As the Cold War heated up in 1955, the U.S.S.R. and seven of its European satellite countries formed the Warsaw Pact defense alliance to counter NATO. In the U.S., the first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, while Disneyland debuted in Anaheim, California and the Mickey Mouse Club premiered on TV. Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus in Alabama, and the racially inspired murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till sparked national outrage.
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A full nine months before Rosa Parks's famous act of civil disobedience, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin is arrested on March 2, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama bus.
Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
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Disneyland, Walt Disney’s metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy and futurism, opens on July 17, 1955. The $17 million theme park was built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, California, and soon brought in staggering profits. Today, Disneyland hosts more than 18 million visitors a year, who spend close to $3 billion.
Loomis Dean/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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On October 29, 1955, almost one month after up-and-coming actor James Dean died in a tragic car crash at the age of 24, Warner Bros. Pictures releases his second major film, Rebel Without a Cause. In the movie, Dean played Jim Stark, a rebellious teenager who moves to Los Angeles, where he clashes with his father, struggles to fit in at his new high school and runs afoul of the local tough guy, Buzz.
Natalie Wood talks with James Dean on set of the film ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ in 1955.
Getty Images / Warner Brothers
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In Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city’s racial segregation laws. The successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King Jr., followed Park’s historic act of civil disobedience.
Rosa Parks sitting in front of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, after the Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal on the city bus system on December 21st, 1956.
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
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