Baby Boom Year:
GUESS WHEN I WAS BORN
Did you study History in school? Was everything ancient history
to you? Israel was always a nation? Truman was a long ago president. The Berlin Airlift
or the Wright Brothers had nothing to do with your life. If you're a Boomer like
me, stop and think about it. Do you tie your shoes or do you velcro them? Ever made a
Duncan Hines cakemix cake? Ever heard of the Kinsey Report? And, Heaven help us, "Meet The Press"
is still on and annoying me (Loudly!!). The facts below are from the year I was born. Don't laugh Boomer!
Your year of birth is ancient history, too. A link below will help you find
your "ancient birth date".
MAJOR EVENTS:
- Mahatma Gandhi assassinated in India
- House Un-American Activities Committee accuses Alger Hiss of spying for the
Soviet Union
- Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia
- U.S. Congress ratifies Marshall Plan, approving $17 billion in European aid
- State of Israel created; admits over 200,000 European war refugees
- Soviet Union seals off land routes to Berlin; West responds with massive
airlift of provisions
- President Harry S Truman re-elected in upset over Thomas E. Dewey
- President Truman integrates the U.S. Armed Forces
- BUSINESS & ECONOMY:
-
- U.S. continues to cope with severe postwar inflation while rocked by labor
unrest
- United Auto Workers succeed in linking wage increases to cost-of-living
index in contract with General Motors
- Congress enacts federal rent controls
- SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:
-
- Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male is the
first large-scale study of individuals' sexual habits, with stunning revelations
about infidelity, homosexuality and other issues
- U.S. government conducts extensive missile tests in New Mexico desert
- 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar begins operation
- Cortisone introduced as an arthritis treatment
- "Big bang" theory of the universe's origin postulated
- Orville Wright dies
- SPORTS:
-
- World Series: Cleveland over Boston, 4-2
- Olympics held in London
- "Citation" wins Preakness, Belmont and Kentucky Derby
- Boxer Joe Louis retires
- Babe Ruth dies
- ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:
-
- Movies: Hamlet, Macbeth (Orson Welles),
The Naked City, Oliver Twist, The Fallen Idol
- Songs: Nature Boy, Buttons and Bows, All I Want
for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth
- TV Shows: Howdy Doody, Philco TV Playhouse, Toast
of the Town, Kraft Television Theatre, Meet the Press
- Books: The Big Fisherman, Lloyd C. Douglas;
Crusade in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower; Cry, the Beloved
Country, Alan Paton; The Ides of March, Thorton Wilder;
Tales of the South Pacific, James Michener; The Naked and
the Dead, Norman Mailer
- Long-playing (33-1/3 RPM) record invented
- Boxing and wrestling are TV's prime attractions
- EVERYDAY LIFE:
-
- Selective Service inaugurated, providing a continuous peacetime military
draft until repealed in 1973
- New York's Idlewild Airport opens (renamed JFK Airport in 1963)
- Swiss outdoorsman George de Mestral invents Velcro
- Noted food critic Duncan Hines founds a company to make prepackaged cake
mixes
- FUN FACTS:
-
- Popcorn sold on a mass scale for the first time
- "Scrabble" introduced
BOOMER BIRTH YEAR INDEX
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