World Statistics
Population: 2.780 billion
Nikolai A. Bulganin becomes Soviet
premier, replacing Malenkov (Feb. 8).
Churchill resigns (April 5); Anthony Eden succeeds him (April 6).
Federal Republic of West Germany becomes a sovereign state (May
5).
The Soviet Union and seven East European countries sign the Warsaw
Pact, a mutual defense treaty (May 14).
Argentina ousts dictator Juan Perón (Sept. 19).
US starts sending $216 million in aid to Vietnam.
The US, UK, USSR, and France meet at a summit in Geneva.
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
Population: 165,931,202
Life expectancy: 69.6 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 4.5
President Eisenhower suffers coronary
thrombosis in Denver (Sept. 24).
Rosa Parks refuses to sit at the back of the bus, breaking
Montgomery, Ala., segregated seating law (Dec. 1).
Martin Luther
King, Jr., leads 381-day black boycott of Montgomery bus system;
desegregated service begins Dec. 21, 1956.
AFL and CIO merge to become the AFL-CIO (Dec. 5).
US GDP (1998 dollars): $415.1 billion
Federal spending: $68.44 billion
Federal debt: $274.4 billion
Consumer Price Index: 26.8
Unemployment: 5.5%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.03
World Series
Brooklyn Dodgers d. NY Yankees (4-3)
NBA Championship
Syracuse d. Ft. Wayne Pistons (4-3)
Stanley Cup
Detroit d. Montreal (4-3)
Wimbledon
Women: Louise Brough d. B. Fleitz (7-5 8-6)
Men: Tony Trabert d. K. Nielsen (6-3 7-5 6-1)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Swaps
NCAA Basketball Championship
San Francisco d. La Salle (77-63)
NCAA Football Champions
Oklahoma (11-0-0)
Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: A Fable, William Faulkner
Music: The Saint of Bleecker Street, Gian Carlo Menotti
Drama: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams
Oscars awarded in 1955
Academy Award, Best Picture: On the Waterfront, Sam Spiegel,
producer (Columbia)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Halldór Kiljan Laxness (Iceland)
Miss America: Lee Meriwether (CA)
Events
On the Waterfront nearly sweeps the 1954 Academy Awards, winning
Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Supporting Actress
(Eva Maria Saint), and Best Director (Elia Kazan).
Gunsmoke debuts on CBS, and will go on to be television's
longest-running western.
70mm film is introduced with Oklahoma!
James Dean dies in a car accident at age 26.
Movies
Rebel without a Cause,
Marty,
East of Eden,
Bad Day at Black Rock,
Picnic
Books
James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pictures of a Gone World
William Gaddis, The Recognitions
Mary McCarthy, A Charmed Life
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Satan in Goray
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Vincent du Vigneaud (US), for work on pituitary hormones
Physics: Polykarp Kusch and Willis E. Lamb, Jr. (US), for atomic
measurements
Physiology or Medicine: Hugo Theorell (Sweden), for work on
oxidation enzymes
Narinder Kapany (England) develops fiber optics.
Owen Chamberlain and Emilio Segrč discover the antiproton, a form
of antimatter.
The corticosteroid prednisone is developed.
Severo Ochoa at NYU synthesizes DNA- and RNA-like molecules.
Deaths
Albert Einstein
Alexander Fleming
Thomas Mann
Carmen Miranda
Charlie Parker