TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/50s/50edit

Text File | 1990-10-28 | 2KB | 33 lines

Editor's Note


  The 1950s was a decade of amazing progress in many areas. The
United States was the most powerful nation on earth, committed to the
defense of freedom and democracy everywhere. At home, fueled by cheap
energy, high productivity and enduring optimism, the U.S. economy grew
by nearly half, and most Americans achieved an unprecedented
prosperity. Even black Americans began to enjoy the fruits of
citizenship and opportunity.

  But there was a dark shadow over the decade: the threat of
international Communism, the arms race and the Bomb. They hung over
the normalities of everyday life like a black cloud. The U.S., which
twice sent troops to repel perceived Communist aggression and lost
33,600 of its sons and daughters in Korea, was unable to roll back the
Iron Curtain from a single Communist country. And Americans were
rocked by Sputnik and the Soviet Union's other, ominous achievements
in space.


  TIME CAPSULE/THE 50s has been adapted and condensed from the
contents of Time, The Weekly Newsmagazine. The words, except for a few
connecting passages in brackets [], are those of the magazine itself,
and therefore reflect the flavor, the attitudes and the state of
knowledge of the day -- sometimes innocent, sometimes opinionated,
sometimes prescient.

  The volume is divided into seven chapters, each on a topic that
received extensive coverage in TIME: Domestic Affairs, The Arms Race,
Spy Scares and Witch-Hunts, Civil Rights, War in Asia, Foreign
Affairs, and Inventions, Innovations and Discoveries. The date at the
beginning of each excerpt is the issue date of the magazine.