1955

Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Years: 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 - 1955 - 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960

Events

• January 2 - Panama president Jose Antonio Remon is assassinated.
• January 19 - The Scrabble board game debuts.
• February 13 - Israel obtains 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.
• February 23 - First meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)
• March 2 - King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicates the throne in favor of his father, King Norodom Suramarit
• March 25 - United States Customs seizes Allen Ginsberg's Howl as obscene
• April 5 - Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom amid indications of failing heath.
• May 9 - Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.
• May 14 - Cold War: Eight communist bloc countries including the Soviet Union sign a mutual-defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.
• May 15 - First ascent of Makalu, fifth highest mountain
• May 25 - First ascent of Kanchenjunga, 3rd highest mountain
• June 20 - Very long (7min 08sec) total solar eclipse visible in Southeast Asia. During the entire Second Millennium, only seven total solar eclipses exceeded seven minutes of totality. This was the next to last.
• July 17 - Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California.
• July 27 - The Allied occupation of Austria stemming from World War II, ends (started on May 9, 1945).
• August 19 - In the Northeast United States, severe flooding caused by Hurricane Diane, claims 200 lives.
• August 20 - In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria, raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.
• October 2 - The ENIAC computer is deactivated.
• October 26 - Austrian independence is declared again forming the Second Republic with the declaration of everlasting neutrality and the state constitution.
• October 29 - The Soviet battleship Novorossiisk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol.
• November 5 - This is the date Marty McFly arrived in 1955 in the film Back to the Future..
• November 12 - A key date in the Back to the Future trilogy. In the first film, a lightning bolt struck the clocktower at 10.04pm, stopping the clock and sending Marty back to 1985. In Part II, marty and Doc Brown return to this date to stop Biff Tannen from getting an almanac predicting the future.
• November 23 - The Cocos Islands are transferred from United Kingdom to Australian control.
• November 24 - Fokker F27 first flight.
• December 1 - American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws (Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr. later led the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott as a result).
• December 31 - General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make sales of over one billion dollars in a year.

• Dick Bruna draws Miffy for the first time.
• Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of Britain for the second time.
• Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights organizations, is founded in the City of New York.
• Maurice Wilkes publishes a description of microprogramming in IEEE Spectrum.

Year in topic

• 1955 in film
  • Marty
  • Love is a Many-Splendored Thing
• 1955 in literature
• 1955 in music
• 1955 in sports
• 1955 in television
  • April 1 - The DuMont Television network drastically cuts back its programming
  • September 28 - The First World Series game broadcast in color
  • The Honeymooners premieres, starring Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Audrey Meadows
  • Lawrence Welk Show debuts (1955-1982)
  • The Mickey Mouse Club debuts, featuring "Mouseketeer" Annette Funicello. (1955-1959)

Births

• January 6 - Rowan Atkinson, comedian, actor
• January 12 - Kirstie Alley, actress
• January 12 - Rockne O'Bannon, writer, producer
• January 13 - Jay McInerney, writer
• January 17 - Steve Earle, musician
• January 18 - Kevin Costner, actor
• January 19 - Simon Rattle, conductor
• January 26 - Eddie Van Halen, musician
• February 8 - John Grisham, novelist
• February 10 - Greg Norman, golfer
• February 11 - Michael Ellison, chemistry teacher
• February 12 - Arsenio Hall, actor, talk show host
• February 19 - Jeff Daniels, actor
• February 23 - Howard Jones, musician
• February 24 - Alain Prost, Formula One driver
• February 24 - Steve Jobs, computer pioneer
• March 5 - Penn Jillette, magician, comedian
• March 15 - Dee Snider, singer
• March 16 - Jiro Watanabe, Japanese boxing world champion
• March 17 - Gary Sinise, actor
• March 19 - Bruce Willis, actor
• March 28 - Reba McEntire, country music singer, actress
• March 29 - Earl Campbell, American football star
• April 1 - Ronnie Burk, surrealist and AIDS activist
• April 16 - Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg
• April 23 - Tony Miles, chess player
• May 3 - David Hookes, cricketer (d. 2004)
• May 10 - Mark David Chapman, assassin
• May 16 - Debra Winger, actress
• May 16 - Olga Korbut, gymnast
• May 17 - Bill Paxton, actor
• May 18 - Chow Yun-Fat, actor
• May 20 - Zbigniew Preisner, film composer
• May 26 - Doris Dörrie, actor and screenplay writer
• June 27 - Isabelle Adjani, actress
• August 4 - Billy Bob Thornton, actor
• September 10 - Pat Mastelotto, musician
• October 7 - Yo-Yo Ma, cellist
• October 17 - Mae Jemison, astronaut
• October 26 - Mark Welch, inventor
• October 28 - Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft
• November 4 - Matti Vanhanen, prime minister of Finland
• November 23 - Steven Brust, fantasy author
• November 24 - Ian Botham, English cricketer
• December 10 - Warren Gaebel, systems analyst
• Tor Norretranders, science author

Deaths

• March 11 - Sir Alexander Fleming, British discoverer of penicillin.
• March 12 - Charlie Parker, jazz saxophonist
• April 7 - Theda Bara, silent film actress
• April 18 - Albert Einstein, scientist.
• May 10 - Tommy Burns, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion
• May 26 - Alberto Ascari, Italian F1 race car driver
• August 5 - Carmen Miranda, singer, actress
• October 1 - Charles Christie, pioneer film studio owner in Hollywood
• November 4 - Cy Young, American baseball player
• November 5 - Maurice Utrillo, a "Montmartre" artist
• November 12 - Alfréd Hajós, Hungarian swimmer
• November 27 - Arthur Honegger, composer
• December 6 - Honus Wagner, Baseball Hall of Fame inductee

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Willis Eugene Lamb, - Polykarp Kusch
• Chemistry - Vincent du Vigneaud
• Medicine- Axel Hugo Theodor Theorell
• Literature - Halldór Kiljan Laxness
• Peace - not awarded

Referenced By