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1950s Decade Quiz

Do you have what it takes to answer these questions about the 1950s?
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: January 30, 2022
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First submittedFebruary 17, 2015
Times taken35,629
Average score65.0%
Rating4.24
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Question
Answer
What "rebel without a cause" died in a car crash at age 24?
James Dean
What was Norma Jeane Mortenson better known as?
Marilyn Monroe
What became the 50th U.S. state?
Hawaii
For what disease did Jonas Salk create a vaccine?
Polio
What was Sputnik?
a Satellite
What was J. D. Salinger's most famous novel?
The Catcher in the Rye
What canal was seized by Egypt?
Suez Canal
What region did China annex?
Tibet
Who starred as Moses in "The Ten Commandments"?
Charlton Heston
What singer was managed by Colonel Tom Parker?
Elvis Presley
What art movement was exemplefied by Jackson Pollock?
Abstract Expressionism
What subculture wore turtlenecks, played bongos, and smoked marijuana?
Beatniks
What country had an "economic miracle" under the leadership of Konrad Adenauer?
West Germany
What were 78's, 45's, and 33's?
Records
What peninsula was divided between two countries at the 38th parallel?
Korea
In what (modern-day) country did The Mau Mau Uprising occur?
Kenya
What pact was the Communist equivalent to NATO?
Warsaw Pact
What was the world's largest corporation by revenue, according to the first
edition of the Fortune 500 in 1955?
General Motors
Who sang "Johnny B. Goode" and "Roll Over Beethoven"?
Chuck Berry
What was discovered by Francis Crick and James Watson?
Structure of DNA
+6
Level 77
Jun 6, 2015
What was Sputnik? Spaceship, space probe, rocket ship, first man-made object in space....tried everything but satellite!
+6
Level 74
Jun 10, 2015
Apparently, the first man-made object in space was a manhole cover. It was covering the shaft down which an atomic bomb was lowered for underground testing, and when the bomb went off the cover was launched at such a velocity that it would have cleared the atmosphere and pootled off into space.
+3
Level 82
Dec 10, 2017
that seems implausible.. source?
+6
Level 84
Dec 10, 2017
@kalbahamut xkcd mentions it here: https://what-if.xkcd.com/35/

It also says that it probably disintegrated before it made it to space though.

+2
Level 82
Dec 10, 2017
Nope.
+2
Level 71
Dec 10, 2017
Urban myth time again.
+14
Level 78
Dec 13, 2017
Why are there no 'rural myths' and only 'urban myths?' (sigh)
+18
Level ∞
Jan 3, 2020
Cow tipping is a rural myth.
+4
Level 66
Mar 11, 2020
pootled hehe that is a fun word :)
+2
Level 75
May 22, 2020
I'm rural and I agree it would be very hard to "tip" a cow, but outhouse tipping is real and in fact I participated in such a nefarious activity on Halloween in my younger and sillier days. Unlike teenage boys, we girls always made certain no one was in them when we tipped them over.
+1
Level 77
Jan 30, 2022
How wonderfully cheeky, Quizmaster.
+1
Level 75
Jun 17, 2015
Me too!
+1
Level 37
Dec 7, 2017
Same here.
+1
Level 65
Jun 9, 2015
It's People! Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!

Just could not remember Charleton Heston.

+1
Level 71
Dec 10, 2017
Omega Man
+1
Level 84
Jan 31, 2022
Soylent Green
+1
Level 58
Jun 9, 2022
Wayne's World 2
+1
Level 58
Mar 11, 2017
For some reason I was thinking Zulus for MauMaus. Is that racist?
+5
Level 79
Mar 11, 2019
no
+1
Level 65
Nov 2, 2017
Many countries had "economic miracles" in the 1950s including Mexico, Spain, Greece, Italy, etc. This questions should be removed or replaced.
+6
Level 69
Dec 10, 2017
qm refers to the 'Wirtschafswunder', which literally translates as economic miracle.
+1
Level 78
Dec 1, 2018
The Italian boom is also referred to as an 'economic miracle' in their language: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracolo_economico_italiano
+3
Level ∞
Jan 3, 2020
Added some more clarifying detail.
+4
Level 51
Dec 11, 2017
Hey, didn't Bill Wurtz tell me that Japan also had a post-war economic miracle?
+11
Level 65
Aug 20, 2019
You should accept Marty McFly, because he sang "Johnny B. Goode" on November 12, 1955.
+1
Level 62
Feb 7, 2020
The Starlighters should also be accepted.
+1
Level 67
Jan 16, 2024
Oh come on
+2
Level 66
May 21, 2020
Shoot, I typed "GM" and then assumed that General Motors wasn't it, even though it seemed right.
+23
Level ∞
May 21, 2020
Somehow you spelled GM wrong. I don't know how you did, but you did.
+11
Level 80
Jan 30, 2022
Wilkins and Franklin forgotten as usual
+1
Level 70
Jan 30, 2022
I feel like Johnny B Goode's prodigious bell ringing abilities are unfairly overshadowed by his guitar playing.
+1
Level 76
Jun 4, 2022
19/20 yields 4 points...hmm
+11
Level 60
Jun 4, 2022
Please add Rosalind Franklin as a co-discoverer of DNA.
+1
Level 75
Jun 4, 2022
Tibet was not a region but a de facto independent state.
+1
Level 77
Jun 4, 2022
Good quiz. I like the fact that probably the most important question is slipped in last