1956

1956

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1956

Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events of 1956

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Undated

Ongoing

Births

January?February
March?April
May?June
July?August
September?October
November?December

Deaths

January?June
July?December

Ship events
Nobel Prizes
Notes
External links

Events of 1956

January

January 1 - End of Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in Sudan.
January 1 - 124 die in a crash at a shrine in Niigata, Japan.
January 8 - Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
January 16 - Gamal Abdal Nasser, leader of Egypt, vows to reconquer Palestine.
January 25?26 - Finnish troops re-occupy Porkkala after Soviet troops vacate its military base. Civilians can return February 4.
January 26 - 1956 Winter Olympic Games open in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

A 1956 Chevrolet

February

February 11 - British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean resurfaced in the Soviet Union after being missing for five years.
February 16 - The film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, is released.
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 25 - Nikita Khrushchev attacks the veneration of Joseph Stalin as a "cult of personality."

March

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 - British deport Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus to Seychelles.
March 11 - Laurence Olivier's film, Richard III, adapted from Shakespeare's play, premieres in the U.S. in theatres and on NBC television on the same day, as an afternoon matinee. It is one of the first such experiments of its kind. 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 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Brown vs. Board of Education) desegregating public education.
March 12 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 500 for the first time rising 2.40 points, or 0.48%, to 500.24.
March 13 - Elvis Presley releases his first Gold Album titled Elvis Presley.
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 - 28th Academy Awards ceremony
March 23 - Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic and a national holiday is observed in the country including the former East Pakistan state.

April

April 7 - Spain relinquishes its protectorate in Morocco.
April 9 - Habib Bourgiba is elected prime minister of Tunisia.
April 14 - Videotape is first demonstrated at the 1956 NARTB (now NAB) convention in Chicago by Ampex. It was the demonstration of the first practical and commercially successful videotape format known as 2" Quadruplex.
April 17 - Queen Elizabeth II inaugurated Chew Valley Lake.
April 18 - Maria Desylla-Kapodistria is elected mayor of Corfu and becomes the first female mayor in Greece.
April 19 - British diver Lionel Crabb dives into the Portsmouth harbor to investigate visiting Soviet cruiser and vanishes.
April 19 - Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
April 21 - First daughter Margaret Truman married Clifton Daniel.

May

May 2 - The Methodist Church in America decides at its General Conference to grant women full ordained clergy status. It also calls for an end to segregation in the denomination.
May 8 - Austria and Israel form diplomatic relations.
May 8 - Constitutional union between Indonesia and Netherlands is dissolved.
May 8 - John Osborne's Look Back in Anger opened at the Royal Court Theatre, changing the scope of theatrical and other forms of drama in England.
May 9 - First ascent of Manaslu, eighth highest mountain in the world.
May 18 - First ascent of Lhotse (main), fourth highest mountain.
May 23 - French minister Pierre Mend�s-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 Refrain by Lys Assia (music by G�o Voumard, text by �mile Gardaz).

June

June 1 - Vyacheslav Molotov resigns as a foreign minister of Soviet Union; he later becomes ambassador in Mongolia.
June 3 - British Rail renamed 'Third Class' passenger facilities as 'Second Class' (Second Class facilities had been abolished in 1875, leaving just First Class and Third Class).
June 6 - In Singapore, chief minister David Marshall resigns after breakdown of talks about internal self government in London.
June 8 - General Electric/Telechron introduces model 7H241 "The Snooz Alarm", first snooze alarm clock ever.
June 10 - 1956 Summer Olympics: Equestrian events open in Stockholm, Sweden. (All other events held in November in Melbourne, Australia.)
June 14 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the phrase "under God" should be added to the Pledge of Allegiance. The Flag of the United States Army was formally dedicated.
June 15 - Eindhoven University of Technology is founded in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
June 18 - Last foreign troops leave Egypt.
June 23 - Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes the second president of Egypt.
June 28 - MP Sydney Silverman's bill for abolition of death penalty passes the British House of Commons.
June 28 - Labour riots at Pozna?, Poland, are crushed with heavy loss of life. Soviet troops fire at crowd that protests high prices - 53 dead.
June 28 - 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.
June 29 - Actress Marilyn Monroe marries playwright Arthur Miller.
June 29 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Federal-Aid Highway Act, creating the Interstate Highway System
June 30 - A TWA Lockheed Constellation and United Airlines Douglas DC-7 collide in mid-air over the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crash. All 128 people aboard the two aircraft are killed in the disaster. The accident prompts tighter air traffic control to be implemented in the United States.

July

July 2 A lab experiment at Sylvania Electric Products results in an explosion.
July 8 - First ascent of Gasherbrum II.
July 10 - British House of Lords defeats the abolition of death penalty.
July 24 - At New York City's Copacabana Club, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform their last comedy show together which started on July 25, 1946.
July 25 - 72 kilometers (45 miles) south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria sinks after colliding with the Swedish ship SS Stockholm in heavy fog, killing 51.
July 26 - Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.
July 30 - A Joint Resolution of the U.S. 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 extraordinary record at Old Trafford in the fourth Test of taking nineteen wickets in a first class match (the previous best was seventeen).

August

Exhibition This Is Tomorrow at Whitechapel Art Gallery.
August 6 - After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network has its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena.
August 8 - 262 miners die in fire in a coal mine in Marcinelle, Belgium.
August 11 - Jackson Pollock dies after crashing his car, aged 44.
August 17 - West Germany bans Communist Party of Germany.

September

September 9 - Elvis Presley appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.
September 13 - The Hard Disk Drive is invented by an IBM team led by Reynold B. Johnson.
September 16 - Television broadcasting commences in Australia.
September 21 - Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Garc�a is assassinated.
September 25 - Submarine Transatlantic telephone cable opened.

October

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 caught the game. Dale Mitchell was the final out. The New York Yankees won the series. Larsen was named series MVP.
October 10 - Finland joins UNESCO.
October 14 - Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Indian Untouchable leader, converts to Buddhism along with 385,000 followers. See Neo-Buddhism.
October 15 - RAF retires its last Lancaster bomber.
October 15 - Fidel Castro and Che Guevara depart from Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico, enroute to Santiago de Cuba aboard the yacht Granma with 82 men. After the ship passes a storm, it lands at Belici, Cuba, on December 2
October 17 - The 13 years old Bobby Fischer beats GM Donald Byrne in the NY Rosenwald chess tournament (The Game of the Century).
October 23 - Hungarian revolution against the pro-Soviet government. Soviet Union intervenes. Hungary attempts to leave the Warsaw Pact.
October 26 - Red Army troops invade Hungary.
October 29 - The Huntley-Brinkley Report debuts on NBC-TV.
October 29 - Suez Crisis begins: Israel invades the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.
October 29 - Tangier Protocol signed: The international city Tangier is reintegrated into Morocco.
October 29 - The first hard disk drive (5MB) is born at IBM.
October 31 - Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.

November

November 1 - the States Reorganisation Act of India reformed the boundaries and names of Indian states.
November 3 - MGM's screen classic, The Wizard of Oz, is shown on television for the first time by CBS, as the final installment of their Ford Star Jubilee.
November 4 - 1956 Hungarian Revolution: more Soviet troops invade Hungary to crush a revolt that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
November 6 - U.S. presidential election, 1956: Republican incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower is reelected by defeating Democrat challenger Adlai E. Stevenson in a rematch of their contest four years earlier.
November 6 - Enoch A. Holtwick defeated as presidential candidate of Prohibition Party.
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 13 - United States Supreme Court declares Alabama and Montgomery, Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal; thus ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott
November 14 - Fighting ends in Hungary.
November 15 - Middle East Technical University founded in Ankara, Turkey.
November 16 - Israel is denounced by UN
November 20 - In Yugoslavia, former prime minister Milovan Djilas is arrested after he criticized Josip Broz Tito.
November 22 - Beginning of the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.
November 23 - Suez Crisis causes petrol rationing in Britain.^[1]
November 30-Floyd Patterson becomes champion after retirement of Rocky Marciano

December

December 2 - Fidel Castro and his followers land on Cuba in the boat Granma.
December 2 - A pipe bomb explodes at a movie theater in Brooklyn (work of George Metesky), injuring six people.
December 5 - Rose Heilbron becomes Britain's first female judge.
December 9 - Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810 crashes into a mountain in British Columbia. All 62 people on board die, making this one of the worst airline crashes in the world at that date.
December 12 - Japan becomes member of the United Nations.
December 18 - To Tell The Truth debuts on CBS-TV.
December 19 - John Bodkin Adams arrested for the murder of two patients in Eastbourne, Great Britain.
December 23 - British and French troops leave Suez Canal region.
December 31 - Bob Barker makes his TV debut as host of the Game Show Truth or Consequences.