| 1950 | Start of the Korean war |
| 1951 | Treaty of San Francisco officially ends WW2 with Japan |
| 1952 | Queen Elizabeth II ascends to the throne |
| 1953 | End of the Korean war |
| 1954 | U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown vs. Board of Education, leading to desegregation of schools |
| 1955 | Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat, igniting the Montgomery Bus Boycott |
| 1956 | Suez Canal crisis in Egypt |
| 1957 | Launch of Sputnik by the USSR, beginning of the Space Age |
| 1958 | Foundation of the European Economic Community (later the European Union) |
| 1959 | Cuban Revolution with Fidel Castro taking power |
