This is a timeline of events that occurred during the 1950s in the HBO timeline.
1950[]
September[]
16th[]
- Henry Louis Gates Jr. is born.[1][2]
1951[]
February[]
27th[]
- The 22nd Amendment is ratified following Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office.[1]
July[]
- At the age of 10, Walter Kovacs gets into a fight with two bullies while picking up groceries, partially blinding a young boy named Richie. Following the incident, Kovacs is placed at the Charlton Home in New Jersey.[3][4]
September[]
18th[]
- The Day the Earth Stood Still is released in the United States.[1]
1952[]
- Walter Kovacs writes the essay My Parents.
1953[]
- EC Comics artist Joe Orlando poses for a photo.[1][5]
- While performing covert duties in Seoul, Korea, Eddie Blake contracts syphilis for a second time. Dr. David Baines tends to Blake's condition.[6]
January[]
20th[]
- Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected President of the United States.[1]
June[]
6th
- Vittorio Rotelli dies.[7]
May[]
27th[]
- Walter Kovacs tells a counselor about his dream.[8]
1954[]
- Laurie Juspeczyk hears Laurence Schexnayder and Sally Jupiter fighting. As her parents argue, she picks up a now snow globe in the living room and stares at it. Larry yells at Laurie, startling her into dropping the globe, which shatters.[9]
- Jeffrey Iddings is born.[10]
- The New Frontiersman publishes an article featuring photographs of Mothman at the 13th World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland, Ohio hanging out with artists linked to socialist organizations.[11]
- The House Un-American Activities Committee subsequently demands that all masked vigilantes reveal their identities to a congressman.[12]
- Eddie Blake campaigns for several House Un-American Activities Committee members including Joseph David Keene.[11]
- Joseph David Keene becomes a congressman for the state of Oklahoma.[11]
- Being the first to answer the summons by the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Comedian serves as justice of the peace for Senator Joseph McCarthy's committee by delivering subpoenas to others costumed adventurers. Because of his involvement with the government, Blake was the only vigilante not forced to testify.[11]
February[]
- While performing covert duties in Pen Jomn, Eddie Blake sustains a fragmentation wound when mortar fragments shred his left deltoid. Hank Stevens tends to Blake's injuries.[6]
17th[]
- Rolf Müller disappears.[6]
June[]
14th[]
- Byron Lewis testifies before the HUAC. His left-wing associations cause him to endure lengthy, and ruthless investigations compared to those of the other Minutemen members.[12]
September[]
9th[]
- Laurence Schexnayder and Sally Jupiter issue a press release denying any knowledge of Byron Lewis having communist views.[6]
11th[]
- Newsworld quotes the Comedian as describing Byron Lewis as "a flake" and "a nerdy little kid trying to hang out with big brother and his friends." Blake adds, however, that he doubts Lewis is "a goddamned Red".[6]
1955[]
- Brief surge of anti-comic book sentiment.[5]
- When pressed to testify before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, Hooded Justice refuses to reveal his identity.[12] HJ spoke out about his decision of defying the HUAC in an ad published in the Amsterdam News, and vehemently calls out the United States government as being both racist and oppressive.[11] After making a farewell speech to the press, he disappears from the public eye.[6][13]
- Will Reeves speaks to Nelson Gardner for the last time before leaving New York City in the fall. He tells him that he never wants to see him again, and cut all contact with him[14]
- Will Reeves retires from the New York City Police Department.[14]
- New Frontiersman reports the disappearance of Rolf Müller.[12]
- Dreamland at the Park announces the line-up for its annual summer movie series; the work of black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.[11]
February[]
- John Grisham is born.[1][15]
May[]
- Sheriff Dale Dixon Crawford hosts a white tie fundraising event at his home in Tulsa.[11]
- During a fundraising event at Sheriff Dale Dixon Crawford's home, Congressman Joseph David Keene publicly rebuked Hooded Justice for defying the House Un-American Activities Committee.[11]
June[]
1st[]
- Dale Dixon Crawford is given a leadership position in Cyclops.
2nd[]
- Joseph David Keene gives Dale Dixon Crawford Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship, a replica painting of George Catlin's Comanche Feats of Martial Horsemanship.
10th[]
- This Island Earth is released in New York City.[1]
July[]
- A badly decomposed corpse with a bullet in the back of the head washes up off the coast of Boston, tentatively the body is identified as Rolf Müller.[12]
- Eddie Blake's government connections prevent any serious investigation into Rolf Müller's death.[16]
4th[]
- Valkyrie Traveling Circus arrives to Tulsa, Oklahoma for its annual month-long residency.[11]
30th[]
- Public hearings are held in the NAACP's offices in Tulsa regarding the National Bank's mortgage divisions.[11]
September[]
1st[]
- The Vietnam War begins.[1]
1956[]
- Sally Jupiter and Laurence Schexnayder file for divorce.[12]
- Sylvia Kovacs is killed in the South Bronx by her pimp, George Paterson, who forced her to ingest Drano fluid.[4]
- Walter Kovacs starts working in a garment firm as an unskilled worker.[3][4]
- Friedrich and Ingrid Veidt are killed in a car crash.[17]
- Following his parents death, Adrian Veidt gives away his inheritance to charity, begins his journey to northern Turkey, and follows the path of Alexander the Great.[17][18]
1958[]
- Moloch begins developing a plan to elect a U.S. president connected to organized crime.[16]
- Jon Osterman submits his doctoral dissertation for consideration by Princeton University's faculty board.[6][6]
- Hank Meadows dies of a tumor.[19]
- Adrian Veidt makes his debut as Ozymandias.[17]
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is published.[1][20]
January[]
3rd[]
- The New Haven Register announces funeral details for Frank Madison.[6]
5th[]
- A funeral is held for Frank Madison at Our Lady of Mercy, in Stamford, Connecticut.[6]
Late March[]
- Ozymandias makes his crimefighting debut by busting an opium and heroin smuggling racket.[12]
May[]
6th[]
- Michael Florence informs Jon Osterman that the Department of Physics at Princeton University has accepted his doctoral dissertation.[6]
June[]
7th[]
- Princeton University holds a graduation ceremony, during which Jon Osterman is awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy in Atomic Physics.[19][6]
1959[]
- In order to boost comic book-inspired agents, the government comes on the side of comic books.[5]
- Having anticipated the massive boom in pirate-related material, EC come out stronger. Their line of pirate titles dominate the marketplace.[5]
February[]
2nd[]
- Milton Glass invites Jon Osterman to visit Gila Flats Test Base and view how scientists at the facility are working to separate gluons and gluinos by shattering their intrinsic fields.[6]
May[]
12th[]
- Jon Osterman arrives at Gila Flats, site of the intrinsic field generator, as a project researcher replacing the late Hank Meadows. Milton Glass introduces him to Wally Weaver, who gives Osterman a tour of the facility. Osterman visits the Bestiary and is introduced to Janey Slater.[19]
14th[]
- The Gila Flats Test Base issues Jon Osterman an official identification card, on which his first name is misspelled as "John".[6]
July[]
- Jon Osterman and Janey Slater travel to New Jersey – Jon to visit university friends and Janey to visit her mother. At Palisades Amusement Park, a photographer takes their picture. A fat man breaks Janey's watch and Jon promises to fix it. At his hotel, they make love for the first time.[19]
August[]
- Scientists at the Gila Flats Test Base conduct fourteen experiments to remove the intrinsic fields from concrete blocks. All fourteen tests end with the concrete's disintegration.[6]
20th[]
- Jon Osterman fixes Janey Slater's watch and brings it with him to work.[19]
- Jon Osterman accidentally leaves his lab coat, with Janey Slater's watch in one pocket, inside the intrinsic field chamber. While having lunch with her, he realizes he has forgotten the watch and returns to retrieve it.[19]
- While Jon Osterman is still in the chamber, the door automatically locks as the generators warm up for an experiment to remove intrinsic fields from a fifteenth concrete block. Jon yells to be let out, but Milton Glass tells him there is no way to override the time-lock, and Janey Slater runs away in tears, unable to watch her lover die. As the particle cannons fire, Osterman's body is painfully reduced to its component atoms, and he screams in terror.[19]
September[]
- A token funeral service is held for Jon Osterman.[19]
- Hans Osterman receives a telegram from the military informing him of his son's passing.[19]
23rd[]
- Ozymandias investigates Hooded Justice's disappearance. He runs into the Comedian and they engage in a brief fight. They despise each other thereafter.[17]
October[]
- Janey Slater places the photograph of her and Jon Osterman in a glass case at the Bestiary.[19]
November[]
- Jon Osterman's nervous system appears for a moment in the men's bathroom at Gila Flats while two employees are washing their hands.[19]
10th[]
- Cooks at the Gila Flats facility are shocked when a image of Jon Osterman's circulatory system suddenly appears in the kitchen.[19]
14th[]
- Jon Osterman's partially muscled skeleton appears for thirty seconds outside the perimeter fence at Gila Flats.[19]
22nd[]
- In a whistling sound, sparkling cutlery and an ultraviolet light Jon Osterman rematerializes in the Gila Flats cafeteria, having transformed into the being that will later be known as Doctor Manhattan. Those present get sunburns from the UV radiation.[19]
25th[]
- Jon Osterman and Janey Slater spend Christmas together. She gives him a golden ring and expresses her fears about what is becoming. He tells her that he will always want her, knowing that it is not true.[19]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Historical date
- ↑ Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Abyss Gazes Also
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Early History of Walter Kovacs
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Treasure Island Treasury of Comics
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 Watchmen Sourcebook
- ↑ Watchmen: Justice is Coming
- ↑ The text gives 1963 but this is obviously wrong as Kovacs had left Charlton Home by then.
- ↑ The Darkness of Mere Being
- ↑ Watchmen: Who Watches the Watchmen?
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 11.8 11.9 Watchmen: Volume 2 soundtrack supplementary material
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 Under the Hood: Chapter V
- ↑ At Midnight, All the Agents...
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 MEMO: The Will of Nelson Gardner
- ↑ She Was Killed by Space Junk
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Watchmen: Taking Out the Trash
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Look On My Works, Ye Mighty
- ↑ CLIPPING: "Veidt Declared Dead"
- ↑ 19.00 19.01 19.02 19.03 19.04 19.05 19.06 19.07 19.08 19.09 19.10 19.11 19.12 19.13 19.14 Watchmaker
- ↑ If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own