The 60s- 10 Things You Might Not Know

I have been doing research for my work in progress, a novel about a girl growing up in the 1960s. I have learned some interesting things in the process.

Diet Coke advertisement in 1982

Did you know there was no diet Coke in the 1960s? Diet Coke only hit store shelves in 1982.

Marion School in Winnipeg where I attended grade one in 1960. Most of the teachers were nuns.

Did you know that at one point in the 1960s there were more than 60,000 Catholic nuns working as teachers, social workers and nurses in Canada?

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth by Dorothy Wilding-Photograph by William and Georgina Hustler taken at the National Gallery in London

Did you know that in the 1960s almost every school classroom in Canada had a prominently displayed picture of Queen Elizabeth?

My brothers snowmobiling on our family’s Arctic Cat at our Moose Lake, Manitoba cabin in the 1960s

Did you know that it was only during the 1960s that the use of snowmobiles became widespread in Canada? Until that time transportation over snow had been impossible except on skis, snowshoes, or dogsled. 

Mary Tyler Moore sporting a flip hairstyle on the Dick Van Dyke show in 1964- Photo from Wiki Commons

Did you know that the flip was a hairstyle that defined the decade of the 1960s and was made popular with the help of prominent public figures like Jackie Kennedy and Mary Tyler Moore? 

Photo of the Monkees in 1966- from Wikipedia

Did you know that Kool-Aid the sweetened powder drink became hugely popular in the 1960s because of television advertisements featuring a singing group called The Monkees, one of the most successful bands of the 1960s?

A 1961 Envoy- photo from the blog Curbside Classic.

Did you know that Envoy was an automobile brand created by General Motors of Canada? The cars were made in England and sold on the Canadian market from 1959 to 1970.  Our family owned a red and white Envoy in the 60s.

An air raid siren in Guelph Ontario. Photo from the Waterloo Record.

Did you know many Canadian communities had sirens installed during World War II to warn residents of potential air raids?  In the 1960s some communities still sounded the sirens at noon and six o’clock and nine o’clock to tell children it was time to head home for meals or bed.  During the Cold War in the 1960s, the sirens were tested as a means of warning citizens of a possible nuclear attack.  I remember the siren going off in my hometown of Steinbach Manitoba and we school kids practising for how we would exit the school and hurry home.

Kool cigarette television commercial

Did you know that in the 1960s it was perfectly acceptable to have cigarette advertisements on Canadian television?

Toilet paper ad 1960s

Did you know that in 1965 the cost of four rolls of toilet paper was 45 cents?

I lived through the 1960s but as I was doing my research I realized there were many things I had forgotten about that time period.

Other posts………..

Two Squares of Toilet Paper

Duck and Cover

What Will Our Grandchildren Think?