What do you know about the year 1957?

Question

What do you know about the year 1957?

Answer 1

President: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Vice President: Richard M. Nixon

U.S. Population: 171,984,130

There are 47,200,000 TV sets in use in 39,500,000 homes.

Leave It to Beaver premier's on CBS, ushering in an era of television shows that depict the ideal American.

Columbia University professor Charles Van Doren becomes a media sensation by winning $129,000 on the quiz show Twenty One.

Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story debuts on Broadway and brings violence to the stage.

Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey Into Night is produced posthumously and wins both the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize.

Miss America: Marian McKnight (SC)

Top Movies: The Bridge on the River Kwai, Twelve Angry Men, Sayonara, Peyton Place, Witness for the Prosecution, Around the World in 80 Days, Friendly Persuasion, Giant, The King and I and The Ten Commandments

Top Books: James Agee, A Death in the Family; John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle; Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures; Lawrence Durrell, Justine; Jack Kerouac, On the Road; Denise Levertov, Here and Now; Bernard Malamud, The Assistant; Robert Penn Warren, Promises: Poems 1954—56

General Foods Corp. introduces TANG breakfast beverage crystals.

Barry Gordy, Jr. invests $700 to found "Motown Records." And the rest, as they say... is history.

Velcro is patented by George de Mestral of Switzerland.

Greyhound introduces the "It's such a comfort to take the bus and leave the driving to us" ad campaign.

The 13-year-old Bobby Fisher becomes a chess champion.

First round-the-world nonstop jet plane flight. Maj. Gen. Archie J. Old, Jr. (USAF) led a flight of three Boeing B-52 bombers around the world in 45 hours, 19 minutes (completed Jan. 18).

Major John Glenn, Jr. sets an air speed record by traveling from California to New York in a jet in 3 hours, 23 minutes, and 8.4 seconds.

The Pink Flamingo!

Houston, we have a problem...Sputnik is launched.

AFL-CIO votes to expel the Teamsters, which was re admitted in October 1987.

On the Air! You'd find 2,974 AM radio, 530 FM radio and 471 TV Stations.

Music Man, starring Robert Preston, opens on Broadway.

West Side Story, the energetic combination of talents, Leonard Bernstein (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) and Jerome Robbins (choreography) opens on Broadway.

Britain becomes the 3rd nation to join the "nuclear club" with the explosion of an atomic weapon.

Anthony Eden resigns and Harold MacMillan becomes Prime Minister Britain

More news from Merry Ole England. Britain's Queen Elizabeth & Prince Philip visit Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower at the White House. Talk about your fun crowd...

Ed Gein's killing and mutilation spree is over as he is arrested. Gein was the inspiration for Norman Bates in Psycho and Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs.

Eveready produces "AA" size alkaline batteries for use in "personal transistor radios."

Cost of first class stamp - 3 cents.

B-52 bombers begin full-time flying alert in case of USSR attack.

Ghana (formerly Gold Coast) declares independence from UK as does Malaysia (formerly Malaya).

Jackie Robinson, perhaps the finest athlete of the century, announced his retirement from baseball.

Elizabeth Taylor's 2nd. divorce (from Michael Wilding) and 3rd. marriage (to Mike Todd). Can you recall all her marriages?

Singers Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme wed in Las Vegas.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies by Jean Kerr is a book smash! The movie starred Doris Day and David Niven.

Jimmy Hoffa gains control of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters

The Frisbee is renamed and nationally marketed!

One thousand computers are sold. And not one of them had a Windows operating system. Imagine that.

Chairman Mao of China implements his "Great Leap Forward" which places 1 million Chinese in communes.

On September 4, the last game is played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn as the Dodgers prepare to move to LA. On February 23 of 1960, they tear the stadium down. Days that will live in infamy!

Wagon Train debuts on TV.

The National Geographic announces that it has found the resting place of the H.M.S. Bounty.

American Bandstand goes national on August 5, 1957 with d**k Clark as the host.

Elvis Presley emerges as one of the world's first rock stars. The gyrating rocker enjoys fame on the stages of the Milton Berle, Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan shows, as well as in the first of his many movies, Love Me Tender.

Humphrey Bogart passes away 1/14/1957. His films include Casablanca (1942), The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The African Queen (1951).

Senator Joseph McCarthy dies of sclerosis of the liver.

Richard E. Byrd, 1888–1957, American aviator and polar explorer passes away.

The first large scale American nuclear power plant goes into operation in Shippensport, PA and will service Pittsburgh.

The average American production worker is now making $82.32 a week.

5,000 new products will hit the supermarket shelves, including frozen pizza.

Introduced in the fall of '57 for the '58 season, the Edsel came into the world with a big fanfare and lots of hoopla.

Prime commercial paper (4 to 6 mos) was at 3.81%. In New York City a commercial loan ran 4.47%

At a Miami radio station, new employee Lawrence Harvey Zeiger abruptly adopts a stage name - Larry King - and begins broadcasting.

NYC ends trolley car service

Pulitzer prize awarded to John F. Kennedy for Profiles in Courage. Nobel Prizes in Science: Chemistry: Sir Alexander Todd (UK), for research with chemical compounds that are factors in heredity.    Physics: Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang (China), for disproving principle of conservation of parity.   Physiology or Medicine: Daniel Bovet (Italy), for development of drugs to relieve allergies and relax muscles during surgery.    

Interferon invented by Alick Isaacs and Jean Lindemann (England and Switzerland).

Bardeen, Cooper, and Scheiffer (US) propose a theory of superconductivity.

Treaty of Rome establishes European Economic Community (Common Market)

The publication of Jack Kerouac's On the Road introduces the words "beat" and "beatnik" into the American popular consciousness and gives a name to a generation.

Americans Clarence W. Lillehie and Earl Bakk invent the internal pace maker.

Theodore Geisel writes Cat in the Hat as Dr. Seuss!

The Little Rock Nine require federal intervention.

There is a 51.7% business failure rate.

I can't believe it isn't...Margarine sales take the lead over butter.

Williams-Sonoma opens in San Francisco.

Better Homes & Gardens prints its first microwave-cooking article.

American will import 258,343 passenger cars.

Proctor and Gamble acquired Charmin Paper Mills, a regional manufacturer of toilet tissue, towels and napkins. d**k Wilson, aka Mr. Whipple was a mere 41 years old. P&G also introduces Zest Soap.

There are 38,702 motor vehicle related deaths. While in the air, there were 6 accidents resulting in 70 fatalities.

Unemployment is 4.3%

U.S. GNP (Gross National Product) is $460.7 billion

Answer 2

I turned 8 that year. My brother and sister were always jitter bugging on Saturday afternoons to practice to go to the dance that night. They would move the table out of the way, and would use the kitchen as a dance floor! They were really good. My brother is 67 and he is still a great dancer. I remember going to our local Drive In Theater. Mom would bathe us and put on our PJs and we would go to the movies. She would bring sandwiches and snacks and pop so we didn't have to get out of the car. My Dad never came. He took advantage of having a night home alone.

1957 was a great year for music. Elvis, The Platters, and so many others. The Chevy was THE car. Boys wore blue jeans with legs rolled up a bit, white T shirts and grease in their hair. Eisenhower was President, and JF Kennedy was a young senator on the rise in politics. Moms stayed home anc cooked for their kids. We played outside until it was dark, came in took baths, ate supper and went to bed. Once in a while we watched TV.

If a girl got pregnant in high school, she was expelled, at least in my town. If you were sassy to the teacher, you got sent to the principal and you were sent home. Our skirts had to be enough below our knees that when we kneeled, they touched the floor. They checked this if they thought your dress or skirt was too short. We couldn't wear pants when I went to school. The Viet Nam conflict was just starting. I think the Korean war was just finishing. We never had crime in my town. Things were good. My Dad worked for TEXACO and he was proud. He retired after 30 years. I remember just enjoying life.