Beautiful Vision The 1964 World's Fair is only slightly ahead of its time. Down in Florida, test launches of NASA rockets are announced regularly, though they seem to have a habit of exploding on the launchpad. The Americans and Russians are dead even in the space race, but most Americans believe America will eventually win, because America always wins. If you ignore Korea.

	Feminists and Bunnies At the same time, another force is unleashed that will change America forever. It comes in the form of a book which introduces the country to something called the Feminine Mystique. The book reveals the hidden reality that many American wives remain vaguely unfulfilled in their traditional family role. This, at a time when hot stewardesses and Playboy bunnies romp freely. The result is a slow-burning brush fire of change, which causes some women to consider giving it a go in the professional world.
	Another Game-Changer Topping it all off, technology suddenly takes a huge leap forward, after decades of slower, incremental change. Electricity enters the digital age with the invention of the transistor, a tiny device with explosive power. It allows controlling the flow of electrons without bulky and burnout-prone vacuum tubes. Better yet, it's so small that hundreds can be crowded onto a single circuit board, consuming very little power. The first big mainframe computer, the IBM 360, is released in 1965.