The Year 1951
MAJOR EVENTS:
  • North Korean offensive pushes beyond the 38th parallel; truce negotiations fail
  • Congress passes 22nd Amendment, limiting a President to two terms
  • Julius and Ethel Rosenberg convicted of passing U.S. nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union; both are sentenced to death
  • General Douglas MacArthur relieved of command in Korea
  • Sen. Estes Kefauver begins investigation of gambling and organized crime
  • General Douglas MacArthur was forced into retirement after 52 years and made that famous quote "Old soldiers never die, they…….."
  • CBS introduces color television.


    • BUSINESS & ECONOMY:
  • Businessman J.S. Coxey leads unemployment protest in Washington
  • The average cost of four years of college was now $1,800.
  • UNIVAC - First general purpose electronic computer was dedicated at the Census Bureau in Philadelphia.
  • AT & T became the first corporation with over one million stockholders.


    • SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:
  • Mass production of penicillin and streptomycin reaches records
  • Electricity generated from nuclear power for the first time
  • Margaret Sanger, pioneer of birth control, urges development of oral contraceptive.
  • Fluoridation in the water supply for the fight against tooth decay.
  • New products: power steering (Chrysler), surgarless chewing gum and Tropicana products
  • First color broadcast transmitted from CBS in New York (a program hosted by Ed Sullivan and Arthur Godfrey).


    • SPORTS:
  • World Series: New York Yankees over New York Giants, 4-2
  • Joe Dimaggo retired (life time batting average of .325)
  • Sugar Ray Robinson beat Jake LaMotta for the middleweight boxing title.
  • Lacosta first put the alligator symbol on tennis shirts.


    • ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:
  • Movies: The African Queen, An American in Paris, Strangers on a Train, A Streetcar Named Desire
  • Songs:Hello Young Lovers, Getting to Know You, Cry, Kisses Sweeter than Wine, In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening
  • TV Shows: Adventures of Ellery Queen, Captain Video, What's My Line
  • New TV shows: Red Skelton Show, I Love Lucy and Edward R. Murrow's See It Now
  • Books: A Man Called Peter, Catherine Marshall; Lie Down in Darkness, William Styron; Desirée, Annemarie Selinko; From Here to Eternity, James Jones; The Caine Mutiny, Herman Woulk; The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
  • The King and I opens on Broadway
  • Robert Frost and Carl Sandberg both publish collections of poetry titled Complete Poems
  • Best Picture: An American in Paris
  • Best Actor: Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen
  • Best Actress: Vivin Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire


    • EVERYDAY LIFE:
  • In response to the growing popularity of television, movie theatres experiment with a variety of attractions, including wide-screen projection and 3-D effects
  • Tupperware parties