The 1950s (Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries)

During the 1950s, the United States became a world leader in business, technology, and health care. The invention of the polio vaccine and the establishment of NASA set the stage for scientific advancement. Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat, spurring the civil rights movement. However, U.S. troops fought to a deadlock in Korea, the Soviet Union took an early lead in the Space Race, and Americans worried about the presence of Soviet spies. Social mores were being tested by new thinking, new music, and new idols. The 1950s would prove to be a decade that would reimagine pop culture, the new normal, and the American Dream.