Events, Verisoph

1954 Harrison Brown publishes 'The Challenge of Man's Future' ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Gatto cites Cal Tech scientist Harrison Brown's 1954 book The Challenge of Man's Future, which argued for world authority over population. Gatto reads it as expressing the attitude behind mass schooling. ●●

1954 Reece Commission investigates foundations, 1954 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Gatto describes the 1954 Reece Commission, a second congressional investigation of foundation influence over schools that was forced to disband early. ●●

1954 Legacy of the 1954 Guatemala coup ai_extracted 2 cit. no story In the decades after the CIA's coup against Guatemala's elected president, 200,000 civilians died in the ensuing struggle. The great majority were killed by the Guatemalan military. ●●

1954 Vietnam partitioned at Geneva after Dien Bien Phu ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Following Ho Chi Minh's defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu, an international conference in Geneva split Vietnam into North and South. Walter Bedell Smith represented the United States. ●●

1954 Arms freighter Alfhelm docks at Puerto Barrios ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On May 15, 1954, a freighter called the Alfhelm docked at Puerto Barrios and workers began unloading crates labeled “Optical and Laboratory Equipment (1954) ●●

1954 Eisenhower commissions the Doolittle report on the CIA ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 1954, President Eisenhower secretly named James Doolittle, a celebrated air force general who had retired and become a Shell Oil executive, to cond (1954) ●●

1954 Guatemala coup plot leaks; CIA plants disinformation ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Guatemala coup plot leaked to press on January 30, 1954. CIA responded with fake news including flying saucer hoaxes. ●●

1954 Doolittle report warns CIA is out of control ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Doolittle reported CIA had "ballooned out" with "doubtful competence" and recommended complete reorganization and civilian oversight. ●●

1954 CIA overthrows Guatemala's government for United Fruit ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Guatemala's government to protect United Fruit Company's business interests. The coup removed restrictions on the fruit company's operations and established a template for future CIA interventions. ●●

1954 Eisenhower announces $7.4 billion tax cut ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Eisenhower announced a $7.4 billion tax cut in 1954 to support his 'New Look' defense strategy based on nuclear deterrence. ●●

1954 Jacobo Arbenz forced from power in Guatemala ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Thousands of Guatemalans saw President Arbenz's departure in 1954 as ending their hopes for reform. ●●

1954 Ngo Dinh Diem appointed to lead South Vietnam ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The appointment of Ngo Dinh Diem in 1954 was the first of many impossible missions the United States undertook in Vietnam. ●●

1954 Soviet Union adopts nuclear energy for civilian use ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Soviet Union becomes the first nation to adapt nuclear energy for peaceful uses, establishing itself as a leader in nuclear technology for civilian applications. ●●

1954 Kennedy opposes US intervention in French Indochina ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In April 1954, during Dulles’ United Action campaign to save Dien Bien Phu, Kennedy, in a Senate speech, opposed intervention so long as Indochina remained a French colony. ●●

1954 US-backed coup installs military rule in Guatemala ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Rockefeller interests orchestrated a coup in Guatemala in 1954, installing decades of fascist military governments. ●●

1954 Von Neumann appointed to the Atomic Energy Commission ai_extracted 1 cit. no story When President Eisenhower appointed von Neumann to the Atomic Energy Commission in October 1954, the computer project went into decline ●●

1954 US-backed coup overthrows Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The modern history of Guatemala was decisively shaped by the U.S.-organized invasion and overthrow of the democratically elected regime of Jacobo Arbenz in June 1954. ●●

1954 Peking reveals downed US airmen over China ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Peking announcement in 1954 also revealed that eleven American airmen had been shot down over China in January 1953 while on a mission which had as its purpose the “air-drop of special agents into China and the Soviet Union” ●●

1954 Jozef Swiatlo surfaces at Washington press conference ai_extracted 2 cit. no story Eastern Europe 1948-1956Operation Splinter Factor Jozef Swiatlo surfaced at a press conference in Washington on 28 September 1954 ●●

1954 US overthrows Guatemala's Arbenz government ai_extracted 1 cit. no story We have seen how, in 1954, Guatemala’s last reform government, the legally-elected regime of Jacobo Arbenz, was overthrown by the United States ●●

1954 Alan Turing dies by suicide ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Turing dies after eating an apple laced with cyanide, two years after his conviction. ●●

1954 Regency TR-1 transistor radio goes on sale ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Texas Instruments and a small Indianapolis partner launch the Regency TR-1, the first pocket transistor radio, creating a mass consumer market for transistors. ●●

1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975 Vietnam War 0 cit. no story Communist North Vietnam and southern guerrillas fight the US-backed South, with massive American intervention from 1965. The war kills millions, ends with Saigon's fall in 1975, and reshapes American politics and foreign policy. politics / war ●●●●●

18 August 1955 to 27 March 1972 First Sudanese Civil War 0 cit. no story Southern Sudanese rebels fight the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum for autonomy. Around half a million die before the Addis Ababa Agreement grants the south limited self-rule. war ●●●

1955 Baghdad Pact formed ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Baghdad Pact of 1955, largely a Dulles creation, joined Britain, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan but did not include the United States. ●●

1955 Warsaw Pact signed ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Warsaw Pact of May 14, 1955 established a twenty-year alliance binding the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and East Germany. Quigley calls it the Communist riposte to NATO, which West Germany had joined five days earlier. ●●

1955 Soviet loan follows Khrushchev-Bulganin visit to Kabul ai_extracted 1 cit. no story A November 1955 state visit by Khrushchev and Bulganin to Kabul sealed closer Soviet-Afghan relations. It produced a $100 million Soviet loan at 2 percent interest over thirty years, drawing Afghanistan toward the Soviet orbit. ●●

1955 Ngo Dinh Diem becomes president of South Vietnam, 1955 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Diem became president in 1955 after deposing the pro-French Emperor Bao Dai. South Vietnam had just absorbed 800,000 mostly Catholic refugees from the North. ●●

1955 Bandung Conference of uncommitted nations, 1955 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The chief meeting of the so-called uncommitted nations was held at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, part of the effort of newly independent states to form a common front. ●●

1955 Churchill retires; Eden becomes prime minister, 1955 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Winston Churchill retired in April 1955 and Anthony Eden served a brief, unsuccessful prime ministership until January 1957, when he gave way to Harold Macmillan. ●●

1955 Hubbert develops Peak Oil theory ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 1955 M. King Hubbert, co-founder of Technocracy, Inc., created his Peak Oil theory (Hubbert's Peak). Wood notes Hubbert is revered as a founding father of the sustainable development movement. ●●

1955 Bandung Conference convenes non-aligned nations ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Bandung Conference convenes non-aligned nations ●●

1955 Diem deposes Bao Dai to become chief of state ai_extracted 1 cit. no story At the end of 1955, after a referendum that he won with a reported 98.2 percent of the vote, Diem deposed Bao Dai and made himself chief of state (1955) ●●

1955 Messina Conference previews European integration ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The 1955 conference in Messina previewed the formation of a European Union. Britain maintained its historical reluctance to identify with continental European integration. ●●

1955 West Germany joins the Atlantic Alliance ai_extracted 1 cit. no story picious of populism, he created a political party, the Christian Democratic Union, which for the first time in German parliamentary history governed as a moderate party with a majority mandate. With this mandate, Adenauer committed himself to regaini ●●

1955 Indonesia holds its first general elections ai_extracted 1 cit. no story After the first general elections in 1955, Sukarno began an attack on parliamentary democracy as such, and with the outbreak of ethnic rebellions on the outer islands, martial law was declared in March 1957. ●●

1955 Iran joins the Baghdad Pact ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In February 1955, Iran became a member of the Baghdad Pact, set up by the United States, in Dulles’s words, “to create a solid band of resistance against the Soviet Union” .34 One year after the coup, the Iranian government completed a contract with ●●

1955 Shockley honored at Los Angeles Chamber gala ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Shockley is honored alongside vacuum-tube inventor Lee de Forest, and meets industrialist Arnold Beckman, who will back his new company. ●●

2 March 1956 Independence of Morocco 0 cit. no story France recognizes Moroccan independence, ending the protectorate; Spain relinquished its zone the following month. politics ●●●

1 January 1956 Independence of Sudan 0 cit. no story Sudan becomes independent from joint British-Egyptian rule. politics ●●●

20 March 1956 Independence of Tunisia 0 cit. no story France recognizes Tunisian independence, ending the protectorate; Habib Bourguiba became the republic's first president. politics ●●●

1956 Twentieth Party Congress convenes ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Twentieth Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party met February 14-25, 1956, inside the Kremlin. Its hand-picked delegates would hear Khrushchev's shocking secret denunciation of Stalin. ●●

1956 Khrushchev's secret speech published in the West ai_extracted 1 cit. no story A version of Khrushchev's secret anti-Stalin speech reached the United States government and was published on June 2, 1956. Quigley affirms the speech was authentic and that almost everything in it was true. ●●

1956 Poznan and Hungarian unrest begins ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In the last week of June 1956 crises began in both Poland and Hungary, starting with a work stoppage that grew into a mass anti-Communist demonstration at the Poznan railway factory. These upheavals followed Khrushchev's secret speech and worsening economic conditions. ●●

1956 Soviet forces invade Hungary and take Budapest ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Large Soviet forces invaded Hungary at the end of October 1956 and smashed into Budapest before dawn on November 4th, overwhelming most resistance that day. The Nagy government took refuge in the Yugoslav Embassy as the revolt collapsed. ●●

1956 US withdraws Aswan aid; Nasser nationalizes Suez Canal ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Dulles withdrew the US offer to finance the Aswan Dam on July 19, 1956. Nasser answered on July 26th by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company so its profits could fund the High Dam, triggering an international crisis. ●●

1956 Israel attacks Egypt across Sinai ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On October 29, 1956, Israel attacked Egypt and began a rapid advance across the Sinai Desert toward the Suez Canal. The nine-day Sinai campaign was a brilliant military success against a poorly led Egyptian army. ●●

1956 UN Assembly demands Suez cease-fire ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On November 2, 1956, the UN General Assembly, by its largest majority to date (64-5), passed a Dulles resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Near East. Egypt and Israel accepted on November 5th and the Anglo-French advance halted. ●●

1956 Castro lands in Cuba to begin guerrilla war ai_extracted 1 cit. no story After the failed July 26, 1953 revolt brought imprisonment and exile, Castro landed with a handful of men on the Cuban coast at the end of 1956 to begin guerrilla operations. Batista's corrupt regime left much of Cuba neutral or favorable to Castro. ●●

1956 Hundred Flowers Campaign, 1956 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 1956 Mao announced a policy of free criticism of the regime under the slogan of letting a hundred flowers bloom. The opening was reversed within a year and critics were purged. ●●

1956 Suez defeat triggers African decolonization, 1956 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Quigley identifies the defeat of the Anglo-French Suez operation, under American and Soviet pressure in October 1956, as the trigger for the chain reaction of African decolonization. ●●

1956 Founding of the International Reading Association ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Gatto notes that in 1956, following Rudolf Flesch's attack on look-say reading, 56,000 reading professionals formed the International Reading Association to defend the method. ●●

1956 Soviet invasion crushes Hungarian uprising ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Soviet invasion of Hungary crushes rebellion ●●

1956 Diem cancels the scheduled 1956 Vietnam election ai_extracted 1 cit. no story THAT changed after Diem and Dulles decided not to hold the scheduled 1956 election (1956) ●●

1956 Dulles feeds Eisenhower Israeli disinformation on Suez ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On October 26, 1956, Dulles misled President Eisenhower with Israeli disinformation about Middle East events while ignoring warnings from his own analysts about imminent Israeli-British-French military plans. ●●

1956 Wisner orders Radio Free Europe to incite Hungary ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On October 28, 1956, Wisner ordered Radio Free Europe to remove "all restraints" in Hungarian broadcasts. The station urged armed rebellion, suggesting Molotov cocktails against Soviet tanks, falsely implying American military support. ●●

1956 Dulles falsely tells Eisenhower Hungarian army defected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On November 1, 1956, Dulles told Eisenhower a "miracle" had occurred and 80 percent of Hungarian army had defected, claims completely contradicted by intelligence. Soviet invasion with 200,000 troops was imminent. ●●

1956 Hungarian uprising crushed despite CIA hopes ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Frank Wisner's Hungarian operatives launch an uprising against Soviet control. Wisner sends urgent cables demanding US support but receives none, and Soviet forces brutally crush the rebellion. ●●

1956 Khrushchev's speech to the Twentieth Party Congress ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In February 1956, Khrushchev delivered a speech to the Twentieth Party Congress which observers like Secretary of State Dulles interpreted as indicating a notable shift in Soviet policy away from violence and intolerance toward the non-Communist world. ●●

1956 Thailand and South Vietnam close Cambodia's borders ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In March 1956, after Sihanouk had visited Peking and criticized SEATO, the two coun- tries which sandwich Cambodia—Thailand and South Vietnam, both heavily dependent upon and allied with the United States—suddenly closed their borders ●●

1956 Dartmouth conference founds artificial intelligence ai_extracted 1 cit. no story John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky organized a Dartmouth conference that founded the field of artificial intelligence. ●●

1956 Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain win the Nobel Prize ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The three inventors of the transistor share the Nobel Prize in Physics, though tensions among them remain. ●●

1956 Loi-Cadre sets French West and Equatorial Africa borders ai_extracted 1 cit. no story France's Loi-Cadre law fixed the borders that became the independent French-speaking states, a deliberate splitting of the old federations that Nkrumah cites as the template for African balkanisation. ●●

1957 to 1958 1957-1958 influenza pandemic wikidata 1 cit. no story pandemic of influenza virus (H2N2) ●●●

6 March 1957 Independence of Ghana 0 cit. no story The Gold Coast becomes Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African colony to gain independence, under Kwame Nkrumah. politics ●●●●

31 August 1957 Independence of Malaysia 0 cit. no story The Federation of Malaya becomes independent from Britain; Malaysia was formed in 1963 with Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore. politics ●●●

1957 Treaty of Rome establishes the Common Market ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The European Common Market was established by the Treaty of Rome of 1957 with six members. It planned to remove internal customs barriers by stages while adopting a common external tariff. ●●

1957 First American ICBM fired at Cape Canaveral ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The first American intercontinental ballistic missile was fired from Cape Canaveral in December 1957, two months after Sputnik, and went full range in November 1958. ●●

1957 International Geophysical Year ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958 brought together scientists from sixty-six countries in eighteen months of cooperation. Quigley cites it as the most amazing example of the scientific interchange that outlasted Stalin-era isolation. ●●

1957 Soviet economic reorganization law decentralizes industry ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On May 10, 1957 Khrushchev pushed through a law abolishing twenty-five economic ministries and devolving their functions to twenty-nine regional economic councils (sovnarkhozy). Quigley presents it as a victory that made the party dominant in economic life. ●●

1957 Khrushchev defeats the 'anti-party group' ai_extracted 1 cit. no story After his rivals tried to remove him, Khrushchev's July 23, 1957 reconstitution of the Presidium expelled Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov and installed his supporters. Quigley calls it the most significant event in Russia's internal history after Stalin's death. ●●

1957 Eisenhower Doctrine announced ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In January 1957 the American position on the Near East was stated as the Eisenhower Doctrine, framing the region's problems solely as military opposition to Communism. It threatened US armed force to defend nations against aggression from any state controlled by international communism. ●●

1957 Launch of Sputnik I and Sputnik II ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union placed the 184-pound Sputnik I in orbit, and a month later orbited Sputnik II carrying a living dog. These successes gave the impression of Soviet leadership in applying science to technology. ●●

1957 Mao's request for nuclear warheads rebuffed ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In November 1957 Mao Tse-tung took a delegation to Moscow and formally requested nuclear warheads but was rebuffed. As a result, by 1958 Red China embarked on the long task of building its own atomic bomb. ●●

1957 Independence of Ghana, 1957 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story After a six-year transition, the Gold Coast became independent Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah in March 1957, the first sub-Saharan British colony to win freedom. ●●

1957 Rome Treaty creates the Common Market, 1957 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Rome Treaty of March 1957 established the European Economic Community, or Common Market, along with Euratom for peaceful nuclear energy. Both took effect at the beginning of 1958. ●●

1957 Julian Huxley coins the word transhumanism ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Julian Huxley first used the word transhumanism in his 1957 book New Bottles For New Wine. He is regarded by transhumanists as a founding father of the movement. ●●

1957 Reagan retells Hall's tale at Eureka College ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Ronald Reagan, then a corporate spokesman for General Electric, spoke at a commencement address at his alma mater, Eureka College in Illinois, retelling Manly Hall's tale of the unknown speaker at the Declaration of Independence signing without attribution. ●●

1957 Soviet Union launches Sputnik satellite ai_extracted 2 cit. no story In October 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, an artificial satellite, into an earth orbit. Khrushchev interpreted this accomplishment as proof that the Soviet Union was outstripping the democracies in the scientific as well as the military field. ●●

1957 Martial law declared across Indonesia ai_extracted 1 cit. no story After the first general elections in 1955, Sukarno began an attack on parliamentary democracy as such, and with the outbreak of ethnic rebellions on the outer islands, martial law was declared in March 1957. ●●

1957 CIA funds Chamoun's candidates in Lebanese elections ai_extracted 1 cit. no story and in 1957 the Agency furnished generous sums of money to Chamoun to use in support of candidates in the Chamber of Deputies (Parliament) June elections who would 94 Middle East 1957-1958 back him and, presumably, US policies ●●

1957 South Vietnam mandates national ID cards ai_extracted 1 cit. no story By the terms of a 1957 law, drawn up by the MSU group, every Vietnamese 15 years and older was required to register with the government and carry ID cards ●●

1957 Pathet Lao join Laos coalition government ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 1957 the Pathet Lao (“Lao nation”) held two ministerial posts in the coalition “gov- ernment of national union” ●●

2 October 1958 Independence of Guinea 0 cit. no story Guinea becomes independent after voting no in de Gaulle's referendum, the only French African colony to reject the French Community. politics ●●●

1958 Establishment of the French Fifth Republic ai_extracted 1 cit. no story France could not contribute much to the Common Market until its political instability ended with the establishment of the more authoritarian Fifth Republic in 1958. ●●

1958 Khrushchev becomes premier ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In spring 1958, after elections for the new Supreme Soviet on March 28th, Bulganin resigned as premier and was replaced by Khrushchev. This left Khrushchev as complete ruler, head of both state and party. ●●

1958 Ayub Khan establishes martial law in Pakistan ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In October 1958 martial law was imposed in Pakistan and commander in chief General Muhammad Ayub Khan became president and quasi-dictator. Under military rule Pakistan pursued land reform and a second Five-Year Plan. ●●

1958 American forces land in Lebanon unproven ai_extracted 1 cit. no story To prevent a threatened overthrow of the Lebanese government, American forces landed in Lebanon during July 15-17, 1958. In the same week a UN commission on the spot reported no evidence of outside subversion of Lebanon. ●●

1958 Iraqi military revolt under Qassim ai_extracted 1 cit. no story A military revolt in Iraq in July 1958, led by General Abdul Karim Qassim, overthrew the monarchy on a pro-Communist and anti-Nasser basis. Qassim's regime lasted until it was overthrown in a bloody upheaval in February 1963. ●●

1958 Nuclear test moratorium begins ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Kremlin entered an unofficial international suspension of nuclear-bomb testing, the Test Moratorium, from October 31, 1958 to October 23, 1961. It coincided with a period of Soviet self-confidence over the supposed missile gap. ●●

1958 Khrushchev's Berlin ultimatum ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On November 27, 1958 Khrushchev sent a note demanding settlement of the Berlin problem, threatening that within six months the USSR would sign a separate peace with East Germany and hand over its Berlin rights. This began a process that led to the Cuban missile crisis. ●●

1958 China's 'Great Leap Forward' begins ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The 'Great Leap Forward' of 1958, the first year of the Second Five-Year Plan, brought China's population-food crisis to an acute stage. Its central feature merged collective farms into vast communes, but it drastically reduced agricultural output. ●●

1958 China's 1958 grain crop overstated ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Quigley recounts the collapse of Chinese grain output during the Great Leap Forward. The official 1958 estimate of over 300 million tons was later cut to less than 250 million, and probably under 200 million. ●●

1958 Birth of the French Fifth Republic, 1958 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Algerian crisis brought De Gaulle back to power in 1958, ending the Fourth Republic and creating the Fifth Republic, whose constitution Quigley says was tailored to De Gaulle's despotic ambiguity. ●●

1958 Guinea rejects the French Community, 1958 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 1958 Sekou Toure led Guinea to vote against the new French constitution. De Gaulle instantly ejected Guinea from the Community and cut off its support, opening Africa to Soviet penetration. ●●

1958 Britain forms EFTA after Free Trade Area collapses, 1958 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story When France and West Germany broke off the Free Trade Area talks in December 1958, Britain was left out of the EEC and responded by forming the European Free Trade Association. ●●

1958 CIA calls off its Indonesia operation ai_extracted 1 cit. no story After pilot Al Pope was shot down over Ambon, the CIA abandoned its covert war against President Sukarno. Allen Dulles ordered his officers across the region to stand down and destroy the evidence. ●●

1958 Frank Wisner's mental breakdown ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Frank Wisner, the CIA's covert-operations chief, returned from the Far East and suffered a severe psychotic episode. He was diagnosed with psychotic mania and treated with electroshock. ●●

1958 John Foster Dulles retires and dies ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Secretary of State Dulles fell ill, retired, and died in 1958 (1958) ●●

1958 Lebanon crisis of 1958 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story A crisis in Lebanon in 1958 followed misleading public statements by Eisenhower and Foster Dulles about American involvement. ●●