Happy birthday to me . . .




Another birthday, not mine.
Although I am the child on the right in this photo, I was standing on the left. Funnily enough  I'm still very much to the left these days - lol.

 1951 was the year that:

• Harry S. Truman was President,
• Alben W. Barkley was Vice President,
• Nuclear testing began at the Nevada test site,
• The 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, limiting a President to 2 terms, was ratified,
• Second Red Scare: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. On April 5 they are sentenced to receive the death penalty,
• Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I opens on Broadway and runs for 3 years,
• The 23rd Academy Awards ceremony is held; All About Eve wins Best Picture,
• Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau,
• In Joplin, Missouri, the George Washington Carver National Monument becomes the first United States National Monument to honor an African American,
• Walt Disney's 13th animated film, Alice in Wonderland, premieres in London, United Kingdom,
• The American soap opera Search for Tomorrow debuts on CBS. After over 30 years, the show switches to NBC on March 26, 1982. Search for Tomorrow airs its final episode on December 26, 1986,
• Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, California, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan to formally end the Pacific War,
• Tennessee Williams's adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire premieres, becoming a critical and box-office smash,
• MGM's Technicolor musical film, An American in Paris, starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, premieres in New York. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli. It would go on to win 6 Academy Awards, including Best Picture,
• I Love Lucy made its television debut on CBS,
• Judy Garland begins her legendary concerts in New York's Palace Theatre,
• CBS' Eye logo premieres on TV,
• U.S. President Harry Truman declares an official end to war with Germany,
• The first military exercises for nuclear war, with infantry troops included, are held in the Nevada desert,
• Direct dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States,
• John Huston's drama film, The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, premieres in Hollywood,
• The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than $13.3 billion USD in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.

After WW2 there was a sharp rise in the US population.  There were 3,820,000 babies born in 1951.  I belong to a group called Baby Boomer cohort #1 (born from circa 1946 to 1955), who epitomized the cultural change of the sixties.  

Memorable events: the Cuban Missile Crisis, assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., political unrest, walk on the moon, risk of the draft into the Vietnam War, anti-war protests, social experimentation, sexual freedom, drug experimentation, civil rights movement, environmental movement, women's movement, protests and riots,Woodstock, mainstream rock from the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix

Key characteristics: experimental, individualism, free spirited, social cause oriented  - yeah, this sums it up nicely!