chunk_id
stringlengths 6
7
| chunk
stringlengths 93
8.75k
|
|---|---|
1951_0 | 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1951st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 951st year of the 2nd millennium, the 51st year of the 20th century, and the 2nd year of the 1950s decade. |
1951_0 | Section: January (2):
January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950).
January 9 – The Government of the United Kingdom announces abandonment of the Tanganyika groundnut scheme for the cultivation of peanuts in the Tanganyika Territory, with the writing off of £36.5M debt.
January 11 – In the U.S., a top secret report is delivered to U.S. President Truman by his National Security Resources Board, urging Truman to expand the Korean War by launching "a global offensive against communism" with sustained bombing of Red China and diplomatic moves to establish "moral justification" for a U.S. nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The report will not not be declassified until 1978.
January 15 – In a court in West Germany, Ilse Koch, The "Witch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment.
January 20 – Winter of Terror: Avalanches in the Alps kill 240 and bury 45,000 for a time, in Switzerland, Austria and Italy.
January 21 – Mount Lamington in Papua New Guinea erupts catastrophically, killing nearly 3,000 people and causing great devastation in Oro Province.
January 25 – Dutch author Anne de Vries releases the first volume of his children's novel Journey Through the Night (Reis door de nacht), set during World War II.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_1 | Section: February (2):
February – The Convention People's Party wins national elections in Gold Coast (British colony).
February 1–2 – The 1951 Nepalese revolution leads to agreement for a democratic constitution.
February 1 – The United Nations General Assembly declares that China is an aggressor in the Korean War, in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 498.
February 6 – Woodbridge train wreck: A Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, killing 85 people and injuring over 500, in one of the worst rail disasters in American history.
February 12
The seven-nation Commonwealth Consultative Committee meets to discuss the Colombo Plan for south and south-east Asia.
Muhammad Reza Shah marries Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari.
February 19 – Jean Lee becomes the last woman hanged in Australia, when she and her two pimps are hanged for the murder and torture of a 73-year-old bookmaker.
February 25 – The first Pan American Games open in Buenos Aires.
February 27 – The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_2 | Section: March (2):
March 6 – The trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for conspiracy to commit espionage begins in the United States.
March 14
Korean War: Operation Ripper – For the second time, United Nations troops recapture Seoul.
West Germany joins UNESCO.
March 29 – Second Red Scare: In the United States, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. On April 5 they are sentenced to death.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I opens on Broadway, and runs for three years. It is the first of their musicals specifically written for an actress (Gertrude Lawrence). Lawrence is stricken with cancer during the run of the show, and dies halfway through its run a year later. The show makes a star of Yul Brynner.
The 23rd Academy Awards Ceremony is held; All About Eve wins the Best Picture award and five others.
March 31 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_3 | Section: April (2):
April 11
U.S. President Harry S. Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of his Far Eastern commands.
After its clandestine removal from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1950, the Stone of Scone resurfaces at Arbroath Abbey in Scotland.
April 18 – The Treaty of Paris (1951) is adopted, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.
April 21 – The National Olympic Committee of the Soviet Union is formed. The USSR will first participate in the Olympic Games at Helsinki, Finland, in 1952.
April 24 – Sakuragichō train fire: in Yokohama, Japan, a fire on a train kills more than 100.
April 28 – 1951 Australian federal election: Robert Menzies' Liberal/Country Coalition Government is re-elected with a decreased majority, defeating the Labor Party, led by former Prime Minister Ben Chifley. Chifley dies a little over a month after the election; he will be replaced by his deputy H. V. Evatt.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_4 | Section: May (2):
May 1 – The opera house of Geneva, Switzerland is almost destroyed in a fire.
May 3
King George VI opens the Festival of Britain in London, including the Royal Festival Hall.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services and U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry S Truman.
May 8 – Operation Greenhouse: The first thermonuclear weapon is tested in the "George" test on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands by the United States.
May 15 – A military coup occurs in Bolivia.
May 23 – The Tibetan government signs the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with the People's Republic of China.
May 24 – Operation Greenhouse: The first atomic bomb "boosted" by the inclusion of tritium is tested in the "Item" test on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands by the United States.
May 25–26 – British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean leave the United Kingdom to defect to the Soviet Union.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_5 | Section: June (2):
June 7 – Nazi war criminal Otto Ohlendorf is hanged at Landsberg Prison, Bavaria.
June 14 – UNIVAC I is dedicated by the U.S. Census Bureau.
June 15–July 1 – In New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, thousands of acres of forests are destroyed in fires.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_6 | Section: July (2):
July 5 – William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, of Bell Labs, announce the invention of the grown-junction transistor. Same year, General Electric and RCA develop alloy-junction transistor.
July 10
Korean War: Armistice negotiations begin at Kaesong.
A formal peace agreement between Canada and Germany is signed.
July 13 – Vuoristorata, one of the oldest still-operating wooden roller coasters in Europe, is opened at the Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki, Finland.
July 16 – King Leopold III of Belgium abdicates in favour of his son Baudouin, who on July 17 takes the oath as king of Belgium.
July 20 – King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem. He is succeeded by his son, King Talal.
July 23 – Marshal Philippe Pétain, former Prime Minister and Head of State of France, Chief of State of Vichy France during World War II, hero commander of World War I who led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of Verdun, for which he was called "the Lion of Verdun", dies while serving a sentence of life-imprisonment on the island of Île-d'Yeu at 95 years old.
July 26 – The first birch bark manuscript is discovered in Novgorod.
July 28 – Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a multilateral treaty of the United Nations, is signed at a special conference in Geneva, defining the status of refugees and setting out the basis for granting right of asylum, coming into force on 22 April 1954.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_7 | Section: August (2):
August 11 – René Pleven becomes Prime Minister of France.
August 15 – Dezik and Tsygan become the first dogs to enter suborbital spaceflight.
August 31 – The first Volkswagen Type 1 rolls off the production line in Uitenhage, South Africa.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_8 | Section: September (2):
September 1 – The United States, Australia and New Zealand all sign a mutual defense pact, the ANZUS Treaty.
September 2 – The Sri Lanka Freedom Party is founded by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike.
September 8
Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, 48 representatives out of 51 attending sign a peace treaty with Japan, formally ending the Pacific War; the delegations of the Soviet Union, Poland and Czechoslovakia do not sign the treaty, instead favoring separate treaties.
The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which allows United States Armed Forces to be stationed in Japan even after the end of the occupation of Japan, is signed by Japan and the United States.
September 9 – Chinese Communist forces move into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
September 10 – The United Kingdom begins an economic boycott of Iran.
September 20 – NATO accepts Greece and Turkey as members.
September 26–28 – A blue sun is seen over Europe: the effect is due to ash coming from the Canadian forest fires 4 months previously.
September 30 – Charlotte Whitton becomes mayor of Ottawa and Canada's first woman mayor of a major city.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_9 | Section: October (2):
October 3–8 – Korean War: First Battle of Maryang-san – United Nations (primarily Australian) forces drive back the Chinese.
October 6 – Malayan Emergency: Communist insurgents kill British commander Sir Henry Gurney.
October 14 – The Organization of Central American States (Organización de Estados Centroamericanos, ODECA) is formed.
October 15
Norethisterone, the progestin used in the combined oral contraceptive pill, is synthesized by Luis E. Miramontes in Mexico.
On television, the situation comedy I Love Lucy airs its first episode on CBS.
October 16
Judy Garland begins a series of concerts in New York's Palace Theatre.
Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan of Pakistan is assassinated.
East China Normal University is founded in Shanghai, China.
October 19 – The state of war between the United States and Germany is officially ended.
October 21 – A storm in southern Italy kills over 100.
October 24 – U.S. President Harry Truman declares an official end to war with Germany.
October 26 – Winston Churchill is re-elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (a month before his 77th birthday) in a general election which sees the defeat of Clement Attlee's Labour government, after 6 years in power.
October 27 – Farouk of Egypt declares himself king of Sudan, with no support.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_10 | Section: November (2):
November 1 – Desert Rock exercises, the first military exercises for nuclear war, with infantry troops included, are held in the Nevada desert.
November 2 – 6,000 British troops are flown into Egypt to quell unrest in the Suez Canal zone.
November 10 – Direct dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.
November 11 – Juan Perón is re-elected president of Argentina.
November 12 – The National Ballet of Canada performs for the first time in Eaton Auditorium, Toronto.
November 20 – The Po River floods in northern Italy.
November 29 – LEO runs the world's first commercial computer program, bakery valuations, for J. Lyons and Co.'s tea shops in the U.K.
Subsections (0):
|
1951_11 | Section: December (2):
c. December – The Institute of War and Peace Studies is established by Dwight D. Eisenhower at Columbia University in New York (of which he is President) with William T. R. Fox as first director.
December 3 – Lebanese University is founded in Lebanon.
December 6 – A state of emergency is declared in Egypt, due to increasing riots.
December 13 – A water storage tank collapses in Tucumcari, New Mexico, United States, resulting in 4 deaths and 200 buildings destroyed.
December 17 – We Charge Genocide, a petition describing genocide against African Americans, is delivered to the United Nations.
December 20
Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-1), the world's first (experimental) nuclear power plant, opens in Idaho, United States.
A chartered Curtiss C-46 Commando crash-lands in Cobourg, Ontario Canada; all on board survive.
The World Meteorological Organization becomes a specialized agency of the United Nations.
December 22 – The Selangor Labour Party is founded in Selangor, Malaya.
December 24
Libya becomes independent from Italy; Idris I is proclaimed King.
Gian Carlo Menotti's 45-minute opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, premieres live on NBC in the United States, becoming the first opera written especially for television.
December 31 – The Marshall Plan expires, after distributing more than $13.3 billion US in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
Subsections (0):
|
1952_0 | 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1952nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 952nd year of the 2nd millennium, the 52nd year of the 20th century, and the 3rd year of the 1950s decade. |
1952_0 | Section: January (2):
January 1 – Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of Qatar
January 2 – Elvira Saadi, Soviet gymnast
January 3
Esperanza Aguirre, Spanish politician
Jim Ross, American wrestling announcer
January 7 – Sammo Hung, Hong Kong martial arts superstar, producer and director
January 9 – Marek Belka, 11th Prime Minister of Poland
January 11 – Belkisyole Alarcón de Noya, Venezuelan physician and parasitologist
January 12 – Walter Mosley, American author
January 14 – Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, 60th Prime Minister of Romania
January 15
Boris Blank, Swiss musician
Muhammad Wakkas, Bangladeshi teacher and parliamentarian
January 17 – Ryuichi Sakamoto, Japanese electronic musician, composer, producer and actor (Yellow Magic Orchestra) (d. 2023)
January 20 – Moein (singer),Iranian Singer
January 24 – Raymond Domenech, French football player, manager
January 25
Sara Mandiano, French singer-songwriter
Peter Tatchell, Australian-born British human rights activist
January 27
Brian Gottfried, American tennis player
Asma Jahangir, Pakistani human rights activist, lawyer (d. 2018)
January 29
Klaus-Peter Hanisch, German footballer (d. 2009)
Paul Tesanovich, American politician from Michigan
January 30 – Valery Khalilov, Russian military band conductor (d. 2016)
Subsections (0):
|
1952_1 | Section: February (2):
February 2 – Park Geun-hye, President of South Korea
February 4
Abdalá Bucaram, 38th President of Ecuador
Jenny Shipley, Prime Minister of New Zealand
February 7 – John Hickenlooper, American politician, 42nd Governor of Colorado
February 8 – Nora Miao, Hong Kong actress
February 10 – Lee Hsien Loong, 3rd Prime Minister of Singapore
February 12 – Simon MacCorkindale, English actor (d. 2010)
February 14 – Sushma Swaraj, Indian politician, at Ambala Cantonment, Haryana (d. 2019)
February 15
Nikolai Sorokin, Soviet, Russian actor, theatre director (d. 2013)
Tomislav Nikolić, 4th President of Serbia
February 16 – James Ingram, African-American R&B musician (d. 2019)
February 17 – Javier Urruticoechea, Spanish footballer (d. 2001)
February 19
Gary Seear, New Zealand rugby union player (d. 2018)
Amy Tan, American novelist (The Joy Luck Club)
February 21
Vitaly Churkin, Russian diplomat (d. 2017)
Elisha Obed, Bahamian boxer (d. 2018)
February 22
William Frist, U.S. Senator, heart surgeon
Saufatu Sopoanga, 8th Prime Minister of Tuvalu (d. 2020)
February 25 – Joey Dunlop, Northern Irish motorcycle racer (d. 2000)
Subsections (0):
|
1952_2 | Section: March (2):
March 2 – Laraine Newman, American comedian (Saturday Night Live)
March 4 – Umberto Tozzi, Italian singer
March 7 – Viv Richards, West Indian cricketer
March 10 – Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwean politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Zimbabwe (d. 2018)
March 11 – Douglas Adams, English author (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) (d. 2001)
March 13
Ágnes Rapai, Hungarian writer
Wolfgang Rihm, German composer (d. 2024)
March 14 – Martin Dempsey, United States Army general
March 15 – Howard Devoto, British singer
March 16 – Alice Hoffman, American novelist
March 17 – Perla, Paraguayan-Brazilian singer
March 18 – Salome Zourabichvili, Georgian politician, 5th President of Georgia
March 19 – Harvey Weinstein, American film producer
March 23
Kim Stanley Robinson, American author
Rex Tillerson, United States Secretary of State
Villano III, Mexican professional wrestler (d. 2018)
March 24 – Reinhard Genzel, German astrophysicist, Nobel Prize recipient
March 25
Jung Chang, Chinese-born author, historian
Antanas Mockus, Colombian mathematician, politician
March 26 – Didier Pironi, French racing driver (d. 1987)
March 27 – Maria Schneider, French actress (d. 2011)
March 28 – Keith Ashfield, Canadian politician (d. 2018)
March 29 –
Teofilo Stevenson, Cuban boxer (d. 2012)
Bola Tinubu, Nigerian politician, President of Nigeria
March 31 – Dermot Morgan, Irish actor and comedian (d. 1998)
Subsections (0):
|
1952_3 | Section: April (2):
April 1
Annette O'Toole, American actress
Bernard Stiegler, French philosopher (d. 2020)
April 2 – Lennart Fagerlund, Swedish cyclist
April 4
Rosemarie Ackermann, German athlete
Gary Moore, Northern Irish musician (d. 2011)
Karen Magnussen, Canadian figure skater
April 6 – Marilu Henner, American actress (Taxi) and writer
April 7 – Nichita Danilov, Romanian writer
April 10 – Steven Seagal, American actor
April 11 – Qamar Zaman, Pakistani squash player
April 15 – Glenn Shadix, American voice actor (d. 2010)
April 16 – Billy West, American voice actor
April 17
Joe Alaskey, American voice actor (d. 2016)
Željko Ražnatović, Serbian mobster, paramilitary leader (d. 2000)
April 19 – Alexis Arguello, Nicaraguan boxer, politician (d. 2009)
April 21 – Cheryl Gillan, British politician (d. 2021)
April 23 – Jean-Dominique Bauby, French journalist and author (d. 1997)
April 24 – Jean-Paul Gaultier, French Haute couture, Prêt-à-Porter fashion designer
April 25
Ketil Bjørnstad, Norwegian pianist
Vladislav Tretiak, Russian ice hockey player
April 27 – George Gervin, American basketball player
April 28 – Mary McDonnell, American actress
Subsections (0):
|
1952_4 | Section: May (2):
May 1 – Mike Thornton, British politician
May 2 – Christine Baranski, American actress
May 3
Leonid Khachiyan, Russian-born mathematician
Allan Wells, Scottish athlete
May 4 – Michael Barrymore, British comedian, TV presenter
May 6 – Michael O'Hare, American actor (d. 2012)
May 10
Roland Kaiser, German singer
Manuel Mora Morales, Spanish director, writer
May 11
Shohreh Aghdashloo, Iranian actress
Frances Fisher, British-born American actress
Renaud, French composer
May 12 – Christopher Gaze, British voice actor
May 13 – John Kasich, Governor of Ohio
May 14
Robert Zemeckis, American film director (Back to the Future)
David Byrne, Scottish singer-songwriter (Talking Heads)
May 15 – Chazz Palminteri, American actor
May 16 – Stann Champion, American-born guitarist, singer, songwriter, and producer
May 18 – George Strait, American country musician
May 19 – Bert van Marwijk, Dutch football manager
May 20 – Roger Milla, Cameroonian footballer
May 21 – Mr. T, African-American actor (The A-Team)
May 23 – Anne-Marie David, French singer, Eurovision Song Contest 1973 winner
May 24 – Sybil Danning, Austrian actress
May 31 – Carole Achache, French writer, photographer and actress (d. 2016)
Subsections (0):
|
1952_5 | Section: June (2):
June 4 – Bronisław Komorowski, President of Poland
June 6
Marsha Blackburn, American politician and businesswoman
Yukihiro Takahashi, Japanese drummer and singer (d. 2023)
June 7
Hubert Auriol, French racing driver (d. 2021)
Liam Neeson, Northern Irish actor (Schindler's List)
Orhan Pamuk, Turkish writer, Nobel Prize winner
June 14 – Pat Summitt, American basketball coach (d. 2016)
June 16
George Papandreou, Greek politician
Gino Vannelli, Canadian singer, songwriter
June 17
Sergio Marchionne, Italian-Canadian executive (d. 2018)
Sarbjit Singh Chadha, Indian enka singer
June 18
Idriss Déby Itno, President of Chad (d. 2021)
Carol Kane, American actress
Isabella Rossellini, Italian model, actress
June 20
John Goodman, American actor
Vikram Seth, Indian novelist
June 21
Jeremy Coney, New Zealand cricket captain
Marcella Detroit, American singer (Shakespears Sister)
Ginny Ruffner, American artist
June 22
Franco Cucinotta, Italian professional footballer
Graham Greene, Canadian actor
Alastair Stewart, British newsreader
Santokh Singh, Malaysian footballer
June 23 – Peter Whiteside, British modern pentathlete
June 24
Ladislas Lozano, French-Spanish football coach, retired player
Stephen Pusey, British-born artist
June 25
Péter Erdő, Hungarian cardinal
Tim Finn, New Zealand singer, songwriter
June 28 – Pietro Mennea, Italian athlete (d. 2013)
June 29 – Joe Johnson, English snooker player
June 30 – Stein Olav Hestad, Norwegian footballer
Subsections (0):
|
1952_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1
Brian George, Israeli-English actor, voice artist, comedian and singer
Dan Aykroyd, Canadian actor, comedian (Saturday Night Live)
Dale Hayes, South African professional golfer
July 2
Linda M. Godwin, American scientist
Ahmed Ouyahia, Algerian politician
Marco Piccinini, Monegasque sport personality, businessman, and politician
July 3
Laura Branigan, American singer, actress ("Self Control") (d. 2004)
Lu Colombo, Italian singer
Andy Fraser, English musician (d. 2015)
Rohinton Mistry, Indian writer
July 4
Álvaro Uribe, President of Colombia
John Waite, English singer, musician
July 6
Adi Shamir, Israeli cryptographer
Ani Yudhoyono, 6th First Lady of Indonesia (d. 2019)
Kim Chul-soo, South Korean footballer
July 7
Li Hongzhi, Chinese-American founder, spiritual leader of Falun Gong
Alain Cortes, French modern pentathlete
July 8
Ahmed Nazif, Prime Minister of Egypt
Knud Arne Jürgensen, Danish music, theater and ballet historian
July 10
Evelio Leonardia, Filipino politician
Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, Indian politician
July 11 – Stephen Lang, American actor
July 12
Irina Bokova, Bulgarian diplomat and civil servant
Voja Antonić, Serbian inventor, writer
Liz Mitchell, Jamaican-born singer (Boney M.)
July 13 – Ricardo Boechat, Argentine-Brazilian journalist, anchor and radio announcer (d. 2019)
July 15
Yuriko Koike, Japanese politician (Governor of Tokyo)
Terry O'Quinn, American actor
Marky Ramone, American musician
July 16 – Stewart Copeland, American rock musician (The Police)
July 17 – David Hasselhoff, American actor (Knight Rider)
July 18 – Albert Camille Vital, Malagasy Army officer, politician and civil engineer
July 19 – Allen Collins, American rock musician (Lynyrd Skynyrd) (d. 1990)
July 21 – Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah, Malaysian Minister of Finance
July 24
Kamrul Hasan Bhuiyan, Bangladeshi military officer, writer (d. 2018)
Gus Van Sant, American film director
July 25 – Eduardo Souto de Moura, Portuguese Architect
July 26 – Hezi Leskali, Israeli poet and artist (d. 1994)
July 28 – Vajiralongkorn, King of Thailand (Rama X)
July 31 – João Barreiros, Portuguese author
Subsections (0):
|
1952_7 | Section: August (2):
August 1 – Zoran Đinđić, Serbian politician (d. 2003)
Brian Patrick Clarke, American film actor
August 3 – Osvaldo Ardiles, Argentine footballer
August 4
Estanislau da Silva, East Timorese politician
Moya Brennan, Irish singer
August 5
Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia
Louis Walsh, Irish music producer, reality TV show judge
August 6 – Wojciech Fortuna, Polish ski jumper
August 8 – Jostein Gaarder, Norwegian author
August 12 – Charlie Whiting, British motorsports director (d. 2019)
August 14 – Jeanette Oppenheim, Danish lawyer and politician
August 16 – Reginald VelJohnson, American actor
August 17 – Guillermo Vilas, Argentine tennis player
August 18 – Patrick Swayze, American actor and dancer (d. 2009)
August 19 – Jonathan Frakes, American actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
August 21
Joe Strummer, British rock musician (The Clash) (d. 2002)
Jiří Paroubek, 6th Prime Minister of the Czech Republic
August 24 – Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jamaican-born musician, poet
August 25 – Charles M. Rice, American virologist, Nobel Prize recipient
August 26
Bryon Baltimore, Canadian ice hockey player
Michael Jeter, American film, stage, and television actor (d. 2003)
August 27 – Paul Reubens, American actor, writer and comedian (Pee-Wee Herman) (d. 2023)
August 28
Rita Dove, American poet (1987 Pulitzer Prize, United States Poet Laureate 1993–95)
Wendelin Wiedeking, German businessman
August 31
Eli Gorenstein, Israeli actor, voice actor and cellist
Hilary Farr, British-Canadian actress, designer
Subsections (0):
|
1952_8 | Section: September (2):
September 2
Jimmy Connors, American tennis player
Yuen Wah – Hong Kong martial actor
September 4 – Rishi Kapoor, Indian actor (d. 2020)
September 6 – Lucky Enam, Bangladeshi actress
September 8 – Patrick Prosser, Scottish computer scientist
September 10 – Paulo Betti, Brazilian actor
September 12
Sergey Karaganov, Russian political scientist
Neil Peart, Canadian rock drummer (Rush) (d. 2020)
September 16
Karen Muir, South African swimmer (d. 2013)
Fatos Nano, Albanian prime minister
Mickey Rourke, American film actor, former boxer
September 17 – Harold Solomon, American tennis player
September 18 – Nile Rodgers, African-American musician, songwriter, composer, and guitarist
September 20 – Manuel Zelaya, President of Honduras
September 21 – Anneliese Michel, German Roman Catholic believed possessed by demons (d. 1976)
September 22 – Oliver Mtukudzi, Zimbabwean musician (d. 2019)
September 23 – Kim Duk-soo, Korean musician
September 25 – Christopher Reeve, American actor, activist (Superman) (d. 2004)
September 26 – Predrag Miletić, Serbian actor
September 27 – Didier Dubois, French mathematician
September 28 – Sylvia Kristel, Dutch actress (d. 2012)
September 30 – Jack Wild, English actor (H.R. Pufnstuf) (d. 2006)
Subsections (0):
|
1952_9 | Section: October (2):
October 5
Clive Barker, British author
Harold Faltermeyer, German musician
Imran Khan, former Prime Minister of Pakistan and cricketer
Emomali Rahmon, President of Tajikistan
Duncan Regehr, Canadian actor
October 6 – Matthew Sweeney, Irish poet (d. 2018)
October 7
Ivo Gregurević, Croatian actor (d. 2019)
Mary Badham, American actress
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
Ludmilla Tourischeva, Soviet gymnast
Ricky Phillips, American musician
October 9
Sharon Osbourne, British actress, TV host and author
Dennis Stratton, British musician
October 12 – Advent Bangun, Indonesian karateka, actor (d. 2018)
October 13 – John Lone, Hong Kong actor
October 14
Kaija Saariaho, Finnish composer (d. 2023)
Harry Anderson, American actor, comedian and magician (d. 2018)
Nikolai Andrianov, Soviet gymnast (d. 2011)
Rick Aviles, American actor and stand-up comedian (d. 1995)
October 18 – Chuck Lorre, American sitcom creator
October 19 – Verónica Castro, Mexican actress, entertainer
October 20 – Eliane Giardini, Brazilian actress
October 22 – Jeff Goldblum, American actor
October 23 – Steven Tandy, Australian stage, television and film actor
October 24 – David Weber, American science-fiction, fantasy author
October 26 – Andrew Motion, English poet
October 27
Roberto Benigni, Italian actor, screenwriter, and film director
Hazell Dean, British pop, dance musician
Francis Fukuyama, American political scientist
Topi Sorsakoski, Finnish singer
October 28 – Annie Potts, American actress
Subsections (0):
|
1952_10 | Section: November (2):
November 3
David Ho, Taiwanese-American AIDS researcher
Michael Shea, American child actor
Roseanne Barr, American actress, comedian (Roseanne)
Jim Cummings, American voice actor
November 4 – Jeff Lorber, American jazz keyboardist, composer and record producer
November 5
Abdul Razzaq Anjum, Pakistani Air Vice Marshal (d. 2003)
Oleh Blokhin, Ukrainian football player and manager
Brian Muehl, American puppeteer
Bill Walton, American basketball player, commentator
November 6 – Michael Cunningham, American writer
November 7
Geraldo Alckmin, Brazilian politician
David Petraeus, American general
November 8
Jan Raas, Dutch professional cyclist
Alfre Woodard, African-American actress, producer and political activist
November 9 – Gladys Requena, Venezuelan politician
November 13 – Art Malik, Pakistani-born British actor
November 14 – Maggie Roswell, American actress
November 15 – Randy Savage, American professional wrestler (d. 2011)
November 16 – Shigeru Miyamoto, Japanese game designer
November 17
Ties Kruize, Dutch field hockey player
Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa
November 18
Delroy Lindo, British actor
John Parr, English singer, songwriter and guitarist
León Zuleta, Colombian LGBT activist and writer
November 23 – Sharon O'Neill, New Zealand singer-songwriter and pianist
November 24 – Ilja Richter, German actor, voice actor, television presenter, singer and author
November 28 – S. Epatha Merkerson, African-American actress (Law and Order)
November 29 – John D. Barrow, English cosmologist, theoretical physicist and mathematician (d. 2020)
November 30 – Mandy Patinkin, American actor and singer
Subsections (0):
|
1952_11 | Section: December (2):
December 1
Rick Scott, American politician, 45th Governor of Florida, U.S. Senator (Florida)
Pegi Young, American singer, songwriter, educator, and philanthropist (d. 2019)
December 3
Bruno Jonas, German Kabarett artist, actor
Mel Smith, British comedian (d. 2013)
Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Malaysian politician
December 6
Nicolas Bréhal, French novelist, literary critic
Edward Etzel, American Olympic shooter
Christian Kulik, Polish football player
December 8 – Khaw Boon Wan, Singaporean politician
December 9 – Michael Dorn, African-American actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
December 12
Harbance Singh (Herb) Dhaliwal, Canadian politician
Sarah Douglas, English actress
December 15
Julie Taymor, American film, stage and opera director, costume designer
Hwang Woo-suk, South Korean biomedical scientist
Allan Simonsen, Danish footballer and coach
December 16 – Joel Garner, West Indian cricketer
December 20
Jenny Agutter, English actress
Faisal Al-Fayez, Prime Minister of Jordan
Ray Bumatai, American actor, musician, singer and recording artist (d. 2005)
December 25 – Youssouf Ouédraogo, 6th Prime Minister of Burkina Faso (d. 2017)
December 26 – Riki Sorsa, Finnish singer (d. 2016)
December 27
David Knopfler, British musician
Tovah Feldshuh, American actress
December 28 – Arun Jaitley, Indian politician (d. 2019)
December 29 – Külliki Saldre, Estonian actress
December 30 – June Anderson, American soprano
Subsections (0):
|
1953_0 | 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1953rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 953rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 53rd year of the 20th century, and the 4th year of the 1950s decade. |
1953_0 | Section: January (2):
January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma.
January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a government-in-exile in Oslo.
January 14
Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Yugoslavia.
The CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the UFO phenomenon.
January 15
Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of East Germany, is arrested for spying.
British security forces in West Germany arrest 7 members of the Naumann Circle, a clandestine Neo-Nazi organization.
January 19 – 71.1% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into I Love Lucy, to watch Lucy give birth to Little Ricky, which is more people than those who tune into Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration the next day. This record is never broken.
January 20 – Dwight D. Eisenhower is sworn in as the 34th President of the United States.
January 24
Mau Mau Uprising: Rebels in Kenya kill the Ruck family (father, mother, and six-year-old son).
Leader of East Germany Walter Ulbricht announces that agriculture will be collectivized in East Germany.
January 31–February 1 – The North Sea flood of 1953 kills 1,836 people in the southwestern Netherlands (especially Zeeland), 307 in the United Kingdom, and several hundred at sea, including 133 on the ferry MV Princess Victoria in the Irish Sea.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_1 | Section: February (2):
February 1 – The surge of the North Sea flood continues from the previous day.
February 3 – Batepá massacre: Hundreds of native creoles, known as forros, are massacred in São Tomé, by the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners.
February 11
United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower refuses a clemency appeal for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
The Soviet Union breaks diplomatic relations with Israel, after a bomb explosion at the Soviet Embassy, in reaction to the 'Doctors' plot'.
February 12 – The Nordic Council is inaugurated.
February 13 – Transsexual Christine Jorgensen returns to New York after successful sex reassignment surgery in Denmark.
February 19 – Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the United States.
February 28
James Watson and Francis Crick of Britain's University of Cambridge announce their discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule.
Greece, Turkey, and Yugoslavia sign the Balkan Pact.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_2 | Section: March (2):
March 1
Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke, after an all-night dinner with Soviet Union interior minister Lavrentiy Beria and future premiers Georgy Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin, and Nikita Khrushchev. The stroke paralyzes the right side of his body and renders him unconscious until his death on March 5.
Bernard Freyberg, 1st Baron Freyberg is made deputy constable and lieutenant governor of Windsor Castle.
March 6 – Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin, as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
March 8 – The Thieves World, which has been transformed into the Russian mafia, are freed from prisons by the Malenkov regime, ending the Bitch Wars.
March 13 – The United Nations Security Council nominates Dag Hammarskjöld from Sweden as United Nations Secretary General.
March 14 – Nikita Khrushchev is selected General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
March 17 – The first nuclear test of Operation Upshot–Knothole is conducted in Nevada, with 1,620 spectators at 3.4 km (2.1 mi).
March 18 – The Yenice–Gönen earthquake affects western Turkey, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (violent), causing at least 1,070 deaths, and $3.57 million in damage.
March 19 – The 25th Academy Awards Ceremony is held (the first one broadcast on television).
March 25–26 – Lari Massacre in Kenya: Mau Mau rebels kill up to 150 Kikuyu natives.
March 26 – Jonas Salk announces his polio vaccine.
March 29 – A fire at the Littlefield Nursing Home in Largo, Florida, kills 33 persons, including singer-songwriter Arthur Fields.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_3 | Section: April (2):
April 7 – Dag Hammarskjöld is elected Secretary-General of the United Nations.
April 8 – Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to 7 years in prison for the alleged organization of the Mau Mau Uprising in the British Kenya Colony.
April 16
President Eisenhower delivers his "Chance for Peace" speech, to the National Association of Newspaper Editors.
The Habar Corporation's building in Chicago, United States, catches fire, killing 35 employees.
April 25 – Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid", their description of the double helix structure of DNA.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_4 | Section: May (2):
May 2 – Hussein is crowned King of Jordan.
May 5 – Aldous Huxley first tries the psychedelic hallucinogen mescaline, inspiring his book The Doors of Perception.
May 9
France agrees to the provisional independence of Cambodia, with King Norodom Sihanouk.
Australian Senate election, 1953: The Liberal/Country Coalition Government, led by Prime Minister Robert Menzies, holds their Senate majority, despite gains made by the Labor Party, led by H. V. Evatt. This is the first occasion where a Senate election is held without an accompanying House of Representatives election.
May 11 – Waco tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado hits in the downtown section of Waco, Texas, killing 114.
May 15 – The Standards And Recommended Practices (SARPS) for Aeronautical Information Service (AIS) are adopted by the ICAO Council. These SARPS are in Annex 15 to the Chicago Convention, and 15 May is celebrated by the AIS community as "World AIS Day".
May 18 – At Rogers Dry Lake, Californian Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to exceed Mach 1, in a North American F-86 Sabre at 652.337 mph (566.865 kn; 1,049.835 km/h).
May 25 – Nuclear testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its only nuclear artillery test: Upshot-Knothole Grable.
May 29 – 1953 British Mount Everest expedition: Sir Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay from Nepal become the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_5 | Section: June (2):
June 1 – Uprising in Plzeň: Currency reform causes riots in Czechoslovakia.
June 2 – Elizabeth II is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, at Westminster Abbey.
June 7 – Italian general election: the Christian Democracy party wins a plurality in both legislative houses.
June 7–9 – Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: A single storm-system spawns 46 tornadoes of various sizes, in 10 states from Colorado to Massachusetts, over 3 days, killing 246.
June 8
On the second day of the Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence, a tornado kills 116 in Flint, Michigan; it will be the last to claim more than 100 lives, until the 2011 Joplin tornado.
Austria and the Soviet Union open diplomatic relations.
June 9
On the third day of the Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence, a tornado spawned from the same storm system as the Flint tornado the day before hits in Worcester, Massachusetts, killing 94.
CIA Technical Services Staff head Sidney Gottlieb approves of the use of LSD in an MKUltra subproject.
June 13 – Hungarian Prime Minister Mátyás Rákosi is replaced by Imre Nagy.
June 17 – Workers' Uprising in East Germany: The Soviet Union orders a Division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
June 18
Egypt declares itself a republic.
Tachikawa air disaster: A United States Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II crashes just after takeoff from Tachikawa Airfield near Tokyo, Japan, killing all 129 people on board in the worst air crash in history up to this time, and the first with a confirmed death toll exceeding 100.
June 30 – The first roll-on/roll-off ferry crossing of the English Channel, Dover–Boulogne, takes place.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_6 | Section: July (2):
July 3 – The first ascent of Nanga Parbat in the Pakistan Himalayas, the world's ninth highest mountain, is made by Austrian climber Hermann Buhl alone on a German–Austrian expedition.
July 9
The U.S. Treasury formally renames the Bureau of Internal Revenue; the new name (which had previously been used informally) is the Internal Revenue Service.
Inauguration of the south lane of the Rodovia Anchieta.
July 10 – The Soviet official newspaper Pravda announces that Lavrentiy Beria has been deposed as head of the NKVD.
July 17 – The greatest recorded loss of United States midshipmen in a single event results from an aircraft crash near NAS Whiting Field.
July 26 – Fidel Castro and his brother lead a disastrous assault on the Moncada Barracks, preliminary to the Cuban Revolution.
July 27 – The Korean War ends, with the Korean Armistice Agreement: The United Nations Command (Korea) (United States), China and North Korea sign an armistice agreement at Panmunjom, and the north remains communist, while the south remains capitalist. No formal peace treaty is ever signed.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_7 | Section: August (2):
August 5 – Operation Big Switch: Prisoners of war are repatriated to the United States after the Korean War.
August 8 – Soviet prime minister Georgi Malenkov announces that the Soviet Union has a hydrogen bomb.
August 12
The 1953 Ionian earthquake of magnitude 7.2 totally devastates Cephalonia and most of the other Ionian Islands, in Greece's worst natural disaster in centuries.
Soviet atomic bomb project: "Joe 4", the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon, is detonated at Semipalatinsk Test Site, Kazakh SSR.
August 13 – Four million workers go on strike in France to protest against austerity measures.
August 15–19 – Cold War: 1953 Iranian coup d'état – Overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, by Iranian military in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, with the support of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (as "Operation Ajax") and the United Kingdom.
August 17 – The first planning session of Narcotics Anonymous is held in Southern California (see October 5).
August 20 – The French government ousts King Mohammed V of Morocco, and exiles him to Corsica.
August 22 – The last prisoners are repatriated from Devil's Island to France.
August 25 – The French general strike ends.
August – High Arctic relocation of Inuit families by the Government of Canada.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_8 | Section: September (2):
September 4 – The discovery of REM sleep is first published, by researchers Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman.
September 5 – The United Nations rejects the Soviet Union's suggestion to accept China as a member.
September 7 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes head of the Soviet Central Committee.
September 23 – The Pact of Madrid is signed by Francoist Spain and the United States of America, ending a period of virtual isolation for Spain.
September 25 – The first German prisoners of war return from the Soviet Union to West Germany.
September 26 – Rationing of sugar ends in the UK.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_9 | Section: October (2):
October – The UNIVAC 1103 is the first commercial computer to use random-access memory.
October 5
Earl Warren is appointed Chief Justice of the United States, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The first meeting of Narcotics Anonymous is held (the first planning session was held August 17).
October 6 – UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, is made a permanent specialized agency of the United Nations.
October 9
West German federal election, 1953: Konrad Adenauer is re-elected as German chancellor.
Fearing communist influence in British Guiana, the British Government suspends the constitution, declares a state of emergency, and militarily occupies the colony.
October 10
Roland (Monty) Burton wins the 1953 London to Christchurch air race, in under 23 hours flying time.
The Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea is concluded in Washington, D.C.
October 12 – The play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial opens at the Plymouth Theatre, New York.
October 22 – Laos becomes independent from France.
October 23 – Alto Broadcasting System (ABS) in the Philippines makes the first television broadcast in southeast Asia, through DZAQ-TV. Alto Broadcasting System is the predecessor of what will later become ABS-CBN Corporation.
October 30 – Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document of the United States National Security Council NSC 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_10 | Section: November (2):
November 5 – David Ben-Gurion resigns as prime minister of Israel.
November 9
Cambodia becomes independent from France.
The Laotian Civil War begins between the Kingdom of Laos and the Pathet Lao, all the while resuming the First Indochina War against the French Army in a Two-front war.
November 20
The Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket, piloted by Scott Crossfield, becomes the first manned aircraft to reach Mach 2.
Authorities at the Natural History Museum, London announce that the skull of Piltdown Man (allegedly an early human discovered in 1912) is a hoax.
November 20–22 – First Indochina War: Operation Castor – In a massive airborne operation in Vietnam, French forces establish a base at Điện Biên Phủ.
November 21 – Puerto Williams is founded in Chile, as the southernmost settlement of the world.
November 25 – Match of the Century (1953 England v Hungary football match): The England national football team loses 6–3 to Hungary at Wembley Stadium, their first ever loss to a continental team at home.
November 29 – First Indochina War: Battle of Dien Bien Phu – French paratroopers consolidate their position at Điện Biên Phủ.
November 30 – Kabaka crisis: Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Buganda, is deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Benjamin Cohen, Governor of Uganda.
Subsections (0):
|
1953_11 | Section: December (2):
December 2 – The United Kingdom and Iran reform diplomatic relations.
December 6 – With the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Arturo Toscanini performs what he claims is his favorite Beethoven symphony, Eroica, for the last time. The live performance is broadcast across the United States on radio, and later released on records and CD.
December 7 – A visit to Iran by American Vice President Richard Nixon sparks several days of riots, as a reaction to the August 19 overthrow of the government of Mohammed Mossadegh by the U.S.-backed Shah. Three students are shot dead by police in Tehran. This event becomes an annual commemoration.
December 8 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his Atoms for Peace address, to the United Nations General Assembly.
December 17 – The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approves color television (using the NTSC standard).
December 23 – The Soviet Union announces officially that Lavrentiy Beria has been executed.
December 24 – Tangiwai disaster: A railway bridge collapses at Tangiwai, New Zealand, sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River; 151 are killed.
December 25 – The Amami Islands are returned to Japan, after 8 years of United States military occupation.
December 30 – Ramon Magsaysay becomes the 7th President of the Philippines.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_0 | 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1954th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 954th year of the 2nd millennium, the 54th year of the 20th century, and the 5th year of the 1950s decade. |
1954_0 | Section: January (2):
January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting.
January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head office of IBM.
January 10 – BOAC Flight 781, a de Havilland Comet jet plane, disintegrates in mid-air due to metal fatigue, and crashes in the Mediterranean near Elba; all 35 people on board are killed.
January 12 – Avalanches in Austria kill more than 200.
January 15 – Mau Mau leader Waruhiu Itote is captured in Kenya.
January 17 – In Yugoslavia, Milovan Đilas, one of the leading members of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, is relieved of his duties.
January 20 – The US-based National Negro Network is established, with 46 member radio stations.
January 21 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut, by First Lady of the United States Mamie Eisenhower.
January 25 – The foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union meet at the Berlin Conference.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_1 | Section: February (2):
February 10 – After authorizing $385 million over the $400 million already budgeted for military aid to Vietnam, President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower warns against his country's intervention in Vietnam.
February 19 – 1954 transfer of Crimea: The Soviet Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.
February 23 – The first mass vaccination of children against polio begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.
February 25 – Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes premier of Egypt.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_2 | Section: March (2):
March 1
U.S. officials announce that a hydrogen bomb test (Castle Bravo) has been conducted, on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
U.S. Capitol shooting incident: Four Puerto Rican nationalists open fire in the United States House of Representatives chamber and wound 5; they are apprehended by security guards.
March 9 – American journalists Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly produce a 30-minute See It Now documentary, entitled A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy.
March 12 – Finland and Germany officially end their state of war.
March 13 – Việt Minh forces under General Võ Nguyên Giáp began a massive artillery bombardment on the French military, beginning the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the climactic battle of the First Indochina War.
March 19 – Joey Giardello knocks out Willie Tory at Madison Square Garden in the first televised boxing prize fight to be shown in colour.
March 23 – In Vietnam, the Viet Minh capture the main airstrip of Dien Bien Phu. The remaining French Army units there are partially isolated.
March 25
The 26th Academy Awards Ceremony is held.
The Soviet Union recognises the sovereignty of East Germany. Soviet troops remain in the country.
March 27 – The Castle Romeo nuclear test explosion is executed at Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands.
March 28
The trial of A. L. Zissu and 12 other Zionist leaders ends with harsh sentences in Communist Romania.
Puerto Rico's first television station, WKAQ-TV, commences broadcasting.
March 29 – A C-47 transport with French nurse Geneviève de Galard on board is wrecked on the runway at Dien Bien Phu.
March 30 – The first operational subway line in Canada opens in Toronto.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_3 | Section: April (2):
April 1
The U.S. Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorize the founding of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
South Point School in India is founded, and becomes the largest school in the world by 1992.
April 3 – Petrov Affair: Diplomat Vladimir Petrov defects from the Soviet Union and asks for political asylum in Australia.
April 4 – Legendary symphony conductor Arturo Toscanini experiences a lapse of memory during a concert broadcast live from Carnegie Hall in New York City. At this concert's end, his retirement is announced, and he never conducts in public again.
April 7 – Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech, during a news conference.
April 8 – A Royal Canadian Air Force Canadair Harvard collides with a Trans-Canada Air Lines Canadair North Star over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, killing 37 people.
April 11
This day is denoted as the most boring day in the 20th century by True Knowledge, an answer engine developed by William Tunstall-Pedoe. No significant newsworthy events, births, or deaths are known to have happened on this day.
In a general election in Belgium, the dominant Christian Social Party wins 95 of the 212 seats in the Chamber of Representatives, and 49 of the 106 seats in the Senate. The government led by Jean Van Houtte loses their majority in parliament. The two other main parties, the Socialist and Liberal Party, subsequently form a rare "purple" government, with Achille Van Acker as Prime Minister.
April 12 – Bill Haley & His Comets record "Rock Around the Clock" in their first session for American Decca in New York City; it is released on May 20 as a B-side, but only in 1955 becomes a #1 hit, helping to initiate the rock and roll craze.
April 14
Aneurin Bevan resigns from the British Labour Party's Shadow Cabinet in protest over his party's failure to oppose the rearmament of West Germany.
A Soviet spy ring in Australia is unveiled.
The world's most boring day according to researchers.
April 16 – Vice President Richard Nixon announces that the United States may be "putting our own boys in Indochina regardless of Allied support".
April 22
The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees comes into force, defining the status of refugees and setting out the basis for granting right of asylum.
Senator Joseph McCarthy begins hearings investigating the United States Army for being "soft" on Communism.
April 26
An international conference on Korea and Indo-China opens in Geneva.
Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is released in Japan.
April 28 – U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles accuses Communist China of sending combat troops to Indo-China to train Viet Minh guerrillas.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_4 | Section: May (2):
May 1 – The Unification Church is founded in South Korea.
May 4 – General Alfredo Stroessner deposes Federico Chaves in a coup d'état in Paraguay; from August 15 he will hold the office of President until 1989.
May 6 – Roger Bannister runs the first sub-four minute mile, in Oxford, England.
May 7 – Vietnam War (run-up): The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).
May 8 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is formed in Manila, Philippines.
May 11 – U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles declares that Indochina is important but not essential to the security of Southeast Asia, thus ending any prospect of American intervention on the side of France.
May 14
The Boeing 707 jetliner is rolled out in the United States, after about 2 years of development.
The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict is adopted in The Hague, Netherlands.
May 15 – The Latin Union (Unión Latina) is created by the Convention of Madrid. Its member countries use the five Romance languages: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. It suspended operations in 2012.
May 16 – Beginning of the Kengir uprising in the Gulag.
May 17
Brown v. Board of Education (347 US 483 1954): The Supreme Court of the United States rules unanimously that segregated schools are unconstitutional.
The Royal Commission on the Petrov Affair in Australia begins its inquiry.
Adnan Menderes of the Democrat Party forms the new (21st) government of Turkey.
May 20 – Chiang Kai-shek is re-elected as the president of the Republic of China, by the National Assembly.
May 22 – The common Nordic Labour Market act is signed.
May 26 – A fire on board the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Bennington, off Narragansett Bay, Massachusetts, kills 103 sailors.
May 29
1954 Australian federal election: Robert Menzies' Liberal/Country Coalition Government is re-elected with a decreased majority, defeating the Labor Party led by H.V. Evatt. The election has come shortly after the Petrov Affair, arguably helping the Government survive what was initially predicted to be a defeat.
Creation and first meeting of the Bilderberg Group.
Diane Leather becomes the first woman to run a sub-five minute mile, in Birmingham, England.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_5 | Section: June (2):
June 6 – The grand opening of the sculpture of Yuriy Dolgorukiy takes place in Moscow (this statue is one of the main monuments of Moscow).
June 7 – English cryptanalyst, mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing, age 41, commits suicide by cyanide poisoning.
June 9 – McCarthyism: Joseph N. Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy, during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army, saying, "Have you, at long last, no decency?" The exchange results in the decline of McCarthy’s popularity.
June 14 – The words "under God" are added to the United States Pledge of Allegiance.
June 15 – The UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) is formed in Basel, Switzerland.
June 17 – A CIA-engineered military coup occurs in Guatemala.
June 18 – Pierre Mendès France becomes prime minister of France.
June 22
Sarah Mae Flemming is expelled from a bus in South Carolina, for sitting in a white-only section.
Parker–Hulme murder case: Pauline Parker, 16 and her friend Juliet Hulme, 15, bludgeon Parker's mother to death using a brick, at Victoria Park in New Zealand.
June 27
Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz steps down in a CIA-sponsored military coup, triggering a bloody civil war that continues for more than 35 years.
The world's first atomic power station opens at Obninsk, near Moscow.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1
The Common Nordic Labor Market Act comes into effect.
The United States officially begins using the international unit of the nautical mile, equal to 6,076.11549 ft. or 1,852 meters.
July 4
Food rationing in Great Britain ends, with the lifting of restrictions on sale and purchase of meat, 14 years after it began early in World War II, and nearly a decade after the war's end.
"Miracle of Bern": West Germany beats Hungary 3–2 to win the 1954 FIFA World Cup.
July 10 – Peter Thomson becomes the first Australian to win the British Open Golf Championship.
July 15
The Boeing 367-80 (or Dash 80), prototype of the Boeing 707 series, makes its maiden flight.
Juan Fangio, Argentine driver for German Grand Prix team Mercedes-Benz, makes a new fastest lap of the Silverstone Circuit in England, with an average speed of 100.35 mph, the previous record being 100.16 mph.
July 17 – First Indochina War: Viet Minh troops successfully ambush the armoured French column 'G.M. 42' in the Battle of Chu Dreh Pass in the Central Highlands. It is the last battle of the war.
July 19 – Release of Elvis Presley's first single, a cover of "That's All Right", by Sun Records (recorded July 5 in Memphis, Tennessee).
July 21 – First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference sends French forces to the south, and Vietnamese forces to the north, of a ceasefire line, and calls for elections to decide the government for all of Vietnam by July 1956. Failure to abide by the terms of the agreement leads to the establishment of the de facto regimes of North Vietnam and South Vietnam, and the Vietnam War.
July 29 – The construction of Yad Vashem started in Jerusalem. It is an official memorial center to commemorate the victims of the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis and their accomplices in Europe.
July 29 – The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of three volumes in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, is published in London.
July 31 – 1954 Italian expedition to K2: Italian mountaineers Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni become the first to reach the summit of the second highest mountain in the world, in the Karakoram range.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_7 | Section: August (2):
August 1 – The First Indochina War ends with the Vietnam People's Army in North Vietnam, the Vietnamese National Army in South Vietnam, the Kingdom of Cambodia in Cambodia, and the Kingdom of Laos in Laos, emerging victorious against the French Army.
August 6 – Emilie Dionne, one of the Dionne quintuplets, dies of asphyxiation following an epileptic seizure. She is the first of the Canadian five to perish; three live into the 21st century.
August 16 – The first issue of Sports Illustrated magazine is published in the United States.
August 23 – A United States Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules makes its first flight at Burbank, California, manufactured by Lockheed Martin.
August 24 – Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas commits suicide, after being accused of involvement in a conspiracy to murder his chief political opponent, Carlos Lacerda.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_8 | Section: September (2):
September 6 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) treaty is signed in Manila, Philippines.
September 8 – SEATO is established in Bangkok, Thailand.
September 9 – The 6.7 Mw Chlef earthquake shakes northern Algeria, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). The shock destroys Orléansville, leaving 1,243–1,409 dead, and 5,000 injured.
September 11 – The Miss America Pageant is broadcast on television for the first time.
September 14
The Soviet Union carries out the Totskoye nuclear exercise.
English composer Benjamin Britten's chamber opera version of The Turn of the Screw receives its world premiere, at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Italy.
September 17 – William Golding's allegorical dystopian novel Lord of the Flies is published in London.
September 18 – Finnish president J. K. Paasikivi is the first Western head of state to be awarded the highest honor of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin.
September 20 – The first Moomins comic strip is published in the London newspaper The Evening News.
September 25 – Footscray Football Club wins their first Australian Football League Grand Final.
September 26 – Japanese ferry Tōya Maru sinks during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait. More than 1,100 people are killed, 7 other ships are wrecked, and at least nine others seriously damaged.
September 27 – The Tonight Show first airs on live television on NBC in the United States being the first late night talk show.
September 30 – The USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the first nuclear-powered submarine in the world, is commissioned into the United States Navy.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_9 | Section: October (2):
October 11
Pre-Vietnam War: The Viet Minh takes control of North Vietnam.
Hurricane Hazel crosses over Haiti, killing 1,000.
October 15 – Hurricane Hazel makes U.S. landfall; it is the only recorded Category 4 hurricane to strike as far north as North Carolina
October 18
Texas Instruments announces the development of the first commercial transistor radio. The Regency TR-1 goes on sale the following month.
The comic strip Hi and Lois, by Mort Walker and Dik Browne, is launched in the United States.
October 23
West Germany joins NATO.
Paris Agreement sets up the Western European Union to implement the Treaty of Brussels (1948), providing for mutual self-defence and other collaboration between Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
October 25 – Landslides caused by heavy rains hit Salerno, Italy, killing about 300.
October 26 – Muslim Brotherhood member Mahmoud Abdul Latif tries to kill Gamal Abdel Nasser.
October 31 – Algerian War of Independence: The Algerian National Liberation Front begins a revolt against French rule.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_10 | Section: November (2):
November 1 – The FLN attacks representative and public buildings of the French colonial power.
November 2
The dock workers' strike in the UK comes to an end.
The radio program Hancock's Half Hour, a pioneer in situation comedy, is first broadcast on BBC Radio (a television version will follow in 1956).
November 3 – The first Godzilla film premieres in Tokyo.
November 5 – Japan and Burma sign a peace treaty in Rangoon, to end their long-extinct state of war.
November 10 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial), at the Arlington National Cemetery.
November 12 – The main immigration port-of-entry in New York Harbor at Ellis Island closes permanently.
November 13 – Great Britain defeats France, to capture the first ever Rugby League World Cup in Paris in front of around 30,000 spectators
November 14 – Egyptian president Muhammad Naguib is deposed, and Gamal Abdel Nasser replaces him.
November 21 – People's Action Party, an eventual dominative political party in Singapore, was established.
November 22 – Berman v. Parker (348 U.S. 26): The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the federal slum clearance and urban renewal programs.
November 23 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average rises 3.27 points, or 0.86 percent, closing at an all-time high of 382.74. More significantly, this is the first time the Dow has surpassed its peak level, reached just before the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
November 30 – In Sylacauga, Alabama, a four-kilogram piece of the Hodges Meteorite crashes through the roof of a house and badly bruises a napping woman, in the first documented case of an object from outer space hitting a person.
Subsections (0):
|
1954_11 | Section: December (2):
December 1 – The first Hyatt Hotel, The Hyatt House Los Angeles, opens on the grounds of Los Angeles International Airport. It is the first hotel in the world built on an airport property.
December 2
Red Scare: The United States Senate votes 67–22 to censure Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."
The Taiwan-United States Mutual Defense Treaty is signed.
December 3
A German court dismisses charges against Werner Naumann, head of the Neo-Nazi Naumann Circle.
Väinö Linna's war novel The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon sotilas) is published.
December 4 – The first Burger King opens in Miami, Florida.
December 15 – The Netherlands Antilles is created out of the Dutch Caribbean nations. It is dissolved between 1986 and 2010.
December 23 – J. Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray perform the world's first successful kidney transplantation, in Boston, Massachusetts.
December 24 – Laos gains full independence from France.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_0 | 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1955th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 955th year of the 2nd millennium, the 55th year of the 20th century, and the 6th year of the 1950s decade. |
1955_0 | Section: January (2):
January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
January 17 – USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
January 18–20 – Battle of Yijiangshan Islands: The Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army seizes the islands from the Republic of China (Taiwan).
January 22 – In the United States, The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), armed with nuclear weapons.
January 23 – The Sutton Coldfield rail crash kills 17, near Birmingham, England.
January 25 – The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union announces the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941.
January 28 – The United States Congress authorizes President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use force to protect Taiwan from the People's Republic of China.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_1 | Section: February (2):
February 10 – The United States Seventh Fleet helps the Republic of China evacuate the Chinese Nationalist army and residents from the Tachen Islands to Taiwan.
February 16 – Nearly 100 die in a fire at a home for the elderly in Yokohama, Japan.
February 19 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established, at a meeting in Bangkok.
February 22 – In Chicago's Democratic primary, Mayor Martin H. Kennelly loses to the head of the Cook County Democratic Party, Richard J. Daley, 364,839 to 264,077.
February 24 – The Baghdad Pact (CENTO), originally known as Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), is signed between Iraq and Turkey.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_2 | Section: March (2):
March 2 – Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old African-American girl, refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white woman after the driver demands it. She is carried off the bus backwards, while being kicked, handcuffed and harassed on the way to the police station. She becomes a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle (1956), which rules bus segregation to be unconstitutional.
March 5
WBBJ-TV signs on the air in Jackson, Tennessee, with WDXI as its initial call-letters, to expand American commercial television in mostly rural areas.
Elvis Presley makes his television debut on "Louisiana Hayride", carried by KSLA-TV Shreveport in the United States.
March 7 – The Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, which had opened in 1954 starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC-TV, with its original cast, as an installment of Producers' Showcase. It is also the first time that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV, almost exactly as it was performed on stage. This program gains the largest viewership of a TV special up to this time, and it becomes one of the first great TV family musical classics.
March 17 – Richard Riot in Montreal: 6,000 people protest the suspension of French Canadian ice hockey star Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens by the National Hockey League, following a violent incident during a match.
March 19 – KXTV signs on the air in Sacramento, California, as the 100th commercial television station in the United States.
March 20 – The movie adaptation of Evan Hunter's novel Blackboard Jungle premieres in the United States, featuring the famous single "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets. Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the song.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_3 | Section: April (2):
April 1 – EOKA starts a resistance campaign against British rule in the Crown colony of Cyprus.
April 5
Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, due to ill-health, at the age of 80.
Richard J. Daley defeats Robert Merrian to become Mayor of Chicago, by a vote of 708,222 to 581,555.
April 6 – Anthony Eden becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
April 10 – In the American National Basketball Association championship, the Syracuse Nationals defeat the Fort Wayne Pistons 92–91 in Game 7, to win the title.
April 11
The Taiwanese Kuomintang put a bomb on the airplane Kashmir Princess, killing 16 but failing to assassinate the People's Republic of China leader, Zhou Enlai.
Taekwondo, a form of Korean martial arts, is officially recognized in South Korea.
April 12 – The Salk polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
April 14
The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup in North American ice hockey for the 7th time in franchise history, but will not win again until 1997.
A 7.1 earthquake shakes the Chinese city of Kangding leaving 70 dead.
April 15 – The first franchised McDonald's restaurant is opened by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois.
April 16 – The Burma-Japan Peace Treaty, signed in Rangoon on November 5, 1954, comes into effect, formally ending a state of war between the two countries.
April 17 – Imre Nagy, the communist Premier of Hungary, is ousted for being too moderate.
April 18–24 – The Asian-African Conference is held in Bandung, Indonesia.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_4 | Section: May (2):
May 5 – West Germany becomes a sovereign country, recognized by Western countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
May 6 – The Western European Union Charter becomes effective.
May 7 – Newcastle United F.C. beat Manchester City F.C. 3–1 to win the 1955 FA Cup final in English Association football.
May 9
West Germany joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
A young Jim Henson introduces the earliest version of Kermit the Frog (made in March), in the premiere of his puppet show Sam and Friends, on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.
May 11 – Japanese National Railways' ferry Shiun Maru sinks after a collision with sister ship Uko Maru, in thick fog off Takamatsu, Shikoku, in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan; 166 passengers (many children) and 2 crew members are killed. This event is influential in plans to construct the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge (built 1986–98).
May 12 – New York's Third Avenue Elevated runs its last train between Chatham Square in Manhattan and East 149th Street in the Bronx, thus ending elevated train service in Manhattan.
May 14
Eight Communist Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defence treaty in Warsaw, Poland, that is called the Warsaw Pact (it will be dissolved in 1991).
Warrington win the British Rugby League Championship title for the third time; they will not win it again within the following 60 years.
May 15
The Austrian State Treaty, which restores Austria's national sovereignty, is concluded between the 4 occupying powers following World War II (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France) and Austria, setting it up as a neutral country.
Lionel Terray and Jean Couzy become the first people to reach the summit of Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world, on the 1955 French Makalu expedition. The entire team of climbers reaches the summit over the next two days.
May 18 – Free movement of residents between North and South Vietnam ends.
May 25 – Joe Brown and George Band are the first to climb Kangchenjunga in the Himalayas, as part of the British Kangchenjunga expedition led by Charles Evans.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_5 | Section: June (2):
June 7 – The television quiz program The $64,000 Question premieres on CBS-TV in the United States, with Hal March as the host.
June 11 – Le Mans disaster: Eighty-three people are killed and at least 100 are injured, after two race cars collide in the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans.
June 13 – Mir mine, the first diamond mine in the Soviet Union, is discovered.
June 16
Lady and the Tramp, the Walt Disney company's 15th animated film, premieres in Chicago.
The Argentine Navy drops bombs over Plaza de Mayo and shoots unarmed civilians in an attempt to kill the then president Juan Perón.
June 26 – The Freedom Charter of the anti-apartheid South African Congress Alliance is adopted, at a Congress of the People in Kliptown.
June 30 – The Simonstown Agreement provides for control of the naval base at Simon's Town in the Union of South Africa to transfer from the British Royal Navy to the South African Navy.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1 – Transformation from the Imperial Bank of India to the State Bank of India is given legal recognition through an Act of the Parliament of India.
July 7 – The New Zealand Special Air Service is formed.
July 13 – Ruth Ellis is hanged for murder in London, becoming the last woman ever to be executed in the United Kingdom.
July 17
The Disneyland theme park opens in Anaheim, California, an event broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company television network.
The first atomic-generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering Arco, Idaho, from the U.S. National Reactor Testing Station; on July 18, Schenectady, New York, receives power from a prototype nuclear submarine reactor at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory.
July 18 – Illinois Governor William Stratton signs the Loyalty Oath Act, that mandates all public employees take a loyalty oath to the State of Illinois and the United States or lose their jobs.
July 18–23 – Geneva Summit between the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France.
July 22 – In Long Beach, California (United States), Hillevi Rombin of Sweden is crowned Miss Universe.
July 27 – El Al Flight 402 from Vienna (Austria) to Tel Aviv, via Istanbul, is shot down over Bulgaria. All 58 passengers and crewmen aboard the Lockheed Constellation are killed.
July 28 – The first Interlingua Congress is held in Tours, France, leading to the foundation of the Union Mundial pro Interlingua.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_7 | Section: August (2):
August 1 – The prototype Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft first flies, in Nevada.
August 18
The First Sudanese Civil War begins.
The first meeting of the Organization of Central American States (Spanish: Organización de Estados Centroamericanos, ODECA) is held, in Antigua Guatemala.
August 19 – Hurricane Diane hits the northeastern United States, killing over 200 people and causing over $1 billion in damage.
August 20 – Hundreds of people are killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
August 22 – Eleven schoolchildren are killed when their school bus is hit by a freight train in Spring City, Tennessee.
August 25 – The last Soviet Army forces leave Austria.
August 26 – Satyajit Ray's film Pather Panchali is released in India.
August 27 – The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records is published, in London.
August 28 – Black 14-year-old Emmett Till is lynched and shot in the head for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Money, Mississippi; his white murderers, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, are acquitted by an all-white jury.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_8 | Section: September (2):
September 2 – Under the guidance of Dr. Humphry Osmond, Christopher Mayhew ingests 400 mg of mescaline hydrochloride and allows himself to be filmed as part of a Panorama special for BBC TV in the U.K. that is never broadcast.
September 3 – Little Richard records "Tutti Frutti" in New Orleans; it is released in October.
September 6 – Istanbul pogrom: Istanbul's Greek minority is the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.
September 10 – The long-running Western television series Gunsmoke debuts, on the CBS network in the United States.
September 14 – Pope Pius XII elevates many of the apostolic vicariates in Africa to Metropolitan Archdioceses.
September 15 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in Paris, by Olympia Press.
September 16
The military coup to unseat President Juan Perón of Argentina is launched at midnight.
A Soviet Navy Zulu-class submarine becomes the first to launch a ballistic missile.
September 18 – The United Kingdom formally annexes the uninhabited Atlantic island of Rockall.
September 19–21 – President of Argentina Juan Perón is ousted in a military coup.
September 19 – Hurricane Hilda kills about 200 people in Mexico.
September 21–30 – Hurricane Janet, one of the strongest North Atlantic tropical cyclones on record, sweeps the Lesser Antilles and Mexico, causing more than 1,020 deaths.
September 22 – Commercial television starts in the United Kingdom with the Independent Television Authority's first ITV franchises beginning broadcasting in London, ending the BBC monopoly.
September 23 – A 6.8 earthquake shakes the Chinese county of Huili, leaving 728 dead and 1,547 injured.
September 24
Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States, suffers a coronary thrombosis while on vacation in Denver, Colorado. Vice President Nixon serves as Acting President while Eisenhower recovers.
Founder of Swiss watchmaker Glycine Watch SA, Eugène Meylan, age 64, is murdered.
September 30 – Actor James Dean is killed when his automobile collides with another car at a highway junction, near Cholame, California.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_9 | Section: October (2):
October 2 – Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuts on the CBS TV network in the United States.
October 3 – The Mickey Mouse Club debuts on the ABC-TV network in the United States.
October 4 – The Reverend Sun Myung Moon is released from prison in Seoul, South Korea.
October 5 – Disneyland Hotel opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
October 11 – 70-mm film for projection is introduced, with the theatrical release of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical film, Oklahoma!.
October 14 – The Organization of Central American States secretariat is inaugurated.
October 20 – Disc jockey Bill Randle of WERE (Cleveland) is the key presenter of a concert at Brooklyn High School (Ohio), featuring Pat Boone and Bill Haley & His Comets, and opening with Elvis Presley (Elvis's first filmed performance), for a documentary on Randle titled The Pied Piper of Cleveland.
October 26
After the last Allied troops have left Austria, and following the provisions of the Austrian Independence Treaty, the country declares its permanent neutrality.
Ngô Đình Diệm proclaims Vietnam to be a republic, with himself as its President (following the State of Vietnam referendum on October 23), and forms the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.
October 27 – The film Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean, is released in the United States.
October 29 – Soviet battleship Novorossiysk explodes at moorings in Sevastopol Bay, killing 608 (the Soviet Union's worst naval disaster to date).
Subsections (0):
|
1955_10 | Section: November (2):
November 1
Official start date of the Vietnam War between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Republic of Vietnam; the north is allied with the Viet Cong.
A time bomb explodes in the cargo hold of United Airlines Flight 629, a Douglas DC-6B, over Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and 5 crew members on board.
November 3 – The Rimutaka Tunnel opens on the New Zealand Railways, at 5.46 mi (8.79 km), the longest in the Southern Hemisphere at this time.
November 15 – The Democratic Party of Japan and Japan Liberal Party merge to form the Japan Liberal Democratic Party, beginning the "1955 System".
November 19 – C. Northcote Parkinson first propounds 'Parkinson's law', in The Economist.
November 20 – Bo Diddley makes his television debut on Ed Sullivan's Toast Of The Town show for the CBS-TV network in the United States.
November 23 – The Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean are transferred from British to Australian control.
November 26 – The British Governor of Cyprus declares a state of emergency on the island.
November 27 – The Westboro Baptist Church holds its first service in Topeka, Kansas.
Subsections (0):
|
1955_11 | Section: December (2):
December 1 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger, and is arrested, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott.
December 4 – The International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations is founded in Luxembourg.
December 5
The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge, to become the AFL–CIO.
The Montgomery Improvement Association is formed in Montgomery, Alabama, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other Black ministers to coordinate the Montgomery bus boycott by Black people.
December 9 – Adnan Menderes of DP forms the new government of Turkey (22nd government).
December 10 – 1955 Australian federal election: Robert Menzies' Liberal/Country Coalition Government is re-elected with a substantially increased majority, defeating the Labor Party led by H. V. Evatt. This election comes in the immediate aftermath of the devastating split in the Labor Party, which leads to the formation of the Democratic Labor Party. The DLP will preference against Labor, and keep the Coalition in office until 1972.
December 14
The Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River, in New York State, opens to traffic.
Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sri Lanka join the United Nations simultaneously, after several years of moratorium on admitting new members that began during the Korean War.
December 19 – Australian comedian Barry Humphries first introduces his character Edna Everage on stage in Melbourne.
December 20 – Cardiff is declared by the British Government as the capital of Wales.
December 22 – American cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes, forty-six.
December 31
General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make a profit of over 1 billion dollars in 1 year.
Austria becomes independent, under terms of the May 15 Austrian State Treaty.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_0 | 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1956th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 956th year of the 2nd millennium, the 56th year of the 20th century, and the 7th year of the 1950s decade. |
1956_0 | Section: January (2):
January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan after 57 years.
January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, are killed for trespassing by the Waorani people of Ecuador, shortly after making contact with them.
January 16 – Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser vows to reconquer Palestine.
January 25–26 – Finnish troops reoccupy Porkkala, after Soviet troops vacate its military base. Civilians can return February 4.
January 26 – The 1956 Winter Olympics open in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_1 | Section: February (2):
February 2 – Austria and Israel establish diplomatic relations.
February 11 – British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean resurface in the Soviet Union, after being missing for 5 years.
February 14–25 – The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is held in Moscow.
February 16 – The 1956 World Figure Skating Championships open in Garmisch, West Germany.
February 22 – Elvis Presley enters the United States music charts for the first time, with "Heartbreak Hotel".
February 23 – Norma Jean Mortenson legally changes her name to Marilyn Monroe.
February 24 – Doris Day records her most famous song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)"; it is from Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, in which Day co-stars with James Stewart.
February 25 – Nikita Khrushchev attacks the veneration of Joseph Stalin, in a speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", at a secret session concluding the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This is not officially made public in the Soviet Union at this time but becomes known in the West in June.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_2 | Section: March (2):
March 1 – The International Air Transport Association finalizes a draft of the radiotelephony spelling alphabet, for the International Civil Aviation Organization.
March 2 – Morocco declares its independence from France.
March 9
The British deport Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus to the Seychelles.
The Soviet Armed Forces suppress mass demonstrations in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, reacting to Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy.
March 10 – The Fairey Delta 2 breaks the World Air Speed Record, raising it to 1,132 mph (1,822 km/h) or Mach 1.73, an increase of some 300 mph (480 km/h) over the previous record, and thus becoming the first aircraft to exceed 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h) in level flight.
March 11 – After having opened in London the previous year, Laurence Olivier's film, Richard III, adapted from Shakespeare's play, has its U.S. premiere in theatres and on NBC-TV on the same day. On television it is not shown in prime time, but as an afternoon matinée, in a slightly cut version, one of the first such experiments. Olivier is later nominated for an Oscar for his performance.
March 12 – 96 U.S. Congressmen sign the Southern Manifesto, a protest against the 1954 Supreme Court ruling (Brown v. Board of Education) that desegregated public education.
March 13 – Elvis Presley releases his first gold album titled Elvis Presley in the United States.
March 15 – The Broadway musical My Fair Lady opens in New York City.
March 19 – At age 48, Dutch boxer Bep van Klaveren contests his last match in Rotterdam.
March 20 – Tunisia gains independence from France.
March 21 – The 28th Academy Awards Ceremony is held in Los Angeles. Marty is awarded Best Picture.
March 23 – Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic, and a national holiday is observed in the country, including the state of East Pakistan.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_3 | Section: April (2):
April 7 – Spain relinquishes its protectorate in Morocco.
April 9 – Habib Bourguiba is elected President of the National Constituent Assembly of the Kingdom of Tunisia; on April 15 he becomes prime minister.
April 14 – Videotape is first demonstrated at the 1956 NARTB (modern-day NAB) convention in Chicago, United States, by Ampex. It is the demonstration of the first practical and commercially successful videotape format known as 2" Quadruplex.
April 18
American actress Grace Kelly legally marries Rainier III, Prince of Monaco; a religious ceremony follows next day.
Maria Desylla-Kapodistria is elected mayor of Corfu, becoming the first female mayor in Greece.
April 19
British diver Lionel (Buster) Crabb (working for MI6) dives into Portsmouth Harbour, to investigate a visiting Soviet cruiser, and vanishes.
The 5.0 Mw 1956 Atarfe-Albolote earthquake strikes southern Spain killing 12 and injuring dozens more.
April 21 – Former U.S. First Daughter Margaret Truman marries Clifton Daniel.
April 27 – Heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano retires, without losing a professional boxing match.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_4 | Section: May (2):
May 1 – Minamata disease is discovered in Japan.
May 2
The United Methodist Church in America decides, at its General Conference, to grant women full ordained clergy status. It also calls for an end to racial segregation in the denomination.
Violet Gibson, who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in 1926, dies in a mental hospital in England, after a lifetime of imprisonment.
May 8 – The constitutional union between Indonesia and the Netherlands is dissolved.
May 9 – Manaslu, eighth highest mountain in the world (in the Nepalese Himalayas) is first ascended, by a Japanese team.
May 18 – Lhotse main summit, the fourth highest mountain (on the Nepalese–Tibetan border) is first ascended, by Fritz Luchsinger and Ernst Reiss.
May 23 – French minister Pierre Mendès France resigns, due to his government's policy on Algeria.
May 24 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast from Lugano, Switzerland. The winning song is the host country's Refrain by Lys Assia (music by Géo Voumard, lyrics by Émile Gardaz).
May 25 – India announces the institution of diplomatic relations with Francoist Spain.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_5 | Section: June (2):
June 1 – Vyacheslav Molotov resigns as foreign minister of the Soviet Union; he later becomes ambassador to Mongolia.
June 4 – Montgomery bus boycott: The related civil suit is heard in federal district court; the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the ruling in November.
June 5 – The text of Nikita Khrushchev's February attack on Stalin's reputation, "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", is first published in the West, in The New York Times.
June 6 – In Singapore, chief minister David Marshall resigns, after the breakdown of talks about internal self-government in London.
June 8 – General Electric/Telechron introduces model 7H241 "The Snooz Alarm", the first snooze alarm clock ever.
June 10 – 1956 Summer Olympics: Equestrian events open in Stockholm, Sweden (all other events are held in November in Melbourne, Australia).
June 13
The International Criminal Police Organization adopts Interpol as its official name.
Real Madrid beats Stade Reims 4–3 at Parc des Princes, Paris and wins the 1955–56 European Cup (football).
June 14 – The Flag of the United States Army is formally dedicated.
June 15 – Eindhoven University of Technology is founded in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
June 18 – The last British troops leave Egypt.
June 21 – Playwright Arthur Miller appears before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, D.C.
June 23 – Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes the 2nd president of Egypt, a post he holds until his death in 1970.
June 28
Poznań 1956 protests: Labour riots in Poznań, Poland, are crushed with heavy loss of life. Soviet troops fire at a crowd protesting high prices, killing 53 people.
The film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I, starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner, is released only a few months after the film version of R&H's Carousel. It becomes the most financially successful film version of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical up to this time, and the only one to win an acting Oscar (Yul Brynner wins Best Actor for his performance as the King of Siam). It is also one of two Rodgers and Hammerstein films to be nominated for Best Picture (which it does not win).
June 29
Actress Marilyn Monroe marries playwright Arthur Miller, in White Plains, New York.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, creating the Interstate Highway System in the United States.
June 30 – 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision: A TWA Lockheed Constellation and United Airlines Douglas DC-7 collide in mid-air over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, killing all 128 people aboard both aircraft, in the deadliest civil aviation disaster to date; the accident leads to sweeping changes in the regulation of cross-country flight and air traffic control over the United States.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_6 | Section: July (2):
July 2 – A laboratory experiment involving scrap thorium at Sylvania Electric Products in Bayside, New York, results in an explosion.
July 4 – An American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft makes its first flight over the Soviet Union.
July 8 – The mountain Gasherbrum II, on the border of Pakistan and China, is first ascended, by an Austrian expedition.
July 9 – The 7.7 Mw Amorgos earthquake shakes the Cyclades island group in the Aegean Sea, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The shaking and the subsequent tsunami leave 53 people dead.
July 10 – The British House of Lords defeats the abolition of the death penalty.
July 13 – John McCarthy (Dartmouth), Marvin Minsky (MIT), Claude Shannon (Bell Labs) and Nathaniel Rochester (IBM) assemble the first coordinated research meeting on the topic of artificial intelligence, at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States.
July 25 – The Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria sinks after colliding with the Swedish ship SS Stockholm in heavy fog 72 kilometers (45 mi) south of Nantucket island, killing 51.
July 26 – Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal, sparking international condemnation.
July 30 – A joint resolution of Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing "In God we trust" as the U.S. national motto.
July 31
Cricket: Jim Laker sets an extraordinary record at Old Trafford in the fourth Test between England and Australia, taking 19 wickets in a first class match (the previous best was 17).
Luzhniki Stadium, well known sports venue of Russia and the Soviet Union, officially opens in Moscow.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_7 | Section: August (2):
August 7 – Seven ammunition trucks loaded with 1,053 boxes of dynamite explode in Cali, Colombia. Death estimates range from 1,300 to 10,000, in a city that at this time has 120,000 inhabitants.
August 8 – 262 miners (chiefly Italian nationals) die in a fire at the Bois du Cazier coal mine, in Marcinelle, Belgium.
August 9 – Art exhibition This Is Tomorrow opens at Whitechapel Art Gallery in London.
August 12 – Around 5,000 members of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church hold a mass outside Cluj-Napoca Piarists' Church to demonstrate that their church, proscribed by the government in 1948, has not ceased to exist as the regime claims.
August 17 – West Germany bans the Communist Party of Germany.
The first interfaith dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims with over 850 participants takes place at the monastery of Toumliline in Azrou, Morocco.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_8 | Section: September (2):
September 13
The hard disk drive is invented by an IBM team, led by Reynold B. Johnson.
The dike around the Dutch polder East Flevoland is closed.
September 16 – Television broadcasting in Australia commences.
September 21 – Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García is assassinated.
September 25 – The submarine transatlantic telephone cable opens.
September 27 – The Bell X-2 becomes the first crewed aircraft to reach Mach 3.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_9 | Section: October (2):
October 5 – Cecil B. DeMille's epic film The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston as Moses, is released in the United States. It will be in the top ten of the worldwide list of highest-grossing films of all time, adjusted for inflation.
October 8 – Baseball pitcher Don Larsen of the New York Yankees throws the only perfect game in World Series history, in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Yogi Berra catches the game. Dale Mitchell is the final out. The New York Yankees win the series in seven games. Larsen is named series MVP.
October 10
Finland joins UNESCO.
The prototype Lockheed L-1649 Starliner, the final Lockheed Constellation model, makes its first flight.
October 14 – Dalit Buddhist movement (India): B. R. Ambedkar, Dalit leader, converts to Buddhism, along with 385,000 followers.
October 15 – The British Royal Air Force retires its last Avro Lancaster bomber.
October 17
The world's first industrial-scale commercial nuclear power plant is opened at Calder Hall in the UK.
The Game of the Century (chess): 13-year-old Bobby Fischer beats grandmaster Donald Byrne, in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in New York City.
October 19 – The Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 is signed in Moscow, ending the legal state of war between the Soviet Union and Japan (with effect from December 12) and making possible the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two nations.
October 23 – The Hungarian Revolution breaks out against the pro-Soviet government, originating as a student demonstration in Budapest. Hungary attempts to leave the Warsaw Pact.
October 24 – The Protocol of Sèvres, a secret agreement between Israel, France and the United Kingdom, is signed, allowing the former to invade the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and occupy the Suez Canal with the support of the other two governments, giving rise to the Suez Crisis.
October 26 – Soviet Red Army troops invade Hungary.
October 29
Suez Crisis: Israel invades the Sinai Peninsula and pushes Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.
Tangier Protocol: The international city Tangier is reintegrated into Morocco.
The Huntley-Brinkley Report debuts on NBC-TV in the United States.
October 31
Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.
A United States Navy team becomes the third group to reach the South Pole (arriving by air), and commences construction of the first permanent Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_10 | Section: November (2):
November 1
The States Reorganisation Act of India reforms the boundaries and names of Indian states. Three new states, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, are formed.
The film Oklahoma! (1955), previously released to select cities in Todd-AO, now receives a U.S. national release in CinemaScope, since not all theatres are yet equipped for Todd-AO. To accomplish this, the film has actually been shot twice, rather than printing one version in two different film processes, as is later done.
November 3
Khan Yunis massacre (Suez Crisis): Israeli soldiers shoot dead hundreds of Palestinian refugees and local inhabitants in Khan Yunis Camp.
MGM's film The Wizard of Oz is the first major Hollywood film running more than 90 minutes to be televised uncut in one evening, in the United States.
November 4 – Hungarian Revolution of 1956: More Soviet troops invade Hungary, to crush the revolt that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
November 6 – 1956 United States presidential election: Republican incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democratic challenger Adlai Stevenson, in a rematch of their contest 4 years earlier.
November 7 – Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France and Israel to withdraw their troops from Arab lands immediately.
November 11 – Hungarian Revolution of 1956: Last insurgents succumb to the invading Soviet army.
November 12 – Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the United Nations.
November 13 – Browder v. Gayle: The United States Supreme Court declares illegal the state and municipal laws requiring segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott.
November 14 – An eight-mile long stretch of highway is opened west of Topeka, Kansas, creating the first portion of the Interstate Highway System in the United States and the first highway to be completed with funds from the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956.
November 15 – Middle East Technical University is founded in Ankara, Turkey.
November 18 – At a reception for Western ambassadors at the Polish embassy in Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev utters his famous phrase "We will bury you".
November 20 – In Yugoslavia, former prime minister Milovan Đilas is arrested after he criticizes Josip Broz Tito.
November 22 – The 1956 Summer Olympics begin in Melbourne, Australia.
November 23 – The Suez Crisis causes petrol rationing in Britain.
November 25 – Fidel Castro and Che Guevara depart from Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico, en route to Santiago de Cuba aboard the yacht Granma, with 82 men.
November 28 – Roger Vadim's film And God Created Woman (Et Dieu… créa la femme), is released in France, making Brigitte Bardot an international sex symbol.
November 30 – African-American Floyd Patterson wins the world heavyweight boxing championship that is vacant after the retirement of Rocky Marciano.
Subsections (0):
|
1956_11 | Section: December (2):
December 3 – The 1956 Bush Terminal explosion occurs in Brooklyn, United States.
December 4 – The Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash) get together at Sun Studio, for the first and last time in history.
December 9 – Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, a Canadair North Star, crashes into Slesse Mountain near Chilliwack, British Columbia. All 62 people aboard, including five Canadian Football League players, are killed.
December 12 – Japan becomes a member of the United Nations.
December 19 – British doctor John Bodkin Adams is arrested for the murder of 2 patients in Eastbourne, England; he will be acquitted.
December 23 – British and French troops leave the Suez Canal region.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_0 | 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year of the 1950s decade. |
1957_0 | Section: January (2):
January 1 – The Saarland joins West Germany.
January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
January 5 – South African player Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be dismissed for having handled the ball, in Test cricket.
January 9 – British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigns.
January 10 – Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
January 11 – The African Convention is founded in Dakar.
January 14 – Kripalu Maharaj is named fifth Jagadguru (world teacher), after giving seven days of speeches before 500 Hindu scholars.
January 15 – The film Throne of Blood, Akira Kurosawa's reworking of Macbeth, is released in Japan.
January 20
Dwight D. Eisenhower is privately sworn in for a second term, as President of the United States.
Israel withdraws from the Sinai Peninsula (captured from Egypt on October 29, 1956).
January 26 – The Ibirapuera Planetarium (the first in the Southern Hemisphere) is inaugurated in the city of São Paulo, Brazil.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_1 | Section: February (2):
February 2 – President Iskander Mirza of Pakistan lays the foundation-stone of the Guddu Barrage across the Indus River, near Sukkur.
February 4
France prohibits U.N. involvement in Algeria.
The first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. It is decommissioned on March 3, 1980.
A coal gas explosion at the giant Bishop Coal Mine in Bishop, Virginia, United States, kills 37 men.
February 6 – The Soviet Union announces that Swedish envoy Raoul Wallenberg had died in a Soviet prison ("possibly of a heart attack"), on July 17, 1947
February 10 – The Confederation of African Football is founded, at a meeting in Khartoum.
February 15 – Andrei Gromyko becomes foreign minister of the Soviet Union.
February 16 – Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal opens at cinemas in Sweden.
February 17 – A fire at a home for the elderly in Warrenton, Missouri, United States, kills 72 people.
February 18
Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is executed by the British colonial government.
The last person to be executed in New Zealand, Walter James Bolton, is hanged at Mount Eden Prison for poisoning his wife.
February 23 – The founding congress of the Senegalese Popular Bloc opens in Dakar.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_2 | Section: March (2):
March 1
U Nu becomes Prime Minister of Burma.
Arturo Lezama becomes President of the National Council of Government of Uruguay.
Sud Aviation forms, from a merger between SNCASE (Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Est) and SNCASO (Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Ouest).
March 3 – Net als toen, sung by Corry Brokken (music by Guus Jansen, lyrics by Willy van Hemert), wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1957 (held at Frankfurt), for the Netherlands.
March 6
United Kingdom colonies Gold Coast and British Togoland become the independent nation of Ghana.
Zodi Ikhia founds the Nigerien Democratic Front (FDN) in Niger.
March 8 – Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal.
March 14 – President Sukarno declares martial law in Indonesia.
March 17 – 1957 Cebu Douglas C-47 crash: Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others are killed in a plane crash.
March 20 – The French news magazine L'Express reveals that the French army tortures Algerian prisoners.
March 25 – The Treaty of Rome (Patto di Roma) establishes the European Economic Community (EEC; predecessor of the European Union) between Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
March 27 – The 29th Academy Awards Ceremony is held in Hollywood. Around the World in 80 Days wins Best Picture.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_3 | Section: April (2):
April – IBM sells the first compiler for the Fortran scientific programming language.
April 1 – The first new conscripts join the Bundeswehr.
April 5 – The Communist Party of India wins the elections in Kerala, making E. M. S. Namboodiripad its first chief minister.
April 9 – Egypt reopens the Suez Canal to all shipping.
April 12 – The United Kingdom announces that Singapore will gain self-rule on January 1, 1958.
April 13
Ali Abu Nuwar starts A coup d'etat against Hussein Bin Talal of Jordan.
April 15
The Distant Early Warning Line is handed over by contractors to the U.S. and Canadian military.
White Rock secedes from Surrey, British Columbia, following a referendum.
April 17 – Suspected English serial killer John Bodkin Adams is found not guilty of murder, at the Old Bailey.
April 24–25 – The 1957 Fethiye earthquakes occur, on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
April 30 – An annular solar eclipse was a non-central annular solar eclipse, that does not have a northern path limit. This was the last of 57 umbral solar eclipses of Solar Saros 118.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_4 | Section: May (2):
May 2 – "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika", written by Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven, becomes the South African national anthem, replacing "God Save the Queen", which is retained as a royal anthem.
May 8 – South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem begins a state visit to the United States, his regime's main sponsor.
May 15
Operation Grapple: At Malden Island in the Pacific, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb, which fails to detonate properly.
Stanley Matthews plays his final international game, ending an English record international career of almost 23 years.
May 16 – Paul-Henri Spaak becomes the new Secretary General of NATO.
May 24 – May 24 incident: Anti-American riots erupt in Taipei, Taiwan.
May 30 – Real Madrid beats Fiorentina 2–0 at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid, to win the 1956–57 European Cup (football).
Subsections (0):
|
1957_5 | Section: June (2):
June 9 – Broad Peak, on the China-Pakistan border, is first ascended.
June 21 – John Diefenbaker becomes the 13th Prime Minister of Canada.
June 27 – Hurricane Audrey demolishes Cameron, Louisiana, U.S., killing 400 people.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1
The International Geophysical Year begins.
The University of Waterloo is founded in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Hugh Everett III publishes the first scientifically founded many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Production of the Citroën Traction Avant automobile, begun in 1934, ceases.
July 6 – At the age of fifteen, Paul McCartney meets John Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen, at the St Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton.
July 11 – His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV becomes the 49th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims at age 20. His grandfather Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan III appoints Prince Karim in his will.
July 14 – Rawya Ateya takes her seat in the National Assembly of Egypt, thereby becoming the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
July 16 – United States Marine Major John Glenn flies an F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds, setting a new transcontinental speed record.
July 23 – Asghar Khan becomes the first native Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Air Force and the world's youngest Air Vice Marshal at 36 years old.
July 25 – Tunisia becomes a republic, with Habib Bourguiba as its first president.
July 28
The 6th World Festival of Youth and Students, a high point of the Khrushchev Thaw, opens in Moscow.
Heavy rains and mudslides at Isahaya, western Kyūshū, Japan, kill 992.
July 29 – The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_7 | Section: August (2):
August 4 – Juan Manuel Fangio, driving for Maserati, wins the Formula One German Grand Prix, clinching (with 4 wins this season) his record 5th world drivers championship, including his 4th consecutive championship (also a record); these 2 records endure for nearly half a century.
August 31 – The Federation of Malaya gains independence from the United Kingdom, subsequently celebrated as Malaysia's National Day. Abdul Rahman of Negeri Sembilan, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan, becomes the first Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaya. The country's new Constitution had come into force on August 27. The Alliance Party and its successor are the ruling coalition until 2018.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_8 | Section: September (2):
September 5 – Cuban Revolution: Fulgencio Batista’s forces bomb anti-government riots in Cienfuegos.
September 9 – The Civil Rights Act of 1957 is enacted, establishing the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
September 21
Olav V becomes King of Norway on the death of his father Haakon VII.
The sailing ship Pamir sinks off the Azores in a hurricane.
September 24 – Camp Nou, home stadium of FC Barcelona, officially opens in Barcelona, Spain.
September 29 – The Kyshtym disaster occurs at the Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in Russia.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_9 | Section: October (2):
October 1 – The Africanized bee is accidentally released in Brazil.
October 4
Space Age – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow delta wing interceptor aircraft is unveiled.
October 9 – The Jodrell Bank radio telescope in Cheshire, England, is controlled from its control room for the first time.
October 10 – Windscale fire: Fire at the Windscale nuclear reactor on the north-west coast of England releases radioactive material into the surrounding environment, including iodine-131.
October 11 – The orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket (carrying Sputnik I) is first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer at the MIT Computation Center as part of Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
October 20 – Two trains collide at Yarımburgaz in Turkey; 95 die.
October 23 – Morocco begins its invasion of Ifni.
October 27 – Celâl Bayar is re-elected president of Turkey.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_10 | Section: November (2):
November 1 – The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at this time, opens in the United States, to connect Michigan's two peninsulas.
November 3 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, with the first animal to orbit the Earth, a dog named Laika, on board. There is no technology available to return her to Earth.
November 13
Flooding in the Po Valley of Italy leads to flooding also in Venice.
Gordon Gould invents the laser.
November 15
Yugoslavia announces the end of an economic boycott of Francoist Spain (although it does not reinstitute diplomatic relations).
1957 Aquila Airways Solent crash: A flying boat crash on the Isle of Wight leaves 45 dead.
November 16 – Adnan Menderes of the Democrat Party forms the new government of Turkey (23rd government, last government formed by DP and Menderes).
November 30
Indonesian president Sukarno survives a grenade attack at the Cikini School in Jakarta, but six children are killed.
1957 New Zealand general election: The Labour Party defeats the governing National Party, with Walter Nash succeeding Keith Holyoake as Prime Minister.
Subsections (0):
|
1957_11 | Section: December (2):
December 1 – In Indonesia, Sukarno announces the nationalization of 246 Dutch businesses.
December 4
The Lewisham rail crash in London, UK, leaves 92 people dead.
1957 Bayankhongor Earthquake in Mongolia kills 30+ people
December 5 – All 326,000 Dutch nationals are expelled from Indonesia.
December 6 – The first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite fails, when the Vanguard rocket blows up on the launch pad.
December 10 – Canadian diplomat Lester B. Pearson receives the Nobel Peace Prize, for his peacekeeping efforts in the United Nations.
December 18 – A violent F5 tornado wipes out the entire community of Sunfield, Illinois.
December 20 – The Boeing 707 airliner flies for the first time.
Subsections (0):
|
1958_0 | 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1958th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 958th year of the 2nd millennium, the 58th year of the 20th century, and the 9th year of the 1950s decade. |
1958_0 | Section: January (2):
January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being.
January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
January 4
Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third overland journey to the South Pole, the first to use powered vehicles.
Sputnik 1 (launched on October 4, 1957) falls towards Earth from its orbit and burns up.
January 13 – Battle of Edchera: The Moroccan Army of Liberation ambushes a Spanish patrol.
January 27 – A Soviet-American executive agreement on cultural, educational and scientific exchanges, also known as the "Lacy–Zarubin Agreement", is signed in Washington, D.C.
Subsections (0):
|
1958_1 | Section: February (2):
February 1 – Egypt and Syria unite to form the United Arab Republic.
February 2 – The Falcons aerobatic team of the Pakistan Air Force led by Wg Cdr Mitty Masud set a world record performing a 16 aircraft diamond loop in F-86 Sabres. 30,000 people àre in attendance including President Iskandar Ali Mirza, General Ayub Khan, Air Marshal Asghar Khan, Air Commodore Nur Khan, C-in-C Turkish Air Force Hamdullah Suphi Göker, Chief of the Iraqi Air Force Abdul Kadhim Abaddi, Chief of the Imperial Iranian Air Force and Chief Guest King Zahir Shah in whose honor the performance has been organized.
February 5 – 1958 Tybee Island mid-air collision: A U.S. B-47 bomber jettisons a hydrogen bomb into Wassaw Sound off Tybee Island, Georgia; it is never recovered.
February 6 – Seven Manchester United footballers are among the 21 people killed in the Munich air disaster in West Germany, on the return flight from a European Cup game in Yugoslavia. 23 people survive; manager Matt Busby and players Johnny Berry and Duncan Edwards are in a serious condition. Berry will never play again and Edwards dies a fortnight later, as does the co-pilot.
February 11 – Marshal Chen Yi succeeds Zhou Enlai as Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs.
February 14 – The Hashemite Kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan unite in the Arab Federation, with King Faisal II of Iraq as head of state.
February 23
Cuban rebels kidnap five-time world driving champion Juan Manuel Fangio, releasing him 28 hours later.
Arturo Frondizi is elected president of Argentina.
February 24 – In Cuba, Fidel Castro's Radio Rebelde begins broadcasting from Sierra Maestra.
February 25 – Bertrand Russell launches the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the United Kingdom, initiated at a meeting called by Canon John Collins on January 15. The campaign peace symbol has been launched on 21 February by Gerald Holtom. Protests will focus on the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston.
February 28 – Prestonsburg bus disaster: One of the worst school bus accidents in U.S. history occurs in Kentucky when a school bus hits a truck and falls into a river, resulting in 27 deaths, 26 of them schoolchildren. Twenty-two others are rescued.
Subsections (0):
|
1958_2 | Section: March (2):
March 1 – Turkish passenger ship Üsküdar capsizes and sinks in a sudden gale while crossing the Gulf of İzmit, Turkey; many of the 272 who die are teenage students.
March 2 – A British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition team, led by Sir Vivian Fuchs, completes the first overland crossing of the Antarctic, using snowcat caterpillar tractors and dogsled teams, in 99 days, via the South Pole.
March 8 – The USS Wisconsin is decommissioned, leaving the United States Navy without an active battleship for the first time since 1896 (she is recommissioned October 22, 1988).
March 11 – 1958 Mars Bluff B-47 nuclear weapon loss incident: A U.S. B-47 bomber accidentally drops an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, South Carolina. Without a fissile warhead, its conventional explosives destroy a house and injure six people.
March 17 – The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
March 19 – The Monarch Underwear Company fire occurs in New York, United States, killing 24 people.
March 26 – The 30th Academy Awards Ceremony takes place in Hollywood; The Bridge on the River Kwai wins 7 awards, including Academy Award for Best Picture.
March 27 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.
Subsections (0):
|
1958_3 | Section: April (2):
April 1 – The Treaty of Angra de Cintra is signed by Spain and Morocco, ending the Spanish protectorate in Morocco.
April 3 – In Cuba, Castro's revolutionary army begins its attacks on Havana.
April 13 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 (launched November 3, 1957) disintegrates during reentry from orbit.
April 14 – Van Cliburn wins the International Tchaikovsky Competition for pianists in Moscow, easing Cold War tensions.
April 17 – King Baudouin of Belgium officially opens the world's fair in Brussels, also known as Expo 58. The Atomium forms the centrepiece.
April 20 – The Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup in ice hockey, after defeating the U.S. Boston Bruins in 6 games.
April 21 – United Airlines Flight 736 is involved in a mid-air collision with a U.S. Air Force F-100F jet fighter over what becomes Enterprise, Nevada; all 49 persons in both aircraft are killed.
April 28 – A bomber flown by a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency operative in support of Indonesian Permesta rebels bombs the harbor at Balikpapan, Borneo, Indonesia, hitting an Indonesian naval corvette and two British oil tankers. In June, the Indonesian and British governments both claim that Indonesian rebels are responsible for such attacks, concealing the C.I.A.'s involvement.
Subsections (0):
|
1958_4 | Section: May (2):
May 1
Arturo Frondizi becomes President of Argentina.
U.S. space scientist James van Allen announces the discovery of Earth's magnetosphere.
The Nordic Passport Union comes into force.
May 10 – Interviewed in the Chave d'Ouro café, when asked about his rival António de Oliveira Salazar, Humberto Delgado utters one of the most famous comments in Portuguese political history: "Obviamente, demito-o! (Obviously, I'll sack him!)".
May 12 – A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada.
May 13
Crisis in France: French Algerian protesters seize government offices in Algiers, leading to a military coup.
During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
May 15 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.
May 18 – A U.S. Lockheed F-104 Starfighter sets a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph (2,259.82 km/h).
May 20 – The Cuban government of Fulgencio Batista launches a counteroffensive against Castro's rebels.
May 22 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the first American elected official to appear on color television.
May 28 – Real Madrid beats A.C. Milan 3–2 at Heysel Stadium, Brussels, and wins the 1957–58 European Cup in Association football.
May 30 – The bodies of unidentified United States soldiers killed in action during World War II and the Korean War are buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns, in Arlington National Cemetery.
Subsections (0):
|
1958_5 | Section: June (2):
June 1
Charles de Gaulle is brought out of retirement at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises to lead France by decree for 6 months.
Iceland extends its fishing limits to 12 miles (22.2 km).
June 4 – French Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle visits Algeria.
June 16 – Imre Nagy and other leaders of the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956 are hanged for treason, following secret trials.
June 20 – The iron barque Omega of Callao, Peru (built in Liverpool, 1887), the world's last full-rigged ship trading under sail alone, sinks on passage carrying guano from the Pachacamac Islands for Huacho.
June 29 – Brazil beats Sweden 5–2 in the final game to win the football World Cup in Sweden.
June 30 – The 1957–58 Ifni War ends in Spanish Sahara.
Subsections (0):
|
1958_6 | Section: July (2):
July 9 – 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami: A 7.8 Mw strike-slip earthquake in Southeast Alaska causes a landslide that produces a megatsunami. The runup from the waves reaches 525 m (1,722 ft) on the rim of Lituya Bay.
July 12 – Henri Cornelis becomes Governor-General of the Belgian Congo, the last Belgian governor prior to independence.
July 14 – July 14 Revolution in Iraq: King Faisal II and several family members are executed. Abd al-Karim Qasim assumes power.
July 15 – 1958 Lebanon crisis: 5,000 United States Marines land in the Lebanese capital Beirut in support of the pro-Western government.
July 24 – Fourteen life peerages, the first under the Life Peerages Act 1958, are created in the United Kingdom.
July 26
Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched in the United States.
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom announces that she is giving her son Prince Charles the customary title for the heir apparent of Prince of Wales. The announcement is made at the end of the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, held in Cardiff.
July 29 – The U.S. Congress formally creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Subsections (0):
|
1958_7 | Section: August (2):
August 3 – The nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus becomes the first vessel to cross the North Pole under water.
August 6
Australian athlete Herb Elliott clips almost 3 seconds off the world record for the mile run at Santry Stadium, Dublin, recording a time of 3 minutes 54.5 seconds.
The Law of Permanent Defense of Democracy, which outlawed the Communist Party of Chile and banned 26,650 persons from the electoral lists, is repealed.
August 7 – 1958 East Pakistan-India border skirmishes, a skirmish between East Pakistan and the Indian Army in Laxmipur.
August 14 – KLM Flight 607-E, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation, crashes into the Atlantic with 99 people aboard, all of whom are killed.
August 17 – The first Thor-Able rocket is launched, carrying Pioneer 0, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 17. The launch fails due to a first stage malfunction.
August 18 – Brojen Das from East Pakistan swims across the English Channel in a competition, the first Bangali as well as the first Asian to ever do it. He is first among 39 competitors.
August 21–October 15 – Illinois observes the centennial of the Lincoln–Douglas debates.
August 23 – The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis begins with the People's Republic of China's People's Liberation Army shelling the island of Kinmen (Quemoy) which is controlled by the Republic of China (Taiwan)'s Kuomintang forces.
August 26 – A general strike is called in Paraguay.
August 30–September 1 – Notting Hill race riots: Riots occur between blacks and whites in Notting Hill, London.
Subsections (0):
|
Subsets and Splits