The 1950s in five headlines

1950

Alan Turing published his seminal paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence in the journal Mind in October 1950, proposing what became known as the Turing Test to evaluate a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. The paper asked the fundamental question 'Can machines think?' and laid the philosophical and practical foundations for artificial intelligence as a field. Turing had previously been instrumental in breaking the Enigma cipher during World War Two.

1952

Czech runner Emil Zátopek won the 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics — a feat never achieved before or since. Remarkably, Helsinki was the first marathon he had ever run. He won all three in world-record or Olympic-record times.

1955

The Seven Year Itch premiered in 1955, featuring the now-iconic scene of Marilyn Monroe standing over a New York subway grate as her white dress billows upward. The street filming attracted enormous crowds and caused a public sensation. The image became one of the most recognisable in cinema history and cemented Monroe's status as a global icon.

1957

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, shocking the Western world and igniting the Space Race. The basketball-sized metal sphere orbited Earth every 96 minutes, transmitting a radio beep audible to amateur listeners worldwide. The launch prompted the United States to accelerate its own space program and led directly to the creation of NASA in 1958.

1959

Between 1959 and 1961, China suffered one of the deadliest famines in history, killing an estimated 15 to 55 million people, caused largely by the failed agricultural and industrial policies of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward campaign. Collectivization devastated food production while the government continued to export grain. The disaster was largely hidden from the outside world at the time.