The early 1950s, in many ways, were a continuation of the fear and paranoia that followed World
War II.
By the middle of the decade, other problems began to demand attention.
Political unrest became a frequent cause of violence both in the United States and
elsewhere.
Natural disasters appeared again, wreaking havoc on the world economy.
And one woman was struck by a rock that fell from space.
Keep watching to learn about these unpleasant events from 1954.
United States Capitol Shooting
Puerto Rico was a Spanish territory originally.
After the Spanish-American war ended in 1898, the Treaty of Paris gave it to the United
States.
Even today, Puerto Rico remains a United States territory.
Not all Puerto Ricans were supportive of this arrangement.
In 1922, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party was founded.
Its main goal was to seek independence for the island.
Their primary claim supporting independence was that the Spanish could not give the United
States something it did not own.
They believed Puerto Rico was granted independence in 1897, before the Treaty of Paris was signed.
The Nationalists decided that violence was the best way to bring attention to the cause
of independence.
Four of them were tasked with carrying out the mission.
Originally, they planned to attack several targets in Washington D.C. at the same time.
Lolita Lebron, the leader, convinced the other members to instead focus on a single
attack.
The new target was the U.S. House of Representatives.
The date chosen for the attack was March 1.
It coincided with an Interamerican Conference in Venezuela.
Lebron thought an attack on this day would also bring attention and support from Latin
American countries.
Lolita Lebron and her co-conspirators took a train from Manhattan to Washington D.C.
They took their seats in the Capitol building and waited while representatives discussed
immigration issues and the Mexican economy.
After Lebron gave the order, she and the others quickly recited the Lord’s prayer.
Then they stood up and shouted "¡Viva Puerto Rico libre!", which means “Long Live a Free
Puerto Rico”.
Next, they unfurled a Puerto Rican flag.
Then they began shooting into the group of representatives below with semi-automatic
pistols.
Almost thirty shots were fired.
Five representatives were hit by the rounds.
Although injured, none of them died.
Upon being arrested Lebron said "I did not come to kill anyone; I came to die for Puerto
Rico!".
All four of the attackers were sent to prison after a trial in Federal Court.
None were given the death penalty.
They remained there until the late 1970s.
President Jimmy Carter pardoned the conspirators in 1979.
When they finally returned to Puerto Rico, the Nationalists were given a hero’s welcome.
McCarthy’s Last Stand
During the 1950s, the United States government persecuted communists and homosexuals whenever
possible.
This movement was led by senator Joseph McCarthy.
Starting in 1950, McCarthy began investigations into communist activities within the United
States government.
He ended the careers of numerous public servants.
He also made sure various actors and screenwriters were banished from their chosen professions.
McCarthy even made some libraries remove any books or papers written by known communists.
It was difficult for other parts of the government to stop Joseph McCarthy.
Although he was far too overzealous in his approach, McCarthy did occasionally find communists
who were acting against the interests of the United States.
The McCarthy rampage came to a sudden end in 1954 during an investigation of the US
Army.
In 1953, McCarthy began his search for communists in the military.
He found one target in a man named Irving Peress.
Peress was a dentist who was drafted into the Army in 1952 and was promoted to Major
in 1953.
McCarthy discovered Peress was a member of the American Labor Party, which supposedly
had communist ties.
Furthermore, Peress didn’t disclose this when joining the Army.
Irving Peress declined to answer McCarthy’s questions.
He asked to be discharged from the military, and the request was granted.
But Joseph McCarthy attacked the army publicly by repeatedly asking “Who promoted Peress?”.
Peress was promoted automatically due to a law which McCarthy himself had voted for
previously.
When the public hearings continued in 1954, the United States Army was not amused by McCarthy’s
tactics.
The Army accused McCarthy of trying to pressure it to give special treatment to his former
aide.
The public hearings on this matter continued for 36 days and ended with an inconclusive
result.
But McCarthy’s public image was severely damaged by the process.
On the 30th day of the hearings, the Army’s public counsel, Joseph Nye Welch, challenged
McCarthy’s lawyer to provide a list of all the communists they knew about that were working
in the defense industry.
McCarthy responded to Welch by saying he should instead look at a colleague in his
own law office that once belonged to a progressive lawyers’ association.
Welch defended his colleague by saying, "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really
gauged your cruelty or your recklessness ..." When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted
him: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator.
You've done enough.
Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last?
Have you left no sense of decency?"
McCarthy’s support evaporated almost immediately.
He was eventually censured by the Senate, then lost his seat, and finally died in 1957
at the age of 48.
His official cause of death was “acute hepatitis”.
Popular opinion at the time suggested that McCarthy drank himself to death.
Guatemalan Civil War
As we saw in our previous episode about 1953, the United States had no problem overthrowing
the democratically elected leader of Iran.
The US government continued this trend in Guatemala the following year.
Guatemala, throughout much of its history, suffered under authoritarian rule.
In 1944 a popular uprising overthrew the ruling dictator and ultimately established a democratic
government.
Jacobo Arbenz was elected to serve as President in 1951.
One of the things Arbenz did was to take uncultivated land and give it to poverty-stricken laborers.
Many of them had suffered under authoritarian rule, so the move was seen as fair compensation.
The United Fruit Company lost land because of this compensation, and they were not happy
about it.
The company had a long history of displacing indigenous people and using their land to
produce more fruit.
They petitioned the United States government to help return what was lost.
President Harry Truman, in 1952, gave authorization for the CIA to overthrow Arbenz.
Too many details became public before the operation could accomplish its goals and Truman
canceled it.
Eisenhower was elected in 1952, and in 1953 authorized the CIA to start the operation
again.
The CIA spent almost a year training and equipping a force of 480 men.
On June 18, 1954, they invaded Guatemala.
The invading force didn’t have much success militarily.
But their use of psychological warfare tactics demoralized the Guatemalan army.
Rumors of a US invasion further contributed to their unwillingness to fight.
The CIA succeeded in achieving their main goals.
Guatemala experienced a series of dictators and rigged elections for several decades.
In the end, the United Fruit Company got what it wanted.
Arbenz and his reforms were eliminated.
Sylacauga Meteorite
Thousands of meteorites hit the Earth’s atmosphere every day.
Most of them disintegrate in the atmosphere.
The few that survive usually fall harmlessly into the ocean or in remote unpopulated areas.
The first documented case of a space rock hitting a person happened on November 30,
1954.
The meteorite fell during the afternoon.
Although it was daylight, a fireball could be seen from three states as it streaked through
the atmosphere.
Its destination was a farmhouse in Alabama.
Ann Elizabeth Fowler Hodges was 34 years old at the time.
She was napping on the couch when, quite unexpectedly, a meteorite crashed through
the roof.
It hit a radio, bounced off, then hit Elizabeth.
She was bruised badly but was otherwise not hurt.
The event received a lot of publicity.
The Sylacauga police chief confiscated the meteorite and gave it to the United States
Air Force.
The Hodges family and their landlord both claimed ownership of the rock as well.
The Air Force did return the rock, and eventually the Hodges family and their landlord
reached a settlement.
By the time that happened public interest in the meteorite had evaporated.
The Hodges family was unable to sell their piece of the meteorite for a profit.
In 1956 they finally gave it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History.
Another farmer, the day after Elizabeth was hit by the falling rock, found a piece of
the same meteorite in his field.
That farmer was able to sell it for a profit and purchased a new house and car with the
proceeds.
Hurricane Hazel
Some hurricanes are so powerful and destructive that the name used to describe the storm is
retired from future use.
That was the case for Hurricane Hazel which formed on October 5.
Hazel was a category four storm, which is easily capable of destroying trees and small
structures.
Favorable conditions allowed Hazel to do much worse than that.
It first hit the island of Haiti and did immense damage.
The hurricane destroyed 50 percent of the cacao crop, and 40 percent of the coffee crop.
Both the local and global economy were affected for several years by the loss of
such valuable assets.
The death toll in Haiti may have been as high as one thousand people.
The economy suffered half a billion dollars in losses.
Hazel next moved to the United States, striking the coast of South Carolina.
It destroyed homes along the coast with winds over 90 miles per hour being detected
several miles inland.
The winds continued wreaking havoc as the storm moved north, damaging several areas
in Virginia.
Before it was over, 95 people in the United States would die.
Instead of dissipating as most storms would at this point, it continued into Canada.
The Toronto area experienced heavy rainfall and flooding.
Over 4,000 people lost their homes and 81 Canadians died.
1954 Blons Avalanches
Although Austria is a beautiful country, it can be a dangerous one too.
The village of Blons is located on the west side of Austria.
It is within a region that has 525 mountains.
Additionally, the area around Blons is surrounded by rocks that are easily eroded.
Sometimes avalanches occur during the winter.
Anyone caught in one dies quickly without rescue.
Victims trapped in an avalanche have limited oxygen and, if left too long, will die from
asphyxiation.
On January 11, Blons was struck by two of them.
At 10 am the first avalanche struck the east side of the village.
It buried 82 people and killed 34 of them.
At 7 pm that night, another avalanche hit the center of Blons.
In that one, 43 people were buried and 22 died.
Of the 43 people that were buried, 16 had just been dug out of the snow that covered
them during the first avalanche.
When it was over, a total of 111 people died.
Considering Blons had a population of 376 before the disaster struck, that means one
third of the population died beneath the snow from lack of oxygen.
As history shows again and again, you can never predict what will go wrong next.
Perhaps it was possible to predict that Puerto Rican nationalists would shoot US representatives.
But nobody could have guessed they would have such poor aim.
Joseph McCarthy was a narcissist who seemed untouchable until his sudden and public demise.
Meteorites and hurricanes were certainly unpredictable too.
But the Guatemalan Civil War?
Well, that one is an exception.
Overthrowing governments for fruit companies has entirely predictable outcomes.
And none of them are good.
1954 kind of makes you wonder if humanity learns anything from its past mistakes.
Considering that ignorance and short attention spans seem responsible for some of what we
covered this week, I have my doubts.
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