World Events
World Statistics
Population: 2.888 billion
Nobel Peace Prize:
Lester B. Pearson (Canada)
Anthony Eden resigns (Jan. 9); MacMillan
becomes British Prime Minister.
Russia launches Sputnik I, first earth-orbiting satellite—the
Space Age begins (Oct. 4).
The USSR tests its first successful ICBM.
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
Population: 171,984,130
Life expectancy: 69.5 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 4.5
More U.S. Statistics... Eisenhower Doctrine calls for aid to
Mideast countries that resist armed aggression from
Communist-controlled nations (Jan. 5).
The "Little Rock Nine" integrate Arkansas high school. Eisenhower
sends troops to quell mob and protect the students after Gov.
Orval Faubus defies federal order (Sept. 24).
Economics
US GDP (1998 dollars): $461 billion
Federal spending: $76.58 billion
Federal debt: $272.3 billion
Consumer Price Index: 28.1
Unemployment: 4.1%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.03
Sports
World Series
Milwaukee Braves d. NY Yankees (4-3)
NBA Championship
Boston d. St. Louis Hawks (4-3)
Stanley Cup
Montreal d. Boston (4-1)
Wimbledon
Women: Althea Gibson d. D. Hard (6-3 6-2)
Men: Lew Hoad d. A. Cooper (6-2 6-1 6-2)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Iron Liege
NCAA Basketball Championship
North Carolina d. Kansas (54-53 3OT)
NCAA Football Champions
Auburn (AP) (10-0-0) & Ohio St. (UP, FW, INS) (9-1-0)
Entertainment
Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: No award
Music: Meditations on Ecclesiastes, Norman Dello Joio
Drama: Long Day's Journey Into Night, Eugene O'Neill
Oscars awarded in 1957
Academy Award,
Best Picture: Around the World in 80 Days, Michael
Todd, producer (United Artists)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Albert Camus (France)
Miss America: Marian McKnight (SC)
Events
Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story debuts on Broadway and brings
violence to the stage.
Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey Into Night is produced
posthumously and wins both the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize.
Columbia University professor Charles Van Doren becomes a media
sensation by winning $129,000 on the quiz show Twenty One.
Leave It to Beaver premieres on CBS, ushering in an era of
television shows that depict the ideal American.
Movies
The Bridge on the River Kwai,
Twelve Angry Men,
Sayonara,
Peyton
Place,
Witness for the Prosecution
Books
James Agee, A Death in the Family
John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle
Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures
Lawrence Durrell, Justine
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Denise Levertov, Here and Now
Bernard Malamud, The Assistant
Robert Penn Warren, Promises: Poems 1954—56
Theater
West Side Story
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Sir Alexander Todd (UK), for research with chemical
compounds that are factors in heredity
Physics: Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang (China), for disproving
principle of conservation of parity
Physiology or Medicine: Daniel Bovet (Italy), for development of
drugs to relieve allergies and relax muscles during
surgery
Temporary artificial heart invented by Willem Kolff.
Interferon invented by Alick Isaacs and Jean Lindemann (England
and Switzerland).
Clarence W. Lillehie and Earl Bakk (US) invent the internal
pacemaker.
Bardeen, Cooper, and Scheiffer (US) propose a theory of
superconductivity.
First round-the-world nonstop jet plane flight. Maj. Gen. Archie
J. Old, Jr. (USAF) led a flight of three Boeing B-52 bombers
around the world in 45 hours, 19 minutes (completed Jan. 18).
Deaths
Humphrey Bogart
Richard E. Byrd
Joseph McCarthy
Arturo Toscanini