The Baby Boom Years: 1949

BORN:

• Bruce Springsteen
• Gene Simmons
• Vera Wang
• Meryl Streep

MUSIC

• Hank Williams performs guest spot at Grand Ole Opry and becomes its greatest star.

FASHION

• Wide skirts, narrow waists, and horizontal seams are in.
• For the first time, two silhouettes are featured in women’s fashion: the wide skirt and the narrow skirt.

SPORTS

• The decades–long “color barrier” in athletics for the Big Seven Conference is broken by Harold Robinson, playing football for Kansas State. Robinson would go on to be named All–Conference in 1950.
• The first 24 hours of Le Mans is held since the beginning of World War II.

WORLD

• Mao Zedong proclaims the establishment of the People’s Republic.
• For 321 days the Berlin Airlift brought necessities to the people of the Allied section of Berlin, whose land routes were blockaded by Soviets.
• 12 Western nations sign North Atlantic Treaty Organization pact.
• Soviets detonate A-Bomb.
• Germany is divided into two separate states.

TRIVIA QUESTIONS:

• Which US airline is first to serve alcoholic beverages in-flight?

a. United b. TWA c. Pan-Am d. Northwest

• Graffiti in ’49? Was spray paint was invented in 1949? True or false?
• This popular toy was first commercialized this year!

a. Silly Putty b. Etch-A-Sketch c. Slinky d. Magic 8 Ball

• Name this 1949 novel that frightened the post war world with its nightmarish prophesy of a totalitarian future. It depicted a faceless, computerized bureaucracy that amassed secret data about its citizens and kept them under surveillance of its never-blinking eye.
• This popular car was first sold in the US this year. Only 2 were sold.

a. VW Beetle b. Chrysler 300 c. Chevy Corvetted d. Ford Mustang

R.I.P.

• Henry Ford
• Al Capone
• Willa Cather
• Ettore Bugatti

Billboard Top 10 Pop Hits:

1. Jealous Heart—Al Morgan
2. I Can Dream, Can’t I—Andrews Sisters & Gordon Jenkins
3. Far Away Places—Bing Crosby
4. Galway Bay—Bing Crosby
5. Cruising Down the River—Blue Baron
6. Maybe It’s Because—Dick Haymes
7. Buttons and Bows—Dinah Shore
8. A Little Bird Told Me—Evelyn Knight
9. Powder Your Face with Sunshine—Evelyn Knight
10. That Lucky Old Sun—Frankie Lane