Baby Boom Timeline — 1946 to 1964

Published 12:45 am Sunday, November 8, 2020

Demographers assign the “Baby Boom” to the years 1946 to 1964. Some events of Oregon, the U.S. and the world during that time:

1946

• Tupperware introduced
• Portland State University founded
• Winston Churchill calls Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe an “Iron Curtain”
• First programmable computer created at University of Pennsylvania
• Oregon’s Rural School Law encourages consolidation of districts
• Philippines granted independence by United States

1947

• 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

1948

• 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

1949

• 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 is first woman elected Portland mayor
• State Department of Forestry begins replanting Tillamook Burn
• Volkswagen Beetle introduced in U.S.

1950

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

1951

• First coast-to-coast television broadcast.
• “I Love Lucy” debuts
• “Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger published
• 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• Oregon law prohibiting interracial marriages repealed

1952

• 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

1953

• 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
• 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 and Senate 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.

1955

• Rosa Parks refuses to move from white section on Montgomery bus.
• Emmett Till murdered.
• Disneyland opens
• Soviet Union creates Warsaw Pact with eastern European communist governments.
• First of chain of McDonalds’ 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.

1956

• Congress authorizes interstate road 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

1957

• 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

1958

• 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.
• Microchip developed
• Bobby Fischer, 14, wins U.S. Chess Championship

1959

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

1960

• John F. Kennedy elected U.S. president
• Enovid, the first FDA -approved oral contraceptive, hits the market.
• Soviet Union shoots down U.S. U-2 spy plane
• U.S. sends 2,500 troops to Vietnam
• U.S. 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
• “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee, is published
• “The Twist” hit song starts dance craze

1961

• U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba fails
• Yuri Gaugarin of USSR is first man in space — Alan Shepard of U.S. is later the first American
• Berlin Wall construction begins
• Eisenhower warns of growing “military-industrial complex” in farewell speech.
• Pampers disposable diapers go on sale

1962

• 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 quarterback Terry Baker 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
• Jack Nicklaus beats Arnold Palmer in US Open playoff for his first PGA victory
• First Wal-Mart opens in Arkansas

1963

• Kennedy assassinated in Dallas
• Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, is 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

1964

• 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 with more than four million births in U.S., ending “Baby Boom.”