Wrinkle's Journey Through Time Skip to main content
2012-2013 Season

Wrinkle's Journey Through Time

by Patrick Hayes, Dramaturg

Like most of Madeleine L’Engle’s works, A Wrinkle in Time depicts time travel and dimension hopping. In particular, Wrinkle covers a time period between the years 1950 – 1969. Most of the important historical events during this time period had direct correlation in her writing, represented by events in the narrative and the fictional science used within the book series. Listed below are some of the major events occurring during that twenty-year period.

1950

  • First Organ Transplant
First_Peanuts_comic

  • First “Peanuts” Cartoon Strip
  • Korean War Begins
  • Senator Joseph McCarthy Begins Communist Witch Hunt

1951

  • Color TV Introduced
  • Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII
  • Winston Churchill Again Prime Minister of Great Britain

1952

  • Car Seat Belts Introduced
elizabeth

1953

  • DNA Discovered
  • Hillary and Norgay Climb Mt. Everest
  • Joseph Stalin Dies

1954

  • First Atomic Submarine Launched
  • Report Says Cigarettes Cause Cancer
  • Roger Bannister Breaks the Four-Minute Mile
  • Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S.

1955

  • Disneyland Opens
disney

  • James Dean Dies in Car Accident
  • McDonald’s Corporation Founded
  • Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus
  • Warsaw Pact Signed

1956

1957

  • Dr. Seuss Publishes The Cat in the Hat
  • Soviet Satellite Sputnik Launches Space Age

1958

  • Hula Hoops Become Popular
  • LEGO Toy Bricks First Introduced
  • NASA Founded
  • Peace Symbol Created

1959

  • Castro Becomes Dictator of Cuba
  • The Sound of Music Opens on Broadway

1960

  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho Released
  • First Televised Presidential Debates
  • Lasers Invented
  • Walsh and Piccard Become the First to Explore the Deepest Place on Earth

1961

  • Bay of Pigs Invasion

1961

  • Bay of Pigs Invasion
berlinwall

  • Berlin Wall Built
  • JFK Gives “Man on the Moon” Speech
  • Peace Corps Founded
  • Soviets Launch First Man in Space
  • Tsar Bomba, the Largest Nuclear Weapon to Ever Be Exploded

1962

  • Andy Warhol Exhibits His Campbell’s Soup Can
  • Cuban Missile Crisis
  • First James Bond Movie
  • Johnny Carson Takes Over the Tonight Show
  • Marilyn Monroe Found Dead

1963

  • 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
  • Betty Friedan Publishes The Feminine Mystique
  • First Dr. Who Episode Airs
  • First Woman in Space
  • JFK Assassinated
  • March on Washington
  • Martin Luther King Jr. Makes His “I Have a Dream” Speech

1964

  • Beatles Become Popular in U.S.
  • Cassius Clay (a.k.a. Muhammad Ali) Becomes World Heavyweight Champion
  • Civil Rights Act Passes in U.S.
  • Hasbro Launches GI Joe Action Figure
  • Nelson Mandela Sentenced to Life in Prison

1965

  • Los Angeles Riots

1965

  • Los Angeles Riots
vietnam

  • Malcolm X Assassinated
  • Miniskirt First Appears
  • New York City Great Blackout
  • The Rolling Stones’ Mega Hit Song, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
  • U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam

1966

  • Black Panther Party Established
  • Mao Zedong Launches the Cultural Revolution
  • Mass Draft Protests in U.S.
  • National Organization for Women (NOW) Founded
  • Two Multi-Ton Chunks of the Mundrabilla Meteorite Found

1967

  • First Heart Transplant
  • Six-Day War in the Middle East
  • Three U.S. Astronauts Killed During Simulated Launch

1968

  • Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
  • My Lai Massacre
  • Nerve Gas Leak in Utah Kills 6,000 Sheep
  • Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated
  • Tet Offensive

1969

  • ARPANET, the Precursor of the Internet, Created
  • Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon
  • Rock-and-Roll Concert at Woodstock
  • Sesame Street First Airs
  • manonmoon

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

Interview with the Dramaturg

April 02, 2025 06:17 PM
CFAC External Relations decided to conduct a short interview with Andrew-Elijah Schindler, the dramaturg and playwright for Henry V. They wanted to learn more about his role behind the scenes.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

All in This Together

March 31, 2025 09:39 AM
For many, High School Musical is a nostalgic film that brings back memories of our days in high school, of struggling to fit in, figuring out who we are, and developing friendships that shape and change us. It teaches us that “we are all in this together,” a theme we’ve embraced throughout this production.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

The Comedy-Tragedy Debate in The Cherry Orchard

March 27, 2025 09:44 PM
The debate over whether The Cherry Orchard is a comedy or a tragedy began with Chekhov himself and his director (and sometimes friend) Konstantin Stanislavsky.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=