1956

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

Years: 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 - 1956 - 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961

Events

• January 1 - End of Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in Sudan.
• January 16 - President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt vows to reconquer Palestine
• January 26 - 1956 Winter Olympic Games open in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
• February 22 - Elvis Presley enters the music charts for the first time, with "Heartbreak Hotel".
• February 23 - Nikita Khrushchev attacks the veneration of Joseph Stalin as a "cult of personality"
• March 2 - Morocco declares its independence from France
• March 15 - The Broadway musical My Fair Lady opens in New York City.
• March 20 - Tunisia gains independence from France
• March 23 - Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic.
• April 7 - Spain relinquishes its protectorate in Morocco.
• May 9 - First ascent of Manaslu, eighth highest mountain in the world.
• May 18 - First ascent of Lhotse (main), fourth highest mountain
• May 21 - Nuclear testing: In the Pacific Ocean, Bikini Atoll is nearly obliterated by the first airborne explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
• July 8 - First ascent of Gasherbrum II
• 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 - 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria sinks after colliding with the 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 United States Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing "In God We Trust" as the U.S. national motto.
• October 23 - Hungarian revolution against the communist government. Soviet Union intervenes. Hungary attempts to leave the Warsaw Pact.
• 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 31 - Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.
• November 4 - 1956 Hungarian Revolution: 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 7 - Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France and Israel to withdraw their troops from Egypt immediately.
• December 12 : Japan becomes member of the UN

• Summer Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia
• Eindhoven University of Technology founded in Eindhoven, The Netherlands
• First hard disk (5MB) invented by IBM.

Year in topic

• 1956 in art
• 1956 in film
  • Around the World in Eighty Days
  • The King and I
  • The Ten Commandments
  • Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much starring Jimmy Stewart
  • The Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• 1956 in literature
• 1956 in music
  • First ever Eurovision Song Contest - May 24
• 1956 in sports
• 1956 in television
  • April - WNBQ Chicago becomes the first TV station to broadcast all its local programming in color.
  • April Ampex demonstrates a videotape recorder at the NAB Convention in Chicago. The three networks place orders for the recorders.
  • August 8 - Final telecast of the DuMont network
  • October 1 - Ernie Kovacs becomes the host for NBC's Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays.
  • October 29 - First use of videotape in network television programming; CBS uses its Ampex VTR to record the evening news, anchored by Douglas Edwards. The tape is then fed to West Coast stations three hours later
  • October 29 - Chet Huntley and David Brinkley take over anchor duties of the NBC evening newscast, which is renamed The Huntley-Brinkley Report
  • November - The first use of videotape on a network television entertainment program; Jonathan Winters, uses videotape and superimposing techniques to be able to play two characters in the same skit for his NBC television show
  • The Price is Right game show premieres
  • Black-and-white portable TV sets hit the market

Births

• January 3 - Mel Gibson, actor and director
• January 7 - David Caruso, actor
• January 10 - Shawn Colvin, singer
• January 17 - Paul Young, English musician
• January 20 - Bill Maher, actor, comedian, political analyst
• January 21 - Geena Davis, actress
• January 27 - Mimi Rogers, actress
• January 31 - Johnny Rotten, musician (The "Sex Pistols")
• February 3 - Nathan Lane, actor
• February 11 - Kathleen Beller, actress.
• February 13 - Vicky J. Hedstrand, vickster
• February 24 - Paula Zahn, television journalist
• March 2 - Mark Evans, bassist of AC/DC
• March 13 - Dana Delany, actress
• March 17 - Patrick McDonnell, creator of syndicated cartoon strip "Mutts"
• March 29 - Kurt Thomas, gymnast
• April 3 - Ray Combs, game show host, comedian (d. 1996)
• April 4 - David E. Kelley, writer, television producer
• April 26 - Koo Stark, actress
• May 7 - Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
• May 17 - Sugar Ray Leonard, boxer
• May 17 - Bob Saget, actor
• May 19 - James Gosling, the "father" of Java programming language
• May 21 - Judge Reinhold, actor
• June 6 - Björn Borg, tennis great
• June 9 - Patricia Daniels (later Patricia Cornwell), American crime novelist.
• June 23 - Glenn Danzig, rock and roll preformer of Danzig
• July 9 - Tom Hanks, actor
• July 16 - Tony Kushner, playwright
• August 22 - Paul Molitor, Baseball Hall of Famer
• September 14 - Costas Caramanlis, Greek politician
• September 26 - Linda Hamilton, actress
• October 11 - Nicanor Duarte Frutos, President of Paraguay
• December 5 - Krystian Zimerman, pianist
• December 7 - Larry Bird, Basketball Hall of Famer

Deaths

• January 5 - Mistinguett, French cabaret singer
• January 31 - A. A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh
• February 8 - Connie Mack, baseball executive, coach
• March 17 - Irene Joliot-Curie, scientist
• May 12 - Louis Calhern, silent film actor
• May 17 - Austin Osman Spare, magician
• May 20 - Max Beerbohm, theater critic
• May 31 - Diedrich Hermann Westermann, German inguist
• August 23 - Peaches Browning, American actress
• September 27 - Babe Didrikson Zaharias, American athlete and golfer
• November 24 - Guido Cantelli, conductor
• December 7 - Huntley Gordon, pioneer Hollywood actor
• December 16 - Nina Hamnett, artist

Awards/Prizes

Nobel Prizes:

• Physics - William Bradford Shockley, John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain
• Chemistry - Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov
• Medicine - André Frédéric Cournand, Werner Forssmann, Dickinson W Richards
• Literature - Juan Ramón Jiménez
• Peace - not awarded

Referenced By