1955

1955 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1955; MCMLV
Ab urbe condita	2708
Armenian calendar	1404; ԹՎ ՌՆԴ
Assyrian calendar	6705
Bahá'í calendar	111–112
Bengali calendar	1362
Berber calendar	2905
British Regnal year	3 Eliz. 2 – 4 Eliz. 2
Buddhist calendar	2499
Burmese calendar	1317
Byzantine calendar	7463–7464
Chinese calendar	甲午年 (Wood Horse); 4651 or 4591; — to —; 乙未年 (Wood Goat); 4652 or 4592
Coptic calendar	1671–1672
Discordian calendar	3121
Ethiopian calendar	1947–1948
Hebrew calendar	5715–5716
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2011–2012
- Shaka Samvat	1876–1877
- Kali Yuga	5055–5056
Holocene calendar	11955
Igbo calendar	955–956
Iranian calendar	1333–1334
Islamic calendar	1374–1375
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 30; (昭和３０年)
Javanese calendar	1886–1887
Juche calendar	44
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4288
Minguo calendar	ROC 44; 民國44年
Nanakshahi calendar	487
Thai solar calendar	2498
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Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century; 20th century; 21st century;
Decades:	1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s;
Years:	1952; 1953; 1954; 1955; 1956; 1957; 1958;

1955 January February March April May June July August September October November December

1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday (dominical letter B) of the Gregorian calendar, the 1955th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 955th year of the 2nd millennium, the 55th year of the 20th century, and the 6th year of the 1950s decade.

January 7: Marian Anderson at the Met

Events[edit]

January[edit]

January 2 – José Antonio Remón Cantera, president of Panama, is assassinated at a race track in Panama City.
January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
January 7 – Marian Anderson is the first African-American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
January 17 – USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
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 – In the United States, The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) armed with nuclear weapons.
January 23 – Sutton Coldfield rail crash kills 17 near Birmingham, England.
January 25 – 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 – United States Congress authorizes President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use force to protect Formosa from the People's Republic of China.

January 22: ICBM

February[edit]

February 4 – "Baghdad Pact": Military treaty signed between Iraq and Turkey.
February 9 – Apartheid in South Africa: 60,000 non-white residents of the Sophiatown suburb of Johannesburg are forcibly evicted.
February 10 – The United States Seventh Fleet 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 14 – WFLA-TV signs on the air in Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida.
February 16 – Nearly 100 die in a fire at a home for the elderly in Yokohama, Japan.
February 19 – Southeast Asia Treaty Organization established at a meeting in Bangkok.
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.

March[edit]

March – A young Jim Henson builds the first version of Kermit the Frog.
March 2
- Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old African-American girl, refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white woman after the driver demands it. She is carried off the bus backwards while being kicked and handcuffed and harassed on the way to the police station. She becomes a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle (1956) which rules bus segregation to be unconstitutional.
- Serious floods in Australia.
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.
- Elvis Presley makes his television debut on "Louisiana Hayride" carried by KSLA-TV Shreveport (although audio recordings exists, there is no known video footage of this appearance).
March 7 – The Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, which had opened in 1954 starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC-TV with its original cast, as an installment of Producers' Showcase. It is also the first time that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV almost 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 family musical classics.
March 17 – Richard Riot in Montreal: 6,000 people protest the suspension of French Canadian ice hockey star Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens by the National Hockey League following a violent incident during a match.
March 19 – KXTV signs on the air in Sacramento, California.
March 20 – The movie adaptation of Evan Hunter's novel Blackboard Jungle premieres in the United States, featuring the famous single "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets. Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the song.

April[edit]

April 1 – EOKA A starts a terrorist campaign against British rule in the Crown colony of Cyprus.
April 5
- Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom due to ill-health at the age of 80.
- Richard J. Daley defeats Robert Merrian to become Mayor of Chicago by a vote of 708,222 to 581,555.
April 6 – Anthony Eden becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
April 10 – in the NBA, the Syracuse Nationals defeat the Fort Wayne Pistons 92-91 in game seven to win the title.
April 11
- The Taiwanese Kuomintang put a time-bomb on the airplane Kashmir Princess, killing 16 but failing to assassinate the People's Republic of China leader, Zhou Enlai.
- Taekwondo, a famous for Korean martial arts, officially recognized as naming in South Korea.^{[citation needed]}
April 12 – The Salk polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
April 14 – The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup for the 7th time in franchise history, but will not win again until 1997.

April 15: McDonald's

April 15
- Middle East Treaty Organization (METO).^{[citation needed]}
- Ray Kroc opens his first McDonald's in Des Plaines, Illinois.
April 16 – 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 has not existed for a long time.
April 17 – Imre Nagy, the communist Premier of Hungary, is ousted for being too moderate.
April 18–April 24 – Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia.

May[edit]

May 1 – Warsaw Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance signed (Warsaw Treaty Organization) (effective June 6).
May 5 – West Germany becomes a sovereign country recognized by important Western foreign countries, such as France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
May 6 – Western European Union charter effective.
May 7 – The last time Newcastle United won a domestic title.
May 9 – West Germany joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
May 11 – Japanese National Railways' ferry Shiun Maru sinks after collision with sister ship Uko Maru in thick fog off Takamatsu, Shikoku, in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan; 166 passengers (many children) and two crew are killed. This event is influential in plans to construct the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge (built 1986-98).
May 12– New York's Third Avenue Elevated runs its last train between Chathem Square in Manhattan and East 149th Street in the Bronx, thus ending elevated train service in Manhattan.
May 14 – Eight Communist Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defence treaty in Warsaw, Poland, that is called the Warsaw Pact. It will be dissolved in 1991.
May 15 – 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 it up as a neutral country.
May 25 – Joe Brown and George Band are the first to attain the summit of Kangchenjunga in the Himalayas, as part of a British team led by Charles Evans.

June[edit]

June 7 – The television quiz program The $64,000 Question premieres on CBS-TV in the United States, with Hal March as the host.
June 11 – Le Mans disaster: Eighty-three people are killed and at least 100 are injured after two race cars collide in the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans.
June 13 – 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.
June 26 – Freedom Charter of the anti-apartheid South African Congress Alliance adopted at a Congress of the People in Kliptown.

July[edit]

July 7 – The New Zealand Special Air Service is formed.
July 13 – Ruth Ellis is hanged for murder in London, becoming the last woman ever to be executed in the United Kingdom.
July 17
- The American Broadcasting Company broadcasts a sneak preview of Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
- Disneyland opens to the public 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 23.
July 27 – El Al Flight 402 from Vienna, Austria to Tel Aviv 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, leading to foundation of the Union Mundial pro Interlingua.

August[edit]

August 19: Hurricane Diane

August 18
- The First Sudanese Civil War begins.
- First meeting of the Organization of Central American States (Organización de Estados Centroamericanos, ODECA), in Antigua Guatemala.
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 26 – Release in India of Satyajit Ray's film Pather Panchali.
August 27 – First edition of the Guinness Book of Records is published, in London.

September[edit]

September 18: Britain annexes Rockall

September 2 – Under the guidance of Dr. Humphry Osmond, Christopher Mayhew ingests 400 mg of mescaline hydrochloride and allows himself to be filmed as part of a Panorama special for BBC TV in the U.K. that is never broadcast.
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 14 – Pope Pius XII elevates many of the Apostolic vicariates in Africa to Metropolitan Archdioceses
September 15 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in Paris by Olympia Press.
September 18 – The United Kingdom formally annexes the uninhabited island of Rockall.
September 19–September 21 – The President of Argentina, Juan Perón, 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 24 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States suffers a coronary thrombosis while on vacation in Denver, Colorado. Vice President Nixon serves as Acting President while Eisenhower recovers.

October[edit]

October 2 – Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuts on the CBS TV network in the United States.
October 3 – The Mickey Mouse Club 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.
October 5 – Disneyland Hotel opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
October 11 – 70-mm film for projection is introduced with the theatrical release of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical film, Oklahoma!.
October 14 – Organization of Central American States secretariat inaugurated.
October 20 – Disc jockey Bill Randle of WERE (Cleveland) is the key presenter of a concert at Brooklyn High School (Ohio), featuring Pat Boone and Bill Haley & His Comets and opening with Elvis Presley, Elvis's first filmed performance, for a documentary on Randle titled The Pied Piper of Cleveland.
October 26
- After the last Allied troops have left Austria and following the provisions of the Austrian Independence Treaty, the country declares its permanent neutrality.
- Ngô Đình Diệm proclaims Vietnam to be a republic with himself as its President (following the State of Vietnam referendum on October 23) and forms the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.
October 27 – Film Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean, is released in the United States.
October 29 – Soviet battleship Novorossiysk explodes at moorings in Sevastopol Bay, killing 608, the Soviet Union's worst naval disaster.

November[edit]

October 26: Austria free

November 1
- The Vietnam War begins between the South Vietnam Army and the North Vietnam Army in which the latter is allied with the Viet Cong.
- 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 Rimutaka Tunnel opens on the New Zealand Railways, at 5.46 mi (8.79 km) the longest in the Southern Hemisphere at this time.
November 5 – Racial segregation is outlawed on trains and buses in interstate commerce in the United States.
November 19 – C. Northcote Parkinson first propounds 'Parkinson's law', in The Economist.
November 20 – Bo Diddley makes his television debut on Ed Sullivan's Toast Of The Town show for the CBS-TV network.
November 23 – The Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean are transferred from British to Australian control.
November 26 – The British Governor of Cyprus declares a state of emergency on the island.

December[edit]

December 1 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger and is arrested, leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

December 14: Tappan Zee Bridge opens

December 4 – The International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations was founded in Luxembourg.
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 9 – Adnan Menderes of DP forms the new government of Turkey (22nd government)
December 14
- The Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River in New York State 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 simultaneously, after several years of moratorium on admitting new members that began during the Korean War.
December 20 – Cardiff is declared by the British Government as the capital of Wales.
December 22 – American cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes, forty-six.
December 31 – General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make a profit of over one billion dollars in one year.

Date unknown[edit]

The Strömsund Bridge in Sweden is completed, being the first significant cable-stayed bridge of the modern era.^[1]

World population[edit]

World population: 2,755,823,000
- Africa: 246,746,000
- Asia: 1,541,947,000
- Europe: 575,184,000
- South America: 190,797,000
- North America: 186,884,000
- Oceania: 14,265,000