1950s and 60s Music Legends
This Louisiana-born pianist and singer known as 'The Killer' scandalized America in 1957 with his wild piano-stomping hit 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On.'
Who is Jerry Lee Lewis?
On June 6, 1944, Allied forces stormed the beaches of northern France in Operation Overlord — the largest seaborne invasion in history. This region of France is where it took place.
What is Normandy?
This actress, born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926, became Hollywood's most iconic blonde bombshell and sang 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President' to JFK in 1962.
Who is Marilyn Monroe?
Introduced in 1963, this Kodak camera used simple drop-in 126 film cartridges and was advertised as so easy that 'even a child could do it,' giving millions of families their first point-and-shoot snapshots.
What is the Kodak Instamatic?
In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright sustained the first powered, heavier-than-air flight for 12 seconds at this North Carolina location, covering 120 feet.
What is Kitty Hawk, North Carolina?
She was Motown's 'Queen of Soul' before crossing over to Atlantic Records, where 1967's 'Respect' became an anthem of both women's and civil rights movements.
Who is Aretha Franklin?
In October 1962, the world held its breath for 13 days as the U.S. and Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war over Soviet missiles placed on this island nation 90 miles from Florida.
What is Cuba?
In 1939's 'Gone with the Wind,' this Atlanta socialite declares through tears: 'As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!' — one of cinema's most quoted lines.
Who is Scarlett O'Hara / Vivien Leigh?
This 1971 Coca-Cola TV commercial featured young people of diverse nationalities singing 'I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing' on a hilltop in Italy — one of the most remembered ads of the entire decade.
What is the Coca-Cola 'Hilltop' commercial?
A Scottish engineer named John Logie Baird gave the world's first public demonstration of this invention in London in 1926, transmitting a fuzzy image of a ventriloquist's dummy named 'Stooky Bill.'
What is television?
This British Invasion band took their name from a Chicago blues musician and scored their U.S. debut hit in 1964 with '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' — a song initially rejected by their own label.
Who are The Rolling Stones?
This 1969 event was broadcast live to 600 million television viewers when Neil Armstrong uttered: 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.'
What is the Apollo 11 Moon Landing?
This 1952 Stanley Donen musical starring Gene Kelly features a famous scene where he dances and swings from a lamppost in a downpour, often called the most joyful moment in movie history.
What is Singin' in the Rain?
Launched at $3,995 in 1956, this GE refrigerator was the first American household appliance with an automatic ice maker built into the freezer door, becoming a must-have status symbol in suburban kitchens.
What is the GE refrigerator with automatic ice maker?
In 1928, Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created this cartoon short — the first to feature synchronized sound throughout — introducing a certain mouse in his debut speaking role.
What is Steamboat Willie?
A Tucson, Arizona native who appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, this teen idol's recording of 'Donna' and 'La Bamba' briefly topped the charts before his death in a February 1959 plane crash alongside Buddy Holly.
Who is Ritchie Valens?
On November 9, 1989, crowds of East and West Germans climbed atop and began dismantling this 96-mile long structure that had divided a city for 28 years, symbolizing the end of the Cold War.
What is the Berlin Wall?
Alfred Hitchcock cast this former Philadelphia socialite who gave up a flourishing film career in 1956 to marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco, ending one of Hollywood's most luminous careers.
Who is Grace Kelly?
This 1984 Apple advertisement aired only once during the Super Bowl yet became the most talked-about commercial in TV history, introducing a computer that promised to prevent the future from becoming an Orwellian nightmare.
What is Apple's '1984' Macintosh commercial?
Bell Labs engineers John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrated this semiconductor device on December 23, 1947 — a tiny component that would eventually replace the vacuum tube and make all modern electronics possible.
What is the transistor?
Before joining the Beatles, this drummer played with the Silver Beetles and was replaced in August 1962 — just weeks before 'Love Me Do' was recorded — by a young Liverpool drummer named Ringo Starr.
Who is Pete Best?
In 1928, Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming returned from holiday to find a mold called Penicillium notatum had contaminated — and killed bacteria around — his petri dishes, accidentally discovering this life-saving class of medicine.
What is penicillin?
This 1941 Orson Welles film, considered by many critics the greatest movie ever made, was nearly destroyed by a studio that wanted all prints burned after a newspaper tycoon attempted to suppress it.
What is Citizen Kane?
RCA Victor launched this groundbreaking consumer gadget in 1956 at $995 — roughly $11,000 today — as the first home reel-to-reel tape recorder marketed to ordinary families, letting them record their own voices for the very first time.
What is the RCA Victor home tape recorder?
In 1953, scientists Francis Crick and James Watson — building on X-ray crystallography data by Rosalind Franklin — published their model of this molecule's double-helix structure, unlocking the secret of how life copies itself.
What is DNA?