Video: 'Vietnam a Television History Episode 1' (June 4, 1954, at 51:29)
(Friday, June 4, 1954; during the First Indochina War, part of the Cold War) — U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today to invest $3.5 billion in foreign aid during the next 12 months to help prevent “red domination” of the world.
Video: 'Dial M for Murder' trailer
(Saturday, May 29, 1954) — Dial M for Murder, a crime thriller film about a straying husband who frames his wife for the murder of the man he’d hired to kill her, opened today in New York City at the Paramount theater.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the film starred Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings and John Williams.
Video: 'USS Bennington'
(Wednesday, May 26, 1954, 6:15 a.m. EDT) — Explosions rocked the aircraft carrier USS Bennington today off Rhode Island, killing 103 sailors. The initial blast was blamed on leaking catapult fluid ignited by the flames of a jet.
(Thursday, May 20, 1954) — Bill Haley & His Comets’s “Rock Around the Clock,” considered the first rock and roll song to top the charts, was released today, but it didn’t catch on until it appeared on the soundtrack of Blackboard Jungle the following year.
Video: 'Fender 60th Anniversary American Vintage 1954 Stratocaster Electric Guitar'
(Saturday, May 15, 1954) — The Fender Stratocaster, a double-cutaway electric guitar with an extended top “horn” shape for balance designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton and Freddie Tavares, was released today.
Video: 'Roger Bannister Breaks the 4 Minute Mile (1954)'
(Thursday, May 6, 1954) — Medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile today during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3:59.4.
Video: 'Vietnam a Television History Episode 1' (Geneva Conference at 51:54)
(Monday, April 26, 1954; during the First Indochina War, part of the Cold War) — The Geneva Conference, organized to find a way to settle outstanding issues on the Korean peninsula and to unify Vietnam and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina, convened today in Geneva, Switzerland.
Video: 'Seven Samurai' trailer
(Monday, April 26, 1954) — Seven Samurai, a 1954 Japanese period adventure drama film about a poor village that recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves from bandits, opened today in Japan.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa, the film starred Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune.
Video: 'Joseph McCarthy Congressional Hearings'
(Thursday, April 22, 1954; during the Second Red Scare) — The McCarthy-Army hearings, a Senate hearing derived from Senator Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for communists in the United States, were televised live beginning today, continuing through June 17, 1954.
(Monday, April 12, 1954) — Bill Haley and His Comets today recorded “Rock Around The Clock,” considered the first rock and roll song to top the charts, for Decca Records at the Pythian Temple studios in New York City.
