DPS - Background

Task:   Find information on the internet on the following catchwords. Work in groups of three or four students.

The year 1959

Important political events:

• January 3 - Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
• January 7 - The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
• February 1 - A referendum in Switzerland turns down female suffrage.
• February 18 - Jesus Sosa Blanco, murderer of 108 people, executed in Cuba.
• February 19 - The United Kingdom grants Cyprus its independence.
• March 17 - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet and travels to India.
• June 3 - Singapore becomes a self governing crown colony of Britain with Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister.
• August 21 - Hawaii is admitted as the 50th U.S. state.
• December 1 - Cold War: Antarctic Treaty signed - 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent (this was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War).

Important social events:

• January 2 - CBS Radio cuts four soap operas: Backstage Wife, Our Gal Sunday, Road of Life, and This is Nora Drake.
• February 3 - The chartered plane transporting musicians Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper goes down in an Iowa snowstorm, killing all four occupants on board. The tragedy is later termed “The Day the Music Died” popularized in Don McLean’s song American Pie.
• February 26 - Author Walter Mene throws acid on a Rubens painting in Munich.
• March 8 - Last television appearance of The Marx Brothers, in The Incredible Jewel Robbery.
• March 11 - Een beetje by Teddy Scholten (music by Dick Schallies, text by Willy van Hemert) wins Eurovision Song Contest 1959 for Netherlands.
• October 2 - Rod Serling’s classic anthology series The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS.
• December 13 - MGM’s The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) is telecast for only the second time, but it gains an even larger viewing audience than the first telecast, spurring CBS to make it an annual tradition on television.
• The 1st Grammy awards were held in 1959. They recognized the accomplishments by musicians from the previous year. Domenico Modugno, Ella Fitzgerald abd Ross Bagdasarian Sr. all won 2 awards.

Important scientific events:

• January 1 - Cultivars of plants named after this date must be named in a modern language, not in Latin.
• February 6 - At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
• February 17 - USA launches the Vanguard II weather satellite.
• April 9 - Frank Lloyd Wright, arguably the most influential American architect of the 20th century dies from an abdominal obstruction.
• June 8 - The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.
• July - The medical research group studying Minamata disease comes to the conclusion that mercury is the cause.
• July 7 - 14:28 UT Venus occulted the star Regulus. The rare event which will next occur on October 1, 2044 was used for determining the diameter of Venus and the structure of Venus’ atmosphere.
• August 7 - Explorer program: The United States launches Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• August 14 - Explorer 6 sends the first picture of Earth from space.
• September 13 - Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon as the first man-made object.
• The neutrion is first experimentally detected.
• The first known human with HIV dies in Congo.

Important social events:

• In February a blizzard causes a massive power outage in Newfoundland
• In July the steal industry is on strike in the USA
• In March the forst Barbie doll from the company Mattel is sold.
• In February Richie Valens and Buddie Holly die at a plane crash.

Important state leaders and related events:

• January 1: Paul Chaudet becomes state leader of Switzerland.
• January 1: Cuba: Fidel Castro gets the leadership.
• January 2: Che`Guevara and Fidel Castro enter Havanna.
• January 3: Alaska becomes 49th state of the USA.
• March 18: The US president Eisenhower signs the  contract of Hawaii’s independence (50th state).
• July 11: Agreement between BRD and Luxemburg about war compensations of World War II.
• September 12: Theodor Heuss lays down German leadership.
• October 17: Morocco refuses the currency and introduces a new one (Dirham).
• November 11: Cultural agreement between BRD and Egypt, BRD and Syria (beginning October 16, 1960)
• December 12: In Paraguay and Argentinia begins a rebel against the regime of Alfredo Ströss.
• December 16: Sukarno extends the state of emergency in Indonesia (unlimited).
• December 21: China annexes Tibet against Chinese occupation in Lhasa, escape of D. Lama to India.

Welton Academy in Vermont (fictional) in contrast to real prep schools

 Real prep schools:

• Provide talents and personal interests
• Can choose by themselves which courses they take
• Strict
• Foretold ways of life
• Try to build a kind of elite
• Personal development is designated

Welton Academy 1959:

• The students are told which courses to take by parents and headmasters
• Personal interests do not matter
• Strict
• Foretold way of life
• Try to build a kind of elite
• Foretold development

Conclusion:

• The aims of such prep schools remain the same but the ways to realise them are more individual and more human than in the 1950’s.

Freethought

Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logical principles and not be comprised by authority, tradition, or any other dogma. The cognitive application of freethought is known as freethinking, and practitioners of freethought are known as freethinkers.

Realism versus Romanticism

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Define the terms…

… tradition, honour, discipline and excellence contrasted by travesty, horror, decadence and excrement and explain the implications. 

• Tradition: The word tradition comes from the word “traditio” and means “to hand over”. A tradition is a story or a custom that is memorized and passed down from generation to generation, originally without writing it down. 
• Honour: Honour is dignity and the fulfilment of duty. 
• Discipline: Discipline is any training intended to produce a specific character or pattern of behaviour, especially training that produces mental development in a particular direction. 
• Excellence: Excellence is superiority, the state of being good to a high level. 
• Travesty: It’s a deliberate exaggeration of representation. 
• Horror: It is the feeling of dread and anticipation that occurs before something frightening is seen, heard or otherwise experienced. It’s also the feeling one gets after coming to an awful realisation or hideous revelation. 
• Decadence: Decadence refers to a personal trait and to a state of society. In a person it describes a lack of moral and intellectual discipline. In a society, it describes decline due to a perceived erosion of necessary moral traditions.