Atomic Age - The Atomic Age in Pop Culture

The Atomic Age in Pop Culture

• 1913 — C.W. Leadbeater published Man: How, Whence, and Whither? . This book describes the future society of the world in the 28th century (which, as a clairvoyant, Leadbeater claimed to have gotten information about from consulting the akashic records) as being powered by what he called atomic energy.
• 1914 — H. G. Wells publishes science fiction novel The World Set Free, describing how scientists discover potentially limitless energy locked inside of atoms, and describes the deployment of atomic bombs.
• October 1939 — Amazing Stories published a painting of an atomic power plant by science fiction artist Howard M. Duffin on its back cover.
• 1940 — Robert A. Heinlein published the science fiction short story "Blowups Happen" about an accident at an atomic power plant.
• 1940 — Robert A. Heinlein published the short story "Solution Unsatisfactory" which posits radioactive dust as a weapon that the US develops in a crash program to end World War II.
• 1945 – The Atomaton chapter of Sweet Adelines was formed by Edna Mae Anderson after she and her sister singers decided, “We have an atom of an idea and a ton of energy.” The name also recognized the Atomic Age — just three days after Sweet Adelines was founded (July 13, 1945), the first nuclear bomb, Trinity, was detonated.
• 5 July 1946 — The bikini swimsuit, named after Bikini Atoll, where an atomic bomb test called Operation Crossroads had taken place a few days earlier on 1 July 1946, was introduced at a fashion show in Paris.
• 1946 - Virgil Jordan published: "Manifesto for atomic age" Rutgers University Press.
• 1948- Voltolino Fontani published : Manifesto of Eaismo, Società Editrice Italiana, Livorno.
• 1951 — Isaac Asimov's science fiction novel Foundation (consisting mostly of stories originally published between 1942 and 1944) is published. In this novel, the first novel of the Foundation series, the Foundation on Terminus, guided by Psychohistory, invents a religion called Scientism which has an atomic priesthood based on the scientific use of atomic energy to pacify, impress, and control the masses of the barbarian inhabitants of the stellar kingdoms surrounding Terminus as the Galactic Empire breaks up.
• 1954 — Them!, a science fiction film about humanity's battle with a nest of giant mutant ants, was one of the first of the "nuclear monster" movies.
• 1954 — The science fiction film Godzilla was released, about an iconic fictional monster that is gigantic irradiated dinosaur, transformed from the fallout of an H-Bomb test.
• 23 January 1957 — Walt Disney Productions released the film Our Friend the Atom describing the marvelous benefits of atomic power. As well as being presented on the TV Show Disneyland, this film was also shown to almost all baby boomers in their public school auditoriums or their science classes and was instrumental in creating within that generation a mostly favorable attitude toward nuclear power.
• 1957—The current leader of the Nizari sect of Ismaili Shia Islam, Shah Karim al-Husayni, the Aga Khan IV, acceded to the Imamship at age 20. One of the titles bestowed on him by his followers was his designation as The Imam of the Atomic Age.
• 1958 — The Atomium was constructed for the Brussels World's Fair.
• 1958—The Peace Symbol was designed for the British nuclear disarmament movement by Gerald Holtom.
• 1959 — The popular film On the Beach shows the last remnants of humanity in Australia awaiting the end of the human race after a nuclear war.
• 23 September 1962 — The Jetsons animated TV series began on ABC, attempting to humorously depict life in the fully developed Atomic Age of 2062.
• 1964 — The film Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (aka Dr. Strangelove), a black comedy directed by Stanley Kubrick about an accidentally triggered nuclear war, was released.
• 1982 — The documentary film The Atomic Cafe, detailing society's attitudes toward the atomic bomb in the early Atomic Age, debuted to widespread acclaim.
• 1982 - Jonathan Schell’s book Fate of the Earth, about the consequences of nuclear war, is published. The book "forces even the most reluctant person to confront the unthinkable: the destruction of humanity and possibly most life on Earth". The best-selling book instigated the nuclear freeze movement.
• 1983 - The cartoon book The End by cartoonist Skip Morrow, about the lighter side of nuclear apocalypse, is published.
• 20 November 1983 — The Day After, an American television movie was aired on the ABC Television Network, and also in the Soviet Union. The film portrays a fictional nuclear war between the United States/NATO and the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact. After the film, a panel discussion is presented in which Carl Sagan suggested that we need to reduce the number of nuclear weapons as a matter of "planetary hygiene". This film was seen by over 100,000,000 people and was instrumental in greatly increasing public support for the nuclear freeze movement.
• 1985 - 1990 in the Film series Back to The Future, references to the Atomic Age and uses of Nuclear Energy are broadly explored; for example the use of Plutonium in the time machine, the concept of "Mr. Fusion" (a futuristic small scale fusion reactor for domestic use that can use garbage as fuel) and references to the common 1950s conceptions of the Atomic Age.
• 17 December 1989 — The animated cartoon series The Simpsons debuted on television on the Fox Network, providing a humorous look at the Atomic Age, since the main protagonist, Homer Simpson, is employed as an operator at a nuclear power plant.
• Beginning in the 1990s, nostalgia stores that specialize in selling modern furniture or artifacts from the 1950s often have included the words Atomic Age as part of the name of, or advertising for the store.
• 1997 - The first installment of the Fallout series, a video game series set in an alternate earth post-apocalyptic world, is released by Black Isle Studios/Interplay. Both the visual style and many Inseries references deal with the atomic age optimism towards nuclear power and the stark contrast it creates to the post-apocalyptic wasteland.
• 1999 — Blast from the Past was released. It is a romantic comedy film about a nuclear physicist, his wife, and son that enter a well-equipped spacious fallout shelter during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. They do not emerge until 35 years later, in 1997. The film shows their reaction to contemporary society.
• 1999 — Larry Niven published the science fiction novel Rainbow Mars. In this novel, in the 31st century, Earth uses a dating system based on what is called the Atomic Era, in which the year one is 1945. Thus, what we call the year 3053 A.D. (the year the novel begins) is in the novel the year 1108 A.E.
• Autumn 2007 — Bachelor Pad magazine, "The New Digest of Atomic Age Culture" began publication.