October 20, 1957

That fall of 1957, gas ran $0.31 a gallon and Eisenhower was in the White House — and the Soviet Union had just launched Sputnik 2, carrying a dog named Laika as the first living creature to orbit the Earth, pushing the space race into urgent new territory for American policymakers. On television, "Gunsmoke" was the country's top-rated show, while "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was drawing crowds to movie theaters across the nation. The Milwaukee Braves defeated the New York Yankees in seven games to claim the World Series, the same fall that "West Side Story," with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, opened on Broadway for the first time.