that the DNA molecule consists of two spirally wound chains resembling a twisted rope ladder. In 1962 Watson, Crick, and their associate Maurice Williams would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for their solution of one of the most significant biological riddles: how genetic information is stored in molecular form and how it is passed from one generation to the next. Ultimately Watson and Crick’s discovery led to an explosion in the field of molecular genetics, greatly enlarging our understanding of how genetic information is expressed, how mutations occur, and how they alter protein structure and cause disease. JULY 1953 Conflict in Korea Ends with Armistice United States involvement in the Korean War turned the tide of battle and carried the war into North Korea, though the massive intervention of Communist China in November and December 1951 recovered most of what the North had lost. Armistice talks began in mid-1951 but dragged on for more than two years, ensnared in wrangling over the exchange of prisoners and location of a final demarcation line. The election of Eisenhower and the death in March 1953 of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union deprived each side of the likelihood of victory and cleared the way for a truce. This “limited war” cost the United States 54,000 dead and more than 100,000 wounded. Total UN casualties were 382,000 killed and wounded while the Chinese and North Koreans lost more than 1.6 million, the South Koreans over 3 million.
This proved to be one of the most perilous periods in history, years in which two global powers possessed the means to destroy human civilization but believed that their enemy was too rational to do so. MAY 1954 Brown v. Board of Education In the early 1950s every southern state still required racial segregation in such public places as hospitals, schools, drinking fountains, and restrooms. Moreover, southern voting laws were designed to disfranchise Black citizens. By mid-decade, however, this had begun to change as a result of resistance by Black activists, now in the process of building a civil rights movement that would transform race relations in the United States. Thurgood Marshall, on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), urged the Supreme Court to overturn the precedent established by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which had declared “separate but equal” schools to be legally acceptable. In May 1954, a unanimous court headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren concluded that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” dismantling the legal basis for racial segregation and paving the way for integration.
JULY 1955 Disneyland Opens in Anaheim
Walt Disney Productions was among the most profitable of Hollywood’s studios in the postwar era, having reduced its reliance on animated films to embrace family-oriented movies, nature films,
Figure 49. A nattily attired Walt Disney and his excited side kick Mickey Mouse admire Walt’s latest Silly Symphony on celluloid. Image courtesy of Library of Congress.
MARCH 1954 U.S. Explodes Hydrogen Bomb
When the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb in August 1949, ending the United States nuclear monopoly, Americans were so surprised that they felt it necessary to build an even deadlier weapon. In January 1950 President Truman approved development of a hydrogen bomb, expected by scientists to generate a thermonuclear explosion equivalent to 1,000 atomic bombs. The first test of this bomb, the largest American bomb ever detonated, was carried out in March 1954. The thermonuclear advantage proved to be short-lived because the Soviet Union exploded its own super bomb the very next year. An escalating race for nuclear dominance became part of an American defensive strategy based on the concept of “deterrence”— the assumption that its more powerful nuclear capacity would deter the Soviets from attacking the United States.
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