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THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY
arrived to begin their studies in the new
college, James Meredith, a black student,
was enrolling at the University of Mississippi
– under the guard of 300 US marshals. As
white rioting spread, the National Guard had
to be mobilised. Two anti-segregation rioters
were killed.
In the Soviet Union
Khrushchev’s
‘de-Stalinisation’
continued, within
limits. The regime
allowed publication
of Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn’s novel,
One Day in the Life
of Ivan Denisovitch,
a searing depiction of
life and death in the Gulag labour camps, set
just over a decade in the past.
As the world breathed a
sigh of relief at having
survived 1962, the radical
‘60s – in politics, culture
and fashion – were building
up steam
The world became a smaller place when a
communications satellite, Telstar, was put
into orbit. Telstar was a mere 34-inches in
diameter and ran on less than 15 watts of
power. The first live television broadcast
across the Atlantic showed footage of the
Statue of Liberty in New York and the Eiffel
Tower in Paris.
In cinema, James Bond made his first movie
outing in Dr No. Though the film mostly
played straight and was not obviously distinct
from conventional thrillers and spy-movies,
Sean Connery made an immediate mark as
007. The stereotypical ‘Bond Girl’ (Ursula
Andress) and the Super-Villain were also
present and correct.
Popular music was about to change forever.
The Beatles had their first UK hit with
‘Love Me Do’, which reached no. 17 in the
charts. The band’s manager, Brian Epstein,
immediately turned his formidable energies to
breaking into the American market.
The first popular classic of modern
environmentalism was published. Rachel
Carson’s Silent Spring was a broadside against
the grim impact of pollutants of America’s
wildlife. In the book’s dedication she quoted
Albert Schweitzer: ‘man has lost the capacity
to foresee and to forestall. He will end
by destroying the earth.’ Carson’s book
raised popular awareness of environmental
degradation, and was instrumental in the first
Earth Day held in 1970.
As the world breathed a sigh of relief at
having survived 1962, the radical ‘60s – in
politics, culture and fashion – were building
up steam. It was a heady time for a new
college. n
ST CATHERINE’S COLLEGE 2012/27