World Events
World Statistics
Population: 2.833 billion
Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of
USSR Communist Party, denounces Stalin's excesses (Feb. 24).
Morocco gains independence from France (March 1) and Spain (April
7).
Workers' uprising against Communist rule in Poland is crushed
(June 28-30).
Egypt takes control of Suez Canal (July 26). Israel launches
attack on Egypt's Sinai peninsula and drives toward Suez Canal
(Oct. 29). British and French invade Egypt at Port Said (Nov. 5).
Cease-fire forced by US pressure stops British, French, and
Israeli advance (Nov. 6).
Soviet troops and tanks crush anti-Communist uprisings in Hungary
(November).
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
Population: 168,903,031
Life expectancy: 69.7 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 4.6
Autherine Lucy, the first black student at
the University of Alabama, is suspended after riots (March 1).
U.S. tests the first aerial hydrogen bomb over Namu islet, Bikini
Atoll with the force of 10 million tons TNT (May 21). Background:
nuclear weapons
Economics
US GDP (1998 dollars): $438 billion
Federal spending: $70.64 billion
Federal debt: $272.7 billion
Consumer Price Index: 27.2
Unemployment: 4.4%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.03
Sports
World Series
NY Yankees d. Brooklyn Dodgers (4-3)
NBA Championship
Philadelphia Warriors d. Ft. Wayne Pistons (4-1)
Stanley Cup
Montreal d. Detroit (4-1)
Wimbledon
Women: Shirley Fry d. A. Buxton (6-3 6-1)
Men: Lew Hoad d. K. Rosewall (6-2 4-6 7-5 6-4)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Needles
NCAA Basketball Championship
San Francisco d. Iowa (83-71)
NCAA Football Champions
Oklahoma (10-0-0)
Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: Andersonville, MacKinlay Kantor
Music: Symphony No. 3, Ernst Toch
Drama: The Diary of Anne Frank, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
Oscars awarded in 1956
Academy Award, Best Picture: Marty, Harold Hecht, producer (United
Artists)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Juan Ramón Jiménez (Spain)
Miss America: Sharon Ritchie (CO)
Events
With many hit singles (including "Heartbreak Hotel"), Elvis
Presley emerges as one of the world's first rock stars. The
gyrating rocker enjoys fame on the stages of the Milton Berle,
Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan shows, as well as in the first of his
many movies, Love Me Tender.
Kay Thompson's Eloise, the Plaza Hotel's most famous guest, is a
bestseller.
Grace Metalious's steamy Peyton Place is a bestseller.
The Wizard of Oz has its first airing on TV.
Movies
The Seventh Seal,
Giant,
The Searchers,
Around the World in 80
Days,
The King and I,
Friendly Persuasion
Music
Woody Guthrie, "This Land is Your Land"
Books
John Barth, The Floating Opera
James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
Allen Ginsburg, Howl
John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
Lewis Mumford, The Transformations of Man
William Styron, The Long March
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Sir Cyril Hinshelwood (UK) and Nikolai N. Semenov (USSR),
for parallel research on chemical reaction kinetics
Physics: William Shockley, Walter H. Brattain, and John Bardeen (all
US), for developing electronic transistor
Physiology or Medicine: Dickinson W. Richards, Jr., André F.
Cournand (both US), and Werner Forssmann (Germany), for new
techniques in treating heart disease
Felix Wankel (Germany)
develops the rotary internal combustion engine.
The DNA molecule is first photographed.
The neutrino is first observed at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Deaths
Tommy Dorsey
Connie Mack
Jackson Pollock
