The 1950s are often remembered for postwar optimism, new technology, and cultural change, but the decade also produced many strange, troubling, and remarkable stories. These 50 forgotten facts reveal a far more complicated era than nostalgia usually suggests.
Giza Wood Discovery
1. In 1954, archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh uncovered 1,224 complete pieces of wood from 2500 B.C. beneath the Great Pyramid of Giza. A boatbuilder then spent 14 years working out how they fit together and straightening them to build the “Khufu ship”, which can be seen in a museum today.
2. In 1951, Thelma Howard was hired as a maid by Walt & Lillian Disney. For the next 30 years, Walt gave her shares of Disney stock every X-mas. She died in 1994. At that time, it was discovered that she still possessed all 192,000 shares worth $9 million. They were left to disadvantaged kids and her disabled son.
3. In 1959, instead of integrating, Prince Edward County in Virginia closed all of its public schools for five years. White children went to state-subsidized “private schools”. No arrangement was made to educate the county’s black children.
4. In September 1950, the US Navy sprayed San Francisco with “harmless” bacteria to mimic a biological attack. The not-so-harmless bacteria led to an increase in a rare UTI, killing one man. A lawsuit against the government was turned down because the government had legal immunity.
5. On April 12, 1955, Edward R. Murrow asked Jonas Salk “who owned the patent to the polio vaccine?”. He replied, “Well, the people, I would say… There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”
6. In 1952, a double-decker bus was traveling across London’s Tower Bridge when the attempt to shut the gates did not succeed. Driver Albert Gunter made a last-second choice to speed up the bus, clearing a six-foot drop onto the far side. The passengers suffered only minor injuries, and Gunter received a £10 bonus.
7. In the 1950s, donut shops were among the first food businesses that were commonly open late at night. They became gathering places for police on the night shift because they offered somewhere to get a snack, complete paperwork, or even simply rest. This is why donuts became linked with cops.
8. In 1954, Soviet prisoners rose up against their guards and, for 40 days, created a gulag republic with a democratically elected provisional government, marriages between male and female prisoners, indigenous religious ceremonies, and a general flowering of art and culture.
9. In 1952, a nuclear reactor in Canada experienced a partial meltdown. American and Canadian service personnel took the reactor apart a few minutes at a time to reduce radioactive exposure. Jimmy Carter was one of the Americans. His experience led him to stop the development of the neutron bomb as POTUS.
10. In 1953, a paperboy found a hollowed-out nickel containing a ciphered message while collecting for his deliveries. He showed it to the daughter of an NYPD officer, and the news reached the FBI, eventually resulting in the arrest and conviction of KGB agent Vilyam Fisher four years later.
Dunagan’s Early Marine Rise
11. In 1952, at 18 years old, Donnie Dunagan became the youngest drill instructor ever in the Marine Corps. He completed 3 tours in Vietnam and was wounded multiple times, which earned him 3 purple hearts. He also kept secret for more than 50 years that he had been a child actor and the voice of young Bambi.
12. In 1955, evangelist Jack Coe said he had spiritually cured a three-year-old of polio and instructed the boy’s parents to take off his leg braces. This left the boy in constant pain, but Coe never went to jail because medical malpractice did not include divine healing. The following year, Coe died of polio.
13. In 1953, Swanson had 260 tons of extra turkey left over from Thanksgiving and did not know how to dispose of it. They asked their workers for suggestions, and one man proposed packaging it in individual trays with sides and freezing it. The TV dinner was born.
14. In 1954, the well-known rhythm-and-blues singer Johnny Ace died after he jokingly aimed a gun at himself and accidentally shot himself with it. His last words were “It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded… see?”
15. In 1951, a poor woman named Henrietta Lacks gave her cells to science without realizing it. Her cells became the first “immortal cells” that could be preserved alive for medical use. They have been used for everything from creating the polio vaccine to cloning.
16. In 1952, Albert Einstein was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel. He turned it down, saying that as a scientist trained to deal with objective facts, he lacked the aptitude and experience to deal with people.
17. In 1957, the BBC aired an April Fools segment showing a family harvesting spaghetti from the family spaghetti tree. When viewers asked how they could grow their own, they were told to place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.
18. In 1959, police were called to a segregated library in South Carolina when a 9-year-old black boy named Ronald McNair refused to leave. He later got a Ph.D. in Physics from MIT and died in 1986, one of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger. The library that refused to lend him books is now named after him.
19. In 1959, Rena Kanokogi disguised herself as a man, entered a men’s judo competition, and won first place. Her medal was taken away after her victory when she admitted to being female, but it was awarded back to her in 2009.
20. In 1951, Natalie Carbone Mangini became the first female scientist at Westinghouse. They had intended to hire a man, but they misread her resume and gave her an interview when she showed up. As a radiochemist, she worked on the world’s first full-scale atomic reactor and the first nuclear submarine.
Rikers Rescue Brings Rewards
21. In 1957, an airplane went down on Rikers Island. 57 inmates rushed to assist the survivors. Most of the prisoners who helped were either released or given reduced sentences.
22. In 1957, the KKK intended to place a burning cross at a college in Alabama that had recently integrated. However, because it was finals week, the students were all in their dorms and heard the KKK outside. The students then attacked the KKK with bats and golf clubs and forced them to retreat.
23. In 1958, Alaska was struck by a Mega Tsunami that was 1720 feet tall. That is taller than the Empire State Building.
24. In 1958, a white girl kissed two African American boys aged 9 and 7 on the cheeks. The two boys were arrested, held for 6 days without access to their parents or legal counsel, and were severely beaten by the police. The boys were detained for a total of 3 months.
25. In 1950, almost no cases of near-sightedness were found among Eskimo children. But after the start of compulsory education, even their eyesight got worse. In 1979, poor eye vision was relatively high among Greenland Eskimos at all ages.
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