- — South America:
The banana boom
Ecuador becomes the world's largest banana exporter, the fruit replacing cacao as the leading crop and renewing coastal prosperity.
Era: Cacao, Liberals and Bananas
Sources: History of Ecuador · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- — South America:
Tin nationalised, suffrage and land reform
The revolutionary government nationalises the tin mines, grants universal suffrage to the indigenous majority, and decrees a sweeping agrarian reform.
Era: The National Revolution and Military Rule
Sources: Victor Paz Estenssoro · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Bolivia: A Country Study · Library of Congress, Federal Research Division
- — Asia:
The Kara-Kum Canal
Construction began on the Kara-Kum Canal, which carried water from the Amu Darya across the desert to irrigate the cotton lands — a vast project that opened new farmland at heavy environmental cost.
Era: Soviet Turkmenistan
Sources: Turkmenistan · Encyclopædia Britannica, Turkmenistan: A Country Study (in 'Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan: Country Studies') · Library of Congress, Federal Research Division
- — Asia:
Beirut, the Paris of the Middle East
Lebanon's golden age makes Beirut the banking, commercial and cultural capital of the region, renowned for its cosmopolitan prosperity.
Era: Independence and the Golden Age
Sources: Lebanon · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Lebanon · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- — Africa:
Oil discovered near Port-Gentil
Oil was discovered offshore at the Ozouri field near Port-Gentil in 1956; petroleum would become the foundation of independent Gabon's economy and a key source of state revenue.
Era: Colonial Gabon and the road to independence
Sources: Gabon — Economy · Encyclopædia Britannica, Gabon's Experience Managing Oil Wealth (Oil Wealth in Central Africa) · International Monetary Fund
- — Europe:
- — Africa:
Commercial oil discovered
The discovery of oil in commercial quantities at the Zelten field transforms Libya's prospects; exports begin in 1961.
Era: Independence, Monarchy and the Coming of Oil
Sources: Libya: The discovery of oil · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Zelten oil field · Wikipedia
Economy & Trade in the 1950s
Every event in the Terralore archive tagged economy and trade — trade, currency, industry and resources, narrowed to the 1950s — 7 of them, drawn from 7 nations, running from 1950 to 1959. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.
- Events
- 7
- Nations
- 7
- Earliest
- 1950
- Latest
- 1959
- Africa
- 2
- Asia
- 2
- South America
- 2
- Europe
- 1
Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.