1955

**1955 in other calendars**
Gregorian calendar	1955; MCMLV
Ab urbe condita	2708
Armenian calendar	1404; ԹՎ ՌՆԴ
Bahá'í calendar	111 – 112
Berber calendar	2905
Buddhist calendar	2499
Burmese calendar	1317
Byzantine calendar	7463 – 7464
Chinese calendar	甲午年十二月初八日; (4591/4651-12-8) — to — 乙未年十一月十八日; (4592/4652-11-18)
Coptic calendar	1671 – 1672
Ethiopian calendar	1947 – 1948
Hebrew calendar	5715 – 5716
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2010 – 2011
- Shaka Samvat	1877 – 1878
- Kali Yuga	5056 – 5057
Holocene calendar	11955
Iranian calendar	1333 – 1334
Islamic calendar	1374 – 1375
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 30; (昭和30年)
Korean calendar	4288
Thai solar calendar	2498
	v • d • e

	1955 by topic:
	Subject: Archaeology – Architecture – Art
	Aviation – Film – Literature (Poetry); Meteorology – Music (Country); Rail transport – Radio – Science – Spaceflight
	Sports – Television
	Countries: Australia – Canada – Ecuador – India; Ireland – Malaysia – New Zealand – Norway – Pakistan – Philippines – Singapore – South Africa; Soviet Union –UK – United States – Zimbabwe – Italy
	Leaders: Sovereign states – State leaders
	Religious leaders – Law
	Categories: Births – Deaths – Works – Introductions
	Establishments – Disestablishments – Awards v • d • e

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1920s 1930s 1940s – 1950s – 1960s 1970s 1980s
Years:	1952 1953 1954 – 1955 – 1956 1957 1958

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1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar).

Contents:
Events of 1955 - Jan. ^. Feb. ^. March ^. April - May ^. June ^. July ^. Aug. - Sept. ^. Oct. ^. Nov. ^. Dec. - Undated ^. Ongoing ^. - World population Births Deaths Nobel Prizes See also - Notes - External links

Jan. 7: Marian Anderson at the Met

[edit] Events of 1955

[edit] January

January 2 – José Antonio Remón Cantera, president of Panama, is assassinated at a race track in Panama City.
January 7 – Marian Anderson is the first African American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
January 18 – January 20 – Battle of Yijiangshan Islands: The Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army seizes the islands from the Republic of China (Taiwan).
January 22 – The Pentagon announces a plan to develop ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) 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 Formosa from the People's Republic of China.

January 22: ICBM

[edit] February

February 1 – Ray Kroc opens a McDonald's fast food restaurant (the company's 9th since it was founded in 1940), but Kroc later takes over the company and oversees its worldwide expansion.
February 10 – The Seventh Fleet of the United States Navy helps the Republic of China evacuate Chinese Nationalist army and residents from the Tachen Islands to Taiwan.
February 12 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends the first U.S. advisors to South Vietnam.
February 16 – Nearly 100 die in a fire at a home for the elderly in Yokohama, Japan.
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 264,77.

February 1: McDonald's

[edit] March

March 5 – WBBJ-TV signs on the air in the Jackson, Tennessee, with WDXI as its initial call-letters, to expanded American commercial television in mostly-rural areas.
March 7 – The Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, which had been created in 1954, starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC-TV. It is also the first time that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV 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 children's classics.
March 17 – The Richard Riot occurs in Montreal.
March 19 – KXTV of Stockton, California, signs on the air in the United States, being the 100th commercial television station in this country.
March 20 – Evan Hunter's movie adaptation of the novel Blackboard Jungle premieres in the United States, featuring the famous single, Rock Around the Clock, by Bill Haley and his "Comets". Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the song.

March 20: Bill Haley.

[edit] April

April 5
- Winston Churchill resigns as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- Richard J. Daley defeats Robert Merrian to become the Mayor of Chicago by a vote of 708,222 to 581,555.
April 6 – Anthony Eden becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
April 11
- The Taiwanese Kuomintang sabotage the ship "Kashmir Princess", killing 16 but failing to assassinate the People's Republic of China leader, Zhou Enlai.
- Two ferries on the Inland Sea of Japan sink, killing 168 children, which foreshadows the construction of the Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge, begun in 1986 but not completed until 1998.
April 12 – The Salk polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full approval by the FDA.
April 16 – The Burma-Japanese peace treaty, signed in Rangoon on November 5, 1954, comes into effect, formally ending a state of war between the two countries that had not existed for a long time.
April 17 – Imre Nagy, the communist Premier of Hungary, is ousted for being too moderate.
April 18 – Albert Einstein passes away in New Jersey.
April 18–24 – Asian-African Conference.

[edit] May

May 5 – West Germany becomes a soverign country that is recognized by important Western foreign countries, such as France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
May 9 – West Germany joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
May 11 – The Japanese ferry Shiun Maru sinks off of Takamatsu, Shikoku, Japan; 168 people are killed.
May 14 – Eight Communist Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defence treaty in Warsaw, Poland, that is called the Warsaw Pact.
May 15 – The Austrian State Treaty, which restores Austria's national sovereignty, is concluded between the four occupying powers following World War II (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France) and Austria, setting up Austria as a neutral country.

[edit] June

June 7 – The TV program The $64,000 Question premieres on CBS-TV in the United States, with Hal March as the host.
June 11 – 1955 Le Mans disaster: Eighty-three people are killed and at least 100 are injured after two race cars collide in Le Mans, France.
June 13 – The 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, Illinois.

July 17: Disneyland opens.

[edit] July

July 7 – The New Zealand Special Air Service is formed.
July 13 – Ruth Ellis (born 1926) is hanged for murder in London. She was the last woman ever to be executed in the United Kingdom, as of 2009.
July 17 – The Disneyland Amusement Park opens in Anaheim, California.
July 18
- The first nuclear-generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering the town of Arco, Idaho.
- The Illinois Governor, William Stratton, signs the "Loyalty Oath Act", passed by the State Legislature, which mandates all public employees take a loyalty oath to Illinois and the United States, or lose their jobs.
- The first Geneva Summit meeting between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France begins. It ends on July 23rd.
July 27 – The El Al Flight 402 airliner from Vienna, Austria, to Tel Aviv-Yafo via Istanbul is shot down over Bulgaria. All 58 passengers and crewmen aboard the Lockheed Constellation airplane are killed.
July 28 – The first Interlingua Congress in Tours, France, leads to the founding of the Union Mundial pro Interlingua.

[edit] August

Aug.19 Diane

August 19 – Hurricane Diane hits the northeastern United States, killing over 200 people, and causing over $1.0 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 occupation forces leave Austria.
August 27 – The first copy of a Guinness Book of World Records is published.

[edit] September

Sept.30: James Dean.

September 6 – Istanbul Pogrom: Istanbul's Greek minority is the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.
September 10 – The long-running program Gunsmoke debuts on the CBS-TV network.
September 12 – Gorseinon College is established.
September 15 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in Paris by Olympia Press.
September 19-[[September 21}21]] – The President of Argentina, Juan Peron, is ousted in a military coup.
September 19 – Hurricane Hilda kills about 200 people in Mexico.
September 22 – Independent Commercial Television (ITV) begins broadcasting in the United Kingdom.
September 23 – Sir Alec Guiness meets the actor James Dean. Guiness supposedly has a premonition of Dean's death.
September 24 – American President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffers a coronary thrombosis while on vacation in Denver, Colorado.
September 30 – The actor James Dean is killed when his automobile collides with another car at a highway junction near Cholame, California. Dean is just 24 years old.

[edit] October

October 3 – The Mickey Mouse Club TV program 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.
- The Brooklyn Dodgers finally win the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 2–0 in Game 7 of the 1955 baseball playoff.
October 11 – 70-mm film for projection is introduced with the theatrical release of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical film, Oklahoma!
October 20
- The first footage of Elvis Presley is filmed as part of a film short about the Cleveland, Ohio, disc jockey Bill Randle.
- Cardiff, Wales is announced as the capital city of the region of Wales, within the United Kingdom.
October 26
- After the last Allied troops have left the country and following the provisions of the Austrian Independence Treaty, Austria declares its permanent neutrality.
- Ngo Dinh Diem proclaims Vietnam to be a republic with himself as its President.

[edit] November

Oct.26: Austria free.

November 1 – A time bomb explodes in the cargo hold of United Airlines Flight 629, a Douglas DC-6B airliner flying above Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and 5 crew members on board.
November 3 – The five-and-one-half-mile long Rimutaka Railroad tunnel opens in New Zealand.
November 5 – Racial segregation is outlawed on trains and buses in Interstate Commerce in the United States.
November 20 – Bo Diddley makes his television debut on Ed Sullivan's Toast Of The Town show for the CBS-TV network.

[edit] December

Dec. 14: Tappan Zee Bridge opens.

December 1 – Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person, and the national civil rights movement begins.
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 a Black people's boycott of all city buses.
December 14
- The Tappan Zee Bridge in New York 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 in one fell stroke, after several years of morotorium of admitting new members that began during the Korean War.
December 22 – The American cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes, forty-six, by counting them correctly.
December 31 -- The General Motors Corporation becomes the first American corporation to make a profit of over one billion dollars in one year.

[edit] Ongoing

Malayan Emergency (1948–1960)
Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1960)

[edit] World population

World population: 2,755,823,000

– Africa: 246,746,000

– Asia: 1,541,947,000

– Europe: 575,184,000

– South America: 190,797,000

– Northern America: 186,884,000

– Oceania: 14,265,000