1954 History, Trivia and Fun Facts

• Politics: Brown v. Board of Education legally ended "separate but equal" school segregation in the US.
• Biggest Songs include: Sh-boom by The Chords, Mr. Sandman by The Chordettes and Oh! My Pa-Pa (O Mein Papa) by Eddie Fisher
• The Big Movies included Rear Window, White Christmas and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
• Price of Living room set in 1954: $189.95
  Philco Air Conditioner: $199.00
• The World Population was ~ 2,772,000,000
• Sports: Roger Bannister becomes the first man to break the four minute mile, at 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.
• And... The 1954 book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson has had three movie adaptations. The Omega Man (1971), The Last Man on Earth (1964), and I Am Legend (2007).

April 11, 1954 may have been the most boring day in history. The most noteworthy events of that day included a general election in Belgium and the birth of a Turkish academic.

The phrase "under God" wasn't part of the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954, and that its adoption was largely due to pressure from the Knights of Colombus and nationwide concerns about 'godless communism'.

Roger Bannister was the first human to run a mile in less than four minutes (3:59) on May 6th. Mr. Bannister stopped running shortly after that, and became a neurologist. He was knighted (for his neurogist work) in 1975.

The Ivy League isn't what it seems. It was created in 1954 for football and people just assume its old because the individual schools are.

In 1660, a 70-year-old British man named William Harrison went missing. Three suspects were hanged for murder, despite the lack of a body. The man arrived a year later, claiming to have been abducted by pirates. This judicial mistake led England to adopt the "no body, no murder" rule, which lasted up until 1954.

Philly-born pool player Willie Mosconi sunk 526 pool balls, without missing, in Springfield, Ohio. Noone has come close to breaking that record.

The first 7 seasons of the Walt Disney anthology series (begun in 1954) were filmed in color so that when color TV became more common, they could air colored versions of earlier episodes for reruns.

Then Vice-President Richard Nixon broke the original ivory gavel that had been in use by the Senate since 1789. #oopsie

Paul Newman was so ashamed of his role in The Silver Chalice that when the movie was due to make its television debut, he bought a magazine ad to apologize for his performance and to warn people away from it. He later called it "the worst motion picture produced during the 1950s".

Royal Crown Soda was the first company to sell soft drinks in a can, and later the first company to sell a soft drink in an aluminum can.

The film Salt of the Earth was the first/only film blacklisted in the US in 1954.

John W. Backus created the FORTRAN computer language.

Before 1954, it was popular opinion that the human body was incapable of running a mile in under 4 minutes.

The Fast and the Furious movie series is "loosely" based on a film from 1954, also called The Fast and the Furious.

Late 1954, and early 1955 is when Edgar Hetteen and David Johnson started making and selling their Polaris snowmobiles.

Although started as a fruit-packing business in 1947, Tropicana owner Anthony Rossi developed a 'flash pasteurization' process that made OJ more easily transported fresh across the country.

Elvis Presley played his first and only show at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. He was subsequently kicked out of the venue by management because they didn't like how he was playing country music.

Prior to 1954, Thanksgiving turkeys were supplied by the local farmer or butcher, but Frank Swift's well-bred, larger-than-typical Butterball turkeys changed all that.

The Piña Colada was invented at Puerto Rico in 1954 at the Caribe Hilton

Many of the worlds elite from politicians to academia, industry and the media have been meeting annually, behind closed doors, at Bilderberg Conferences since 1954.

Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke won his place in the Guiness Book of World records for drinking 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds.

John Stapp strapped himself to a rocket sled, accelerated to 632 MPH in 5 seconds, and then decelerated to 0 MPH in 1.4 seconds. He experienced 46.2 G's. He went temporarily blind and experienced two black eyes from his eyeballs having been shot so far forward.

Archaeologists excavating an 8th-century Viking settlement in Sweden found a Buddha statuette from India.

The famous "rock" opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark was lifted from a 1954 Scrooge McDuck comic book.

American surgeon Joseph Murray completed the first successful organ transplant when he moved a living kidney from one identical twin to the other. The operation took about 4 hours.

Matchbox Cars, Yahtzee, Lincoln Logs, Scrabble, thin wooden wiffle bat invented to go with 1953's wiffle ball

The sensory deprivation tank was invented in 1954.

Popular Electronics Magazine (1954-1999)

Sports Illustrated began publication