes the papal name of Paul VI.
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makes his infamous statement "The chickens have come home to roost" about the Kennedy assassination, thus causing the Nation of Islam to censor him.
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The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, has a relationship with a showgirl, and then lies when questioned about it before the House of Commons. When the truth came out, it led to his own resignation and undermined the credibility of the Prime Minister.
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President John F. Kennedy is assassinated on November 22 while riding in an open convertible through Dallas.
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In the early 1960s, oral contraceptives, popularly known as "the pill", first go on the market and are extremely popular. Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 challenged a Connecticut law prohibiting contraceptives. In 1968, Pope Paul VI released a papal encyclical entitled Humanae vitae which reaffirmed Catholic teaching that artificial birth control was a sin.
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A Vietnamese Communist, who served as President of Vietnam from 1954–1969. March 2 Operation Rolling Thunder begins bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply line from North Vietnam to the Vietcong rebels in the south. On March 8, the first U.S. combat troops, 3,500 marines, land in South Vietnam.
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Former Vice President Nixon is elected President in 1968.
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back again: Former Vice President Nixon is elected President in 1968.
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Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing, successfully lands on the moon.
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Famous rock and roll festival of 1969 that came to be the epitome of the counterculture movement.
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Political scandal that began when the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. was broken into. After the break-in, word began to spread that President Richard Nixon may have known about the break-in, and tried to cover it up. The scandal would ultimately result in the resignation of President Nixon; to date, this remains the only time that anyone has ever resigned the United States Presidency.
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The Ramones form, with the Sex Pistols following in 1975, ushering in the punk era.
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Palestine: The ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict escalates as Israelis establish settlements in the West Bank, previously held by Jordan for non-Jewish Palestinians after the 1948 war, beginning shortly after Begin's election.
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Numerous aircraft hijackings take place, specifically, the Palestinian hijack of Air France Flight 139 and the subsequent Operation Entebbe in Uganda.
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former Governor of California, begins his first Presidential campaign in 1976. He eventually wins in the next election in 1980.
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Begin becomes Prime Minister of Israel in 1977 and negotiates the Camp David Accords with Egypt's president in 1978.
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popularizes the dance The Twist with his cover of the song of the same name.
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a "most wanted" Nazi war criminal, is traced to Argentina and captured by Mossad agents. He is covertly taken to Israel where he is put on trial for crimes against humanity during World War II, convicted in 1961, and hanged the following year, 1962.
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Following their move into Afghanistan on December 24, Soviet forces fight a ten-year war up until 1989
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During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the West-backed and secular Shah is overthrown as the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini gains power after years in exile and forces Islamic law.
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The hit television game show, on air since 1975, underwent several changes in the early 1980s, including the hiring of Pat Sajak as host in 1981, Vanna White as hostess in 1982, and a move to syndication in 1983, all three of which were still in effect by the time of the son
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Crack cocaine use surged in the mid-to-late 1980s.
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A collection of symptoms and infections in humans resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is first detected and recognized in the 1980s, and was on its way to becoming a pandemic.
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Veterans of the Vietnam War, including many disabled ex-military, are reported to be left homeless and impoverished.
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Persistent U.S. trade and budget deficits
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In the 1970s and 80s, heavy metal bands became popular. Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest in particular were sued for fans' suicides after listening to their songs "Suicide Solution" and "Better By You, Better Than Me", respectively.
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On June 18, she became the first American woman in space by flying aboard Challenger on the STS-7 shuttle mission. Ride's quip from space "Better than an E-ticket", harkens back to the opening of Disneyland mentioned earlier, with the E-ticket purchase needed for the best rides.
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On December 22, Goetz shot four young men who he said were threatening him on a New York City subway. Goetz was charged with attempted murder but was acquitted of the charges, though convicted of carrying an unlicensed gun.
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Medical waste was found washed up on beaches in New Jersey after being illegally dumped at sea. Before this event, waste dumped in the oceans was an "out of sight, out of mind" affair. This has been cited as one of the crucial turning points in popular opinion on environmentalism.
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On May 20, China declares martial law, resulting in the use of military forces against protesting students to end the Tiananmen Square protests.
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Soft drink giants Coke and Pepsi each run marketing campaigns using rock & roll and popular music stars to reach the teenage and young adult demographic
