The 50's

·         Society

The Hula Hoop was the most popular toy ever made. It is a brightly colored hoop made of plastic which is rotated around the body by moving your hips. This toy was introduced by Wham-O Manufaturing in 1958. It was very popular and stores kept running out. In the first six months 20 million were sold. In 1958, 100 million were sold worldwide. All around, people held Hula Hoop contests to see who could spin the longest. The Hula Hoop existed in Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and in the 14th century in England. Of course they didn't have plastic then. They got the name Hula Hoop from Hawaii because of the Hula Dancers. Wham-O Manufactured 20,000 hoops a day because of the popularity. The plastic tubing used for all Hula Hop ever produced would stretch around the earth more than 5 times.

         ·         Music

Johnny Cash defined the Country and Western style of music during this decade. Cash’s music was more of a country sound with a rockabilly influence and his songs often centered around a certain theme, including life, sorrow, and relationships. He also strived to integrate humor into his lyrics to make his collection well-rounded and respected by a variety of audiences. Because of his compassion for his fellow human being, he performed many times for inmates in several prisons across the country and his most famous performances resulted from Folsom Prison.

·         Cinema

As the popularity of television grew in the early 1950’s the motion picture industry found itself losing customers. To regain viewers movie executives began trying new and different things, pne of these was the release of 3-D movies.

The first 3-D film during the decade was Bwana Devil, Premiering in November of 1952, while the movie itself was not very good, some of the 3-D effects were.

Over the next couple of years many more movies were released in 3-D, among these were 3-D versions of House of Wax, Hondo, Dial M For Murder and Kiss Me Kate.

However, the 3-D fad didn’t last. Some viewers suffered eyestrain and headaches from watching 3-D films. In addition, if the projection wasn’t done perfectly by the theater the film was just a blurred mess. As a result, the regular version of a film often had more viewers than the 3-D version.

movie part in 3-D require anaglyph 3-D glasses

 

·         Politics

During the 1950's, an organization called the European Coal and Steel Community was formed between six Western European countries. This was established, and became protocol with the Treaty of Paris which was signed in April of 1951, and became effective on July 25, 1952.

The attempt to pool steel and coal resources through the Treaty of Paris in an effort to rebuild post-war Europe is considered the first step in the creation of the modern day European Union which now includes 27 member-states.