1957

World Events

• Nine black students accompanied by National Guardsmen join the white student body at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Violent protests mark the desegregation of schools following the 1954 ruling of Brown v. Board of Education.

• Russia launches the first satellites, Sputnik 1 and 2. Laika, a dog, flew on Sputnik 2, becoming the first space passenger.
• Major John Glenn, the future astronaut and senator, sets a speed record for flying from California to New York in only 3 hours, 23 minutes, and 8.4 seconds. His luggage arrived a week later.

San Diego History

• Theodore Seuss Geisel, long-time La Jolla resident writing as Dr. Seuss, publishes The Cat in the Hat, changing the way American children learn to read.
• Minor League Padres begin playing at Westgate Park in Mission Valley.

• The Foucault pendulum was installed in the San Diego Natural History Museum. It illustrates the rotation of the earth by knocking down blocks of wood.

Arts

• Alexander Calder is commissioned to create gigantic mobile for International Arrivals Building at Idlewild (now Kennedy) airport.
• Little Richard announces his departure from Rock and Roll; he will "live for the lord" instead.
• The beat generation rides with the release of Jack Kerouac's On the Road.
• Berry Gordy founds Motown Records.
• Fats Domino climbs Blueberry Hill with his record This is Fats Domino.

American Life

• 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.
• Leave it to Beaver debuts in American living rooms.
• The Beat Generation becomes a new movement of American youth. The terms "beat" and "beatnik" are used to describe the followers of the poets/writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs.
• Velcro is patented by George de Mestral of Switzerland.
• Ed Gein, America's first serial killer and inspiration for Psycho and Silence of the Lambs, is arrested. The nation is fascinated by his story and even pays to see his car at local circus side-shows.