Medical Research link Smoking to Cancer 1951

In 1950, Sir Richard Doll was the first scientist to prove a link between smoking and lung cancer. Sir Richard Doll began to investigate tar on the roads believing that maybe it was the cause of lung cancer. He and his colleagues interviewed 700 lung cancer patients to try to identify a link. "It was not long before it became clear that cigarette smoking may be to blame". In 1951, he co-authored a paper that suggested the link, and three years later, he wrote another paper that proved it. It wasn't until 1954, that people began to take notice of the link too. Sir Richard Doll was a smoker as well, but quit 2/3 of the way through his study. Doll said "I don't mind in the least if someone in the room lights up a cigarette, It's their decision and their life,not mine".

Richard Doll was appinted OBE in 1956, and was knighted in 1971. He recieved honorary degrees from 13 universities, and won countless awards, including the UN Award for Cancer Research in 1962. It was Richard Doll's researched that showed people that smokers were more likely to die of lung cancer than non-smokers. In 1954, 80% of British adults smoked, 50 years laters its now down to 26 percent.

Written By:Angela B.

President Truman Autorized H-Bomb 1950

President Truman had barley begun his presidency with the death of Roosevelt, when he reveirved word of the successful test of an atomic bomb. This put Truman in a ultimatum to have Japan surrender or they would have to suffer "utter devastation". Japan did not head warning, and Truman was faced with the fact that 500,000 Americans might be killed if they invaded Japan. Leaving Truman with no other choice, he authorized the dropping of atomic bombs first in the city of Hiroshima on August 6, and then on Nagasaki on August 9. The bombs killed more than 100,00 men, woman and children. Japan surrendered on August 14,1945.

Written By:Angela B.

Eisenhower sends federal troops to Little Rock, to force segregation 1957

A crisis broke out in Little Rock, Arkansas. When Governer Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent entry to nine African American students who had sued for the right to attend and intergrated school, Cental High School. Only 1 of the nine students showed up on the first day of school because she did not recieve the phone call about how dangerous it would be going to school. She was harassed by protesters outside the school, and police had to escort her in order to protect her. From then on the nine students had to carpool to school and be escorted by military personnel.

President Eisenhower was determined to enforce the orders of the Federal court. He the deployed the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to protect the students.

Written By:Angela B.

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21,1899. He was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois.He worked as a reporter for a few months after he left high school. Before leaving for Italy to become an ambulance driver during World War 1, which became a novel "A Farewell to Arms" . He was seriously injured and returned home. He was married four times to wife Hadley Richardson, to whom he was married to when he published his first novel " The Sun Also Rises".

He then married Pauline Pfeiffer, and then divorced and wrote " For Whom The Bell Tolls". He then married Martha Gellhom but they weren't together for long befor he married Mary Welsh Hemingway after World War 2. After publishing "The Old Man and the Sea" in 1952, Hemingway wen on a safari in Africa where he was almost killed in a plane crash. The crash which he never really recovered from left him in pain and ill for the rest of his life. During that timed he was living in Cuba, and in 1959 he moved from Cuba to Idaho. He died on July 1,1961 from suicide.

Ernest Hemingway was known for his works of American literature. He published seven novels, six short story collections, two non-fiction works, three more novels, four collections of short stories, and three non-fiction works that were published after his death. His public image was that of his distinctive writting style known as the "Iceberg Theory". He published alot of his work from the mid 20's and through the 50's. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

Written By:Angela B.

Ray Kroc

Raymond "Ray" Albert Kroc was born on October 5,1902 in Chicago,Illinois. He grew up and spent most of his life in Oak Park, Illinois. During World War 1 he trained to be an ambulance driver, but before he could see any action the war ended. He had several jobs during the 1950's, paper-cup salesman,pianist, jazz musician, band memeber,even at at radio station. Later on in life he became a multi-mixer milkshake machine salesman who traveled across the country.

Kroc later on partnered up with the McDonald brothers and open and franchise McDonald's restaurants. In 1961, he eventually purchased the company from them. Ray Kroc created a new kind of fast food. He implemented many idea's to his restaurants to improve sales of hamburgers. Including the Ronald McDonald figure. Which later on started the Ronald McDonald House Foundation.

Ray Kroc was married three times in his life, once to Ethel Fleming, and Jane Dobbins Green and then finally to Joan B. Kroc. Toward the end of his life, he had to use a mobility aid to get around. Ray Kroc died at the age of 81 on January 14, 1984 from heart failure in San Diego, California.

Written By:Angela B.

The H-Bomb 1950

When the Soviets successfully started testing their own nuclear weapons, the United States began its production of uranium and plutonium. By 1950, President Turman announced that the United States would continue research and begin the development of "atomic weapons". Scientist who were working for the Manhattan Project had two designs ready for an atomic bomb. They eventually chose to create a fission bomb ,but time did not permit them. Then physicist, Edward Teller, suggested the creation of a hydrogen bomb. With the results being many times more powerful and destructive than a fission bomb.

On November 1, 1952, the United States released the first hydrogen bomb, code-named "Mike", on Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands. The results of the explosion was the same as 10 million tons of TNT, and 700 times more greater than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The explosion left a great big crater with a cloud of 25 miles high and 100 miles wide. And the island itself disappeared.

Written By: Angela B.

Color TV introduced 1951

In 1940 CBS researches Peter Goldmark invented the colored TV. Colored television became a success by 1949, 10 million sets were sold. In 1946, then, RCA committed to developing an all-electronic system designed to the same reception standards. Those factors provided RCA with the time to design a better color television, which they based on the 1947 patent application of Alfred Schroeder, for a shadow mask CRT. Their system passed FCC approval in late 1953 and sales of RCA color televisons began in 1954. In 1946, then, RCA committed to developing an all-electronic system designed to the same reception standards enjoyed on monochrome sets.

Written By:Christina E.

JD Salinger

Jerome David Salinger was born on January 1,1919 and died on January 27,2010 in New York City. His mothers name was Marie Salinger but changed her name to Miriam and passed as a Jew. His fathers name was Sol Salinger and hw was a Polish Jew. He only had one sister named Doris Salinger. JD Salinger attended public schools on the West Side of Manhattan.

JD Salinger was an American author best known for his 1951 novel "The Catcher in the Rye" . His last original public work was published in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980. He wrote plenty of stories in the 50's : "Nine Stories" ,"For Esme with Love and Squalor", "Pretty MOuth and Green My Eyes","De Daumier Smith Blue Period", "Teddy","Franny and Zooey", and "Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters" and "Seymour: An Introduction". Salinger did not want anybody to film movies based on his stories. He kept a very private life. Except on 2001 a film based on JD Salinger's life was released named Finding Forrester.

Written By:Joselyne T.

Rosa Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was born on February 4,1913 and died on October 24,2005. She was an African American civil rights activist. The U.S. congress later called her "Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights Movement". When she was 42 years old on December 1,1955 in Montgomery,Alabama. She refused to obey the bus driver to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action was not the first of its kind.

Nine months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat a 15 year old girl named Claudette Colvin refused to move from her seat on the same bus system. Rosa Parks act of defiance became an important symbol of the Modern Civil Rights Movment. She became an international icon of resistance ot racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders. Including boycotting with Martin Luther King Jr. Helping launching him to national prominecne in the civil rights movement.

Written By:Joselyne T.

John Steinbeck

John Ernest Steinbeck was born on Feburary 27,1902 in Salinas, California. He was a German and Irish descenet. John Steinbeck grandfathers name was Adolf Grobsteinbeck, he shortened the family name to Steinbeck when he immigrated to the Unites States, their families farm in German is still named Brobsteinbeck. His father John Steinbeck was a Monterey County Treasure, his mothers name was Olive Hamilton was a school teacher. Steinbeck loved to read, he lived in a small town. He used to work in a farm with immigrants, he did like to wrok in fields at all so in 1919 Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School and he went to Standford University. He left in 1925 with out a degree, he traveled to New York and was working not at good jobs while wanting to do his dream as becoming a writer, He got married in January 1930. He became famous on his story called Tortilla Flat in 1935. He was 66 when he passed away in December 1968.

Written By:Fernanda C.

Bill Hayley & The Comets

Bill Hayley & The Comets were a American rock and roll band that was found in 1952 and they continue untill Hayle died in 1981. They were the earliest white group to bring rock&roll to white Americans and the rest of the world from 1954 to the end of 1956. They made 9 singles in the top 20, they were on of the top 3 of top 10. Bill Hayley was a country performer after he recorded a country and a western style version of Rocket 88. A rhythm and blue songs he changed music direction to a new sound. Which came to be rock& roll some of the member of The Comets, became famous Bill Hayley.

They were really famous like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Philadelphia-based Holiday Records label in 1951. Which sold well as followed up a cover of a 1940's rhythm an blues song call Rock The Joint in 1952 this time for Holiday's sister company, Essex Records. Both songs were released under the Saddled men name. It soon became apparent that a new name was needed to fit the music the band was now playing.

Written By:Fernanda C.

James Jones

James Jones was born in December 19,1943. Jones was born and raised in Ralunsen, Illinois. The son of Ramon and Adam Jones. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1939 and served in the 25th Infantry Division before and during World War 2. His wartime experience inspired some of his famous works. He witnessed the Japaneses attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to his first published novel "From Here to Eternity". His second published novel, "Some Come Running" had its roots in the first attempted novel, which he called "They Shall Inherit the Laughter".

Jones assisted in the formation of the Handy Writers Colony in Marshall, Illinois, funded largely on the financial success of "From Here to Eternity" . Jones would not live long enough to see the completion of his last novel, "Whistle" because Jones knew he was dying of congestive heart failure while writing it. The posthumous publication of whistle in 1978 saw the completion of Jones war trilogy of which he wrote : "It will say jus say about everything I ever had to say, or will ever have to say, on the human condition of war and what it means to us, as agaisnt what we claim it means to us".

Written By:Jessica A.

George Catlett Marshall

George Catlett Marshall Jr was born on December 31,1880. He was the youngest of three children. George grew up during the late 19th century, which in many ways closed one chapter of American history and opened another. The Marshall family lived in Uniontown, Pennslyvania where buisness with coal industry provided a good living for his father. He was America's foremost solider during World War 2. He severed as cheif of staff from 1939 to 1945, building and directing the largest army in history.

He enrolled at the Virginia military institute from which he was graduated in 1901 as senior first captain of the crops of cadets. He achieved fame and promotion for his staff work in the battles of Cantigny, Anne-mame, St.Menial, and Meuse-Argonne. Marshall accepted a past with the general staff in Washington, D.C. , and in September 1939, was named cheif of staff, with the rank of general, by President Roosevelt. He became general of the army in 1944, the year in which congress. He died in October 16,1956.

Written By:Jessica A.

US Segregation 1954

In 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson supreme court case determined that "separate but equal" was constitutional. The Supreme court stated, a statue which is adistinction which is founded in the color of two races. Also which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color. The Plessy v. Ferguson legitimed the numberous state and local laws that had been created around the U.S. after the Civil War. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that establishment of separate public schools for blacks and white students is inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional. The legal challenge to school segregation was led by the Nation Association for the Advancement of colored People(NAACP).

With the backdrop of local control of public schools, the afteraffects of salvery played out for more than a century. The 13th amendment to the constitution banned slavery in 1865, and in 1868 the 14th amendment forbade any state from denying to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. During 1949-1950 school year averaged $179 for white students but only $43 for blacks. Also whites were given free bus transport, while black students were abliged to walk. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifically authorized the U.S. attorney general to file lawsuits to force school desegregation, the door on legal segregation closed. Today no American child attends a equally segregated school.

Written By: Jessica A.