- Witness the most significant moments of the 1930s, in color, through rarely seen archival footage and home movies.
- It's a decade many consider to be America's glory years, despite fearful conflicts at home and abroad. Join us as we revisit the 1950s, when families reaped unprecedented riches, teens discovered rock 'n' roll, and a nation found itself in the throes of civil unrest and on the losing end of the Space Race. Through digital colorization, we present the most significant moments of this incredible decade like they've never been shown before, including the Korean War, the Little Rock Nine, Elvis Presley, and more.
- To Americans the 1950s are the golden years. The baby boomer generation are children and enjoying peace, economic prosperity and great technological advances. But behind this perfect façade are troubling times - racial hatred divides the nation, Russia has a nuclear bomb and the Cold War throws a long shadow. With rare archive and home movies, seen in color for the first time, this is the story of the 1950s as you've never seen it before.
- To many Americans the 1950s was the best decade ever. Having recovered from WW2, the life of the nation was on the up and attitudes carefree for many. The decade brought in massive changes in lifestyle for average Americans. Having recently started families, many move into the suburbs in droves - inhabiting newly built houses like those pioneered by William Levitt. Economic prosperity ushers in waves of consumerism where people spend their hard-earned dollars on cars and televisions. Teenagers will be empowered by cheap technology and with new music like rock'n'roll, singers like Elvis Presley become national sensations.
Behind this though lay darker times - the confrontation with communism was expanding and new battle lines were being drawn across the globe and in the unchartered territory of space. Illusions of world peace will shatter at the turn of decade when only a few months previously President Truman announces that Russia has tested its own atomic bomb. With a nuclear arms race kicking off, the cold war is about to get a whole lot warmer.
In June 1950, North Korea will invade its southern neighbour. Fearing the spread of communism - Truman sends troops and his best man to lead them, General Douglas Macarthur. After three years of bitter fighting, the death of 34,000 US soldiers and a change of president, the war is finally over. However back home the ideological war is ongoing and witch hunts like those conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy shake American politics to the core.
A new frontier is entered in 1957 when Russia launches the first satellite, Sputnik 1, into space. This event shocks the nation in realising the eye had been taken off the prize and the enemy was winning the space race. Not a nation to take this lightly, this spurs America into its greatest technological achievement yet.
Meanwhile long seated racial tensions that'd been simmering eventually came to boil. In 1955, teenager Emmett Till is brutally murdered whilst visiting relatives and the perpetrators walk free - enraging and mobilising the black population of America. Later that year Rosa Parks causes a storm when she refuses to move to the back of the bus. Finally, in 1957, after 60 years of educational segregation and the historic Brown Vs. Board decision, nine black students try to enter a previously segregated school - what ensues highlights the birth of the emerging civil rights movement and historic change.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content