Coming at you from a slightly different angle this week. Today, our subject is the 1950s. Slight emphasis on America, but I’ve tried to be fairly global. So let’s get going shall we?

1. What were the average annual salaries in the US and the UK in 1950?

a. $2,992 and £101 b. $4,386 and £231 c. $5,720 and £306

2. The Korean War started after:

a. South Korea sank a North Korean patrol boat that was in the South’s space b. North Korea invaded South Korea on land c. South Korea blocked thousands of refugees from the North at the border

3. What 1952 non-fiction US book by a Protestant preacher, a true symbol of its times, stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 weeks?

The Fifties David Halberstam Best Price: $0.25 Buy New $10.94 (as of 10:55 UTC - Details)

a. How to Win Friends and Influence People b. The Power of Positive Thinking c. The Organization Man

4. What happened in 1953 regarding the Piltdown Man, the major paleontological find in East Sussex from about 40 years prior?

a. Archeologists found the companion Piltdown Woman b. Britain and France got into a major feud over who laid proper claim to it c. It was revealed to be a hoax

5. What was the first sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence. It came in 1957, from the UK (the country was known as the Gold Coast until independence).

a. Ghana b. Cameroon c. Tanzania

6. What was the ES-335?

a. The first Sputnik rocket b. The model of Gibson guitar played by Chuck Berry c. The first version of the concept car that eventually became the Ford Edsel

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May 29, 2010

The Best of Michael Tomasky

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