South Africa in 1951 had a population of around 14,000,000 and the world population stood at 2,653,000,000. The most popular book was "From Here to Eternity" by James Jones. I would turn 4 that year and still blissfully unaware of the world I had been born into.

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In America the first colour TV pictures were broadcast from the Empire State Building. In South Africa we would have to wait for another 25 years. The SABC held tight control over broadcasting in South Africa. We listened to Springbok radio which had started broadcasting the previous year. One of the earliest programs was Radio Jukebox.

UNIVAC

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RCA released its first first video camera. It weighed 8 pounds with a battery backpack that weighed 53 pounds. (We have come a long way). The first commercial computer UNIVAC was put into service at the US Census Bureau. It weighed 16,000 pounds and used 5000 vacuum tubes, it later achieved fame when it forecast the winning of the US Presidential election by Dwight D. Eisenhower 1952. Another breakthrough that year was the direct dialling call from New Jersey to California. It used a 10 digit dialling code, three digits for the area code and seven for the local code. It took 18 seconds to set up.

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This was also the start of the testing of thermonuclear weapons at the Nevada test site. Between 1951 and 1992, 928 nuclear tests were carried out at this site. The scarring can still be seen using Google Earth. This year was also be beginning of the TV series I Love Lucy which started its run and quickly became a firm favourite. Top movies of the time were, An American in Paris, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The African Queen, A Streetcar Named Desire and Strangers on a Train.

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In South Africa the Group Areas Act, passed the year before came into effect. Parliament votes to remove coloured people from the voters roll. Blacks, Indians and Coloureds meet to discuss a plans of action to counter the racial discrimination laws. Max Theiler a virologist, wins the Nobel prize for his work for developing a vaccine for Yellow Fever.

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Serratia marcescens

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The incident I am about to describe took place late in 1950 so in should have been in my 1950 post but it is too interesting to ignore so I will fit it in here. The US navy launched operation Sea-Spray by releasing balloons containing the bacteria Serratia marcescens and burst them over San Francisco. They wanted to test what the results of an airborne biological attack would be. Granted they thought the bacteria were harmless but it shows to what lengths they were willing to go to test a theory. As a result of this test 11 people were hospitalised with life-threatening urinary tract infections and one person ultimately died as a result. The US government managed to evade conviction in the courts. The question I ask is, do governments have the best interests of their citizens at heart?

U.S. Marines in the Korean War

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The Korean war dragged on with UN forces recapturing Seoul. Mohammed Mossadegh the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, was Time Magazine's man of the year. MI6 and the CIA hatched a plot and ultimately he was overthrown by a well executed coup d'etat. King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated and General Douglas MacArthur was fired by President Truman.

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On a lighter note, this was the year the term Rock & Roll was coined by Alan Freed, a Cleveland Disc Jockey. Popular singers at the time were, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole and Mario Lanza.

The music of 1951

Conditions were improving, in the USA the unemployment rate was 3.5%. The UK were still exporting cars and in South Africa the first VW Beetle rolled off the production line.

The Year 1950

https://steemit.com/year1950/@petruska13/1950-the-beginning-of-a-new-world

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