BABY BOOMER TIME

Demographers assign the “Baby Boom” to the years 1946 to 1964. Some events in Oregon, the United States and the World during that time:

1946

• Oregon Gov. Eugene Snell, Senate president and secretary of state among killed in plane crash in Lake County.
• Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers becomes the first black player in Major League Baseball
• Col. Chuck Yeager pilots Bell X-1 plane beyond the sound barrier at Muroc AFB in California.
• Polaroid camera introduced.
• Britain approves India and Pakistan independence in major move to dismantle colonial empire. 

• President Harry S. Truman narrowly wins election.
• Berlin Airlift starts to get around Soviets cutting off land access to German capital.
• Israel created as Jewish state.
• Gandhi assassinated.
• Columbia River Flood destroys Vanport, major Oregon population center for Blacks.
• Daytona Beach hosts first NASCAR racing event..
• Tektronix founded.
• Velcro created.
• Long-Playing (LP) record introduced. 

• Mao Zedong establishes People’s Republic of China.
• Oregon Supreme Court invalidates Alien Land acts used to seize property of Asian residents.
• NATO established for joint defense of U.S. and Western Europe
• 45 RPM record is introduced.
• Dorothy McCullough Lee if first woman elected Portland mayor.
• State Department of Forestry begins replanting Tillamook Burn
• Fair Labor Practices Commission established.
• Volkswagen Beetle introduced in U.S. 

• Korean War begins.
• “Peanuts” cartoon strip debuts.
• Sen. Joseph McCarthy begins anti-communist campaign.
• Diner’s Club issues first credit card. 

• First coast-to-coast television broadcast. “I Love Lucy” debuts
• President Truman fires Douglas MacArthur as commander of troops in Korea.
• Cleveland radio disc jockey Alan Freed coins term “rock n’ roll” music.
• Oregon law prohibiting interracial marriages repealed. 

• Former Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president. First GOP win since 1928.
• US detonates first hydrogen bomb.
• Oregon Constitution amended to provide for equal representation in state legislature.
• Elizabeth II becomes Queen of England.
• First issue of “Mad” magazine published. 

• Jonas Salk develops the first polio vaccine.
• Oregon Public Accommodations Law prohibits racial discrimination by businesses.
• Julius and Ethel Rosenburg executed as spies.
• “Double Helix” model of DNA first described.
• Korean War armistice ends combat
• Texas Instruments creates transistor radio.
• NY Yankees win last of five consecutive World Series.
• Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first to climb Mt. Everest, world’s tallest mountain.
• The first James Bond novel, “Casino Royale,” is published by British author Ian Fleming.

1954

• U.S. Supreme Court upholds Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, abolishing segregated schools in U.S.
• Dow Jones Industrial Average passes 382 points for first time since 1929 Stock Market crash that set off the Great Depression.
• Swanson frozen “TV dinners” go on sale.
• France pulls out of Indochina after defeat by North Vietnamese. US increases activity.
• Senate censures McCarthy over hearings on the Army — end of the “McCarthy era.”
• U.S. detonates a 15-megaton Hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll — it is 1,000 times more powerful than bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
• Congress terminates Western Oregon Indian tribes.
• Democrats win both house of Congress in mid-term elections. Remain Senate majority until 1981 and House majority until 1994.
• Roger Bannister of Britain runs first under-four minute mile at Oxford.

• Rosa Parks refuses to move from white section on Montgomery bus. Emmett Till murdered.
• Disneyland opens in Southern California.
• Soviet Union creates Warsaw Pact alliance with eastern European communist governments.
• First of chain of McDonald’s restaurants opens
• “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets first rock and roll song to top Billboard chart.
• Congress adds “In God We Trust” on currency.  

• Congress authorizes Interstate system: 41,000 miles to be built in 20 years.
• Congress terminates Klamath Indian Tribe.
• Elvis Presley has first charting song, “Heartbreak Hotel.”
• CBS broadcasts first NFL football games.
• First nuclear power station developed in Britain.
• Video Tape developed to replace film. 

• Peak of baby boom, with families having average of 3.7 children.
• Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1 satellite, igniting “Space Race” with U.S.
• Oregon Fair Housing Act passes.
• European Economic Community, forerunner of EU, is created by six countries — but does not include Britain. 

• Mt. Bachelor, Oregon’s largest ski area, opens near Bend.
• NASA created.
• Hula-Hoop created.
• New York transplants, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants bring baseball to West Coast.
• Micro-chip developed.
• Bobby Fischer, 14, wins U.S. Chess Championship 

• Alaska and Hawaii become 49th and 50th states.
• Oregon ratifies 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 89 years after it is adopted by Congress.
• Cuban Revolution brings Fidel Castro to power in communist regime. 

• John F. Kennedy elected president
• Enovid, the first FDA approved mass market oral contraceptive becomes available.
• Soviet Union shoots down U.S. U-2 spy plane.
• US sends 2,500 troops to Vietnam.
• US runner Wilma Rudolph wins three gold medals at Rome Olympics.
• First female U.S. Senator from Oregon, Maurine Neuberger, elected.
• Aluminum cans introduced.
• First heart pacemaker.
• “The Twist” sung by Chubby Checker starts dance craze. 

• U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba fails
• Yuri Gaugarin of USSR is first man in space — Alan Shepard of U.S. later first American.
• Soviets and Easter Germany begin building Berlin Wall.
• Eisenhower warns of growing danger of  “military-industrial complex” in farewell speech.
• Pampers disposable diapers go on sale. 

• Cuban missile crisis almost leads to nuclear war with Soviets.
• Columbus Day “Big Blow” cyclone kills 50 and causes $5 billion damage on northwest coast.
• OSU Beavers QB Terry Baker (QB) state’s first Heisman Trophy winner.
• Wilt Chamberlain of NBA’s Philadelphia Warriors scores record 100 points.
• Space Needle opens for World Fair in Seattle.
• Golf Jack Nicklaus beats Arnold Palmer in US Open playoff for his first PGA victory.
• First Wal-Mart opens in Arkansas. 

• Kennedy assassinated in Dallas. Assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, murdered soon after capture.
• March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech.
• “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan fuels women’s movement.
• Postal Service institutes zip codes.
• Cassette tape developed in the Netherlands. 

• Lyndon Johnson wins landslide in presidential race.
• Surgeon General reports smoking may cause lung cancer.
• Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan Show.
• Death penalty abolished in Oregon.
• Civil Rights Act outlaws segregation in public places, ensured voting rights
• Last year that more than four million births in U.S., ending “Baby Boom.”