1950s 60s facts

While investigating facts about 1950s 60s, I found out little known, but curios details like:

In the 1950s and 60s Canada spent ‘thousands and thousands’ making a ‘gaydar’ to detect homosexual government employees

The CIA admittedly disseminated fake evidence of UFO sightings in the 1950s and 60s to provide "cover" explanations for test flights of the U2 and other stealth aircraft

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 19 of the best facts about 1950s 60s I managed to collect.

1. In the 1950s and 60s, a Montreal hospital subjected psychiatric patients to electroshocks, drug-induced sleep and huge doses of LSD on behalf of the CIA's pursuit of mind control. It was part of MK ultra

2. During the Great Depression, the Hershey Company marketed Mr. Goodbar as a "tasty lunch" because the peanuts it contained provided added nutritional value. During the 1950s and '60s it was marketed as an "quick energy" bar.

3. In the 1950s and 60s doctors treated schizophrenia by injecting patients with large doses of insulin to induce coma, a practice called insulin shock therapy.

4. Coca Cola douches were used as contraceptives in USA in the 1950s and 60s..

5. In Canada and the United States Native Americans were segregated. This also affected other immigrant races including Indians, Japanese, and Chinese. Segregation in this regard ended in the 1950s and 60s.

6. A pill containing methamphetamine was sold and marketed as a weight loss aid during the 1950s and 60s.

7. In the 1950s and 60s, malaria was once used as a treatment for syphilis. Orphaned children in a psychiatric ward were deliberately infected with the parasite to act as "reservoirs."

8. In the 1950s and '60s the British government tested atomic weapons on the rural South Australian town of Maralinga. Australian and British soldiers were used as guinea pigs to test the effects of radiation on humans, and the area was also populated with indigenous Australians at the time.

9. There is a company that converted military surplus Douglas A-26 Invaders into civilian use during the 1950s to 60s. The last two were used during the Laotian Civil War by Air America to perform low level supply drops to CIA backed forces in Laos.

10. In the 1950s and 60s, the Federal Government secretly sprayed radioactive aerosols on North St. Louis public housing, to "study the effect among similar buildings in Moscow"

What is true about 1950s 60s?

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During the 1950s and 60s, the U.S. Army dusted American cities with zinc cadmium sulfide. In St. Louis, they used motorized blowers perched atop low-income housing, claiming at the time that the machines were part of a test for smoke screens that could guard against aerial observation by Russia.

Those Craftmaster paint-by-numbers hobby kits so popular during the 1950s & 60s got their start in Detroit, Michigan, thanks to Max Klein, the president of the Palmer Paint Corporation. - source

During the racially segregated 1950s and early '60s. James Brown, Ray Charles, Chubby Checker, Etta James, Otis Redding and dozens of others headlined at John Brown's Farm, a stop on the so-called Chitlin' Circuit before white audiences embraced rhythm-and-blues and soul music. - source

About "Ribs", (or "music on ribs") which were bootleg music records produced in the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 60s using discarded medical X-rays due to the shortage of the vinyl typically used. Each one was one of a kind and could usually only be played 5 to 10 times

The detailed historical meaning's of the lyrics for Don McLean's "American Pie". Referencing events and topics such as politics, cereal murderers, and The Beatles, "American Pie" is a robust walk through the 1950s and 60s. - source

In the 1950s and 60s, the Federal Government secretly sprayed radioactive aerosols on North St. Louis public housing, to "study the effect among similar buildings in Moscow"

The Fulton Recovery System featured in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was an actual system used by the CIA, Navy and Air Force in the 1950s and 60s to extract personnel and cargo up. It was active until 1996.