Del Webb started off the 1960s by introducing Arizona to a new type of community, one that would forever alter how we view retirement. His affordable, amenity-rich, age-restricted community of Sun City became the model for active adult communities nationwide for decades.

In 1956, two planes collided midair over the Grand Canyon. This tragedy and the 128 people lost would change commercial air travel in the United States forever.

Governor J. Howard Pyle’s push to end polygamy on the Utah border not only fizzled, but it would create a massive political backlash against him. Even worse, it caused the fundamentalists to become more isolated and insular, which allowed the rise of Warren Jeffs and some of the worst abuses of plural marriage.

Following the raid on Short Creek, the men found themselves facing trial, while their wives and children were divvied up and sent to live in foster homes across the state. However, within four years every single one of them would be home again.

After all the planning and buildup, at 4 a.m. on Sunday, July 26, 1953, hundreds of law enforcement officers, social workers, and others converge on Short Creek and took dozens of men and women into custody.

If it’s true that amateurs study tactics while professionals study logistics, then Arizona Governor J. Howard Pyle resolved to be a thorough professional before trying his hand at stamping out polygamy in the community of Short Creek.

In which we blame the migraine from Hades for there being no new episode this week.

The polygamy of the fundamentalists living at Short Creek was always going to ensure that they were going to run afoul of the law. In the 1930s and 1940s first the state of Arizona, then the U.S. government decided they simply could not abide these scofflaws any longer. Unfortunately, the way they went about it had very mixed results.

To understand the 1953 raid on polygamous families living in Short Creek, we have to go back even further and understand where the community of Short Creek came from, and the theological controversies that led fundamentalist Mormon families to settle there.

The Korean War tends to be one of America’s more forgotten conflicts, but as the fighting waged during the early 1950s it would have several impacts on the state. And it was a Marine veteran from Tucson whose story made sure Korean veterans had access to the same benefits as all other servicemen.