1951

World Events

• Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of Great Britain.
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sentenced to death for passing information on atomic weapons to the USSR. Their execution was surrounded by controversy and protests.
• The 22nd Amendment to the United States' Constitution is passed. It limits the number of terms a president may hold office.
• Open heart surgery becomes safer as J. Andre-Thomas invents the first heart-lung machine, which provides advanced life support.
• A night of violence in Constantinople saw 300,000 Greeks eliminated from the city by Turkish rioters.

San Diego History

• Robert Oscar Peterson opens his first Jack In The Box restaurant.

• Conrad Limbaugh, the scientific diving officer at Scripps Oceanographic Institution, developed the first civilian scuba course, which led to the first public scuba certification. While at Scripps, Limbaugh wrote the first scientific dive safety manual and established standards still used today.

Arts

• Jackson Pollock creates the abstract painting Black and White Number 20. Find out more about Abstract Expressionism.
• J.D. Salinger publishes The Catcher in the Rye.
• Mies van der Rohe unveils Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago.
• American composer John Cage writes Imaginary Landscape No. 4. It is performed by 12 radios, twenty-four musicians and a conductor.
• First exhibition of CoBrA in Paris. This group show of independent Danish artists, including Appel, Corneille, Jacobsen and Jorn is organised by Michel Ragon.

American Life

• Color Television is introduced.

• It's plastic, it's pink and it's incredibly popular. It's the nation's first plastic pink flamingo. With annual sales in the hundreds of thousands, the bird's range quickly expands.
• The first R&B radio show hits the airwaves when Cleveland d.j. Alan Freed ("Moondog") notices white teenagers are beginning to respond to the music.
• Chrysler introduces power steering to its automobiles.
• First Holiday Inn motor hotel opens in Memphis, Tennessee.
• Topps company introduces its first series of baseball cards.
• "Hold the MSG," Gerber foods begin using Monosodium Glutamate to their baby foods to enhance the taste.
• Swanson introduces beef, chicken, turkey pot pies to the frozen food world.