Fifty Years Ago at Knoxville and the Nation
Friday, April 1, 2005
By Bob Wilson - The year was 1956. Fifty years ago Knoxville Raceway entered its third year of weekly racing. It was the year that track promoter Marion Robinson began to make waves at this half-mile county fairgrounds race track after taking the helm part way through the previous year. No one knew at the time that his employment would last nearly twenty years. Let us take a look back at what happened at Knoxville five decades ago and in so doing let us also look at the nation as well as the world.
1956 was a leap year. The year began with Michigan State downing UCLA in the Rose Bowl 17-14. In the Orange Bowl Oklahoma made it 30 wins in a row with a 20-6 win over Maryland. One month later San Francisco defeated Iowa 83-71 to claim the NCAA basketball championship. In other round ball action the Philadelphia Warriors beat the Fort Wayne Pistons to take the NBA Professional Basketball Championship 4 games to 1. The 7th Winter Olympics were held in Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy.
Early in the year "Profiles in Courage", an autobiography written by Senator John F. Kennedy, was released to book stores. It would sell over 5 million copies and win the 1956 Pulitzer Prize. Phil Silvers and Lucille Ball won Emmys as Best Actor/Actress on TV. At the Academy Awards (Oscars) the Best Picture of the Year was "Marty". Hollywood's Grace Kelly, 26, married Prince Rainier of Monaco.
Elvis Presley was 21. In April he released the single "Heartbreak Hotel" which dominated the charts for nine weeks. The "$64,000 Question grabbed the top spot from "I Love Lucy", becoming the #1 television show in the nation.
In the World Series that year, Don Larson, 27, made World Series history when he tossed the first no hitter in the history of the Series. When all was said and done the New York Yankees won their 17th World Series by defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers. The movie "Around the World in 80 Days" was released during the month of October with a premier in New York City. It would go on to win the Oscar for "Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1957." One month later the XVI Summer Olympic Games opened in Melbourne, Australia.
The "Jonathan Winters Show" became the first television program to be shown via video recording on magnetic tape. On the 29th of October the "Huntley-Brinkley News Report" premiered on NBC. They had much to report about as a revolution in Hungary was about to explode when Russian tanks rolled into Budapest. Domestically the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregated seating on buses in Montgomery, Alabama was unconstitutional. Up and down the East Coast the largest dock strike in U.S. history was taking place. Incumbent Republican President Dwight D, Eisenhower, who had just recently been re-elected in a landslide, enacted the Taft Hartley Act to force the longshoremen back to work. No one died in the strike but in Hungary an estimated ten thousand Hungarians were killed during the protests. By year's end U.N. forces took control of the Suez Canal after nearly a year of fighting there.
Paul Hornung of Notre Dame was named as the best U.S. college football player and was awarded the Heisman Trophy. The Chicago Bears clinched the NFL Western Division while the New York Giants took the Eastern Division. In the 24th National Football League Championship the Giants won 47-7.
In other news, "the pill" underwent the first large testing in Puerto Rico. The Smith Corona Company announced it would begin selling a new electric typewriter in early 1957. The top 5 television shows according to A.C. Nielson were: 1. "I Love Lucy"; 2. "The Ed Sullivan Show"; 3. "General Electric Theater"; 4. The "$64,000 Question"; 5. "December Bride". The top 5 money making films of 1956 were: 1. "Guys and Dolls"; 2. "The King and I"; 3. "Trapeze"; 4. "High Society"; 5. "I'll Cry Tomorrow". "Auntie Mame" debuted on Broadway and late in the year NBC premiered "The Price Is Right" hosted by Bill Cullen.
Back in 1956 the minimum wage was raised to $1.00 per hour after having been 75 cents since 1950. The annual wage in the United States was $4,342. Coffee was selling for $1.03 a pound, one dozen large grade 'A' eggs went for 60 cents, the average price of a loaf of bread was 18 cents, shoppers paid 53 cents for a 5-pound bag of sugar and a pound of butter at your local grocery store averaged 72 cents. A half gallon of milk delivered to your house had an average price of 48 cents. Gasoline averaged 30 cents per gallon. Postal rates for a first class letter were raised from 3 to 4 cents. Finally, the average savings account received an average 3% interest. The estimated population of the United States was 168,174,000.
Be sure to follow along on this website during the 2005 race season as I will give you a brief idea about what made the news in 1956 and I will also present a week by week overview of racing here at Knoxville fifty years ago starting in May. Bob Wilson
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