1950s

align="center" | Centuries:
19th century - 20th century - 21st century

align="center" colspan=2 | Decades:
1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s

align="center" colspan=2 | Years:
1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959

Events and trends

Urey-Miller experiment shows that under simulated conditions resembling those thought to have existed shortly after Earth first accreted, many of the basic organic molecules that form the building blocks of modern life are able to spontaneously form
Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the helical structure of DNA at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge
Bruce Heezen discovers the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Polio Vaccine

Korean War
Red Scare, McCarthy Hearings
Suez Crisis
European Common Market founded.
Warsaw pact founded.
Most aboveground nuclear test explosions happened during this decade.
The United States CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the Guatemalan government.
Hungarian revolution of 1956 brutally suppressed by Soviet Union's troops.
Fidel Castro gains power in Cuba.
Mahmoud Abbas becomes involved in Palestinian politics in Qatar.
Decolonization: Algeria, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
Early history of the People's Republic of China, of the state of Israel, and of the Indonesian state.

Brylcreem and other hair tonics have a period of popularity
Television replaces radio as the dominant mass medium in industrialized countries.
In the West, the generation traumatized by the Great Depression and World War II creates a culture with emphasis on normality and calm conformity.
Juvenile delinquency said to be at unprecedented epidemic proportions in USA
Traditional pop music reaches its climax; early rock and roll music embraced by teenagers/youth culture while generally dismissed or condemned by older generation.
Beatnik culture/ The Beat Generation
Optimistic visions of semi-Utopian technological future including such devices as the flying car.
The Day the Earth Stood Still hits movie theaters.
Along with the appearance of the sentence Kilroy was here across the United States, graffiti as an art form develops, especially among urban African Americans; graffiti eventually becomes one of the four elements of hip hop
The Catcher in the Rye