Timeline 1955
Return to home
1955 Jan 2, Jose
Antonio Remon, president of Panama (1952-55), was assassinated.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1955 Jan 3, Melody Anderson,
actress, was born.: Marilyn & Bobby: Her Final Affair, Landslide,
Hitler’s Daughter, Final Notice, Speed Zone, Firewalker, Beverly Hills
Madam, Policewoman Centerfold, Dead and Buried, Flash Gordon, Manimal.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1955 Jan 3, At the top of the
record charts:
Mr. Sandman by The Chordettes.
Let Me Go, Lover by
Joan Weber.
The Naughty Lady of
Shady Lane by The Ames Brothers.
More and More by Webb
Pierce.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1955 Jan 7, Singer Marian Anderson
made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Verdi's "Un
Ballo in Maschera." She was the first black singer to perform there.
(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A14)(AP, 1/7/98)(HN, 1/7/99)
1955 Jan 6, The SF Mint announced
that it would cease coin production before June 30, but continue as the
nation’s largest refiner of gold and silver and as an assay office and
repository.
(SFC, 1/7/05, p.F6)
1955 Jan 7, The opening of the
Canadian Parliament in Ottawa was televised for the first time.
(AP, 1/7/05)
1955 Jan 13, Chase National and
the Bank of Manhattan agreed to merge resulting in the second largest
U.S. bank.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1955 Jan 17, The nuclear powered
USS Nautilus submarine was launched for its 1st shakedown cruise to
Puerto Rico. [see Jan 21, 1954]
(SFC, 4/30/01, p.A17)
1955 Jan 18, Kevin Costner, actor
(Dances With Wolves), was born in LA, Calif.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1955 Jan 19, Sir Simon Rattle,
orchestra conductor (Berlin Philharmonic), was born in England.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1955 Jan 19, A presidential news
conference was filmed for television for the first time, with
permission from President Eisenhower.
(AP, 1/19/98)
1955 Jan 19, "Scrabble" debuted in
the board game market.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1955 Jan 20, Joe Doherty, IRA
activist (jailed in US), was born in Ireland.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1955 Jan 25, Columbia University
scientists developed an atomic clock that was accurate to within one
second in 300 years.
(HN, 1/25/99)
1955 Jan 28, The U.S. Congress
passed a bill allowing mobilization of troops if China should attack
Taiwan.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1955 Jan 31, A document thus dated
stated that Yuri Rastvorov, a Soviet defector, told Eisenhower
administration officials in a private Jan 28 meeting that US and other
UN POWs were held in Siberia during the 1950-1953 Korean War.
(SFEC, 5/5/96, World p.1)
1955 Jan 31, RCA chairman David
Sarnoff announced the Mark I music synthesizer. Harry Olson and
Belar, both working for RCA, invented the Electronic Music Synthesizer
(aka the Olson-Belar Sound Synthesizer). This synth used sawtooth waves
that were filtered for other types of timbres. (It is rumored to have
been built for the artificial creation of human speech) This synth
became the RCA Electronic Music Synthesizer Mark I.
(www.davidsarnoff.org/04142005.htm)(www.synthmuseum.com/rca/)
1955 Feb 1, Top hits included:
Melody of Love, Billy Vaughn/The Four Aces/David Carroll; Hearts of
Stone, The Fontane Sisters; Earth Angel, Penguins/Crew-Cuts; Open Up
Your Heart (and Let the Sun Shine In), Cowboy Church Sunday School.
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1955 Feb 8, John Grisham, writer
(Client, Firm, Pelican Brief), was born.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1955 Feb 8, Malenkov resigned as
USSR premier. Bulganin replaced him.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1955 Feb 9, US federations of
trade unions agreed to merge into the AFL-CIO: The American Federation
of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
(AH, 2/05, p.17)(SFC, 2/4/05, p.F9)
1955 Feb 10, Bell Aircraft
displayed a fixed-wing vertical takeoff plane. An ingenious blend of
airplane and helicopter features, the Fairey Rotodyne was a case of
almost—but not quite enough.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1955 Feb 12, The McGuire Sisters'
"Sincerely" single went to #1 for 10 weeks.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1955 Feb 12, President Eisenhower
sent 1st US "advisors" to South Vietnam to aid the government under Ngo
Dinh Diem.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)(MC, 2/12/02)
1955 Feb 13, Israel acquired 4 of
7 Dead Sea scrolls. Israel already had 3 scrolls, acquired in 1947. The
4 scrolls were purchased from a Christian clergyman, a Syrian Orthodox
archbishop. The price, according to the New York Times, was an
estimated $300,000.
(NYT, 2/14/55, p.21)
1955 Feb 14, A Jewish couple lost
their fight to adopt Catholic twins as the U.S. Supreme Court refused
to rule on state law.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1955 Feb 15, The 1st pilot plant
to produce man-made diamonds announced.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1955 Feb 17, Britain announced its
ability to make hydrogen bombs.
(HN, 2/17/98)
1955 Feb 20, Kelsey Grammer, actor
(Fraiser), was born in the Virgin Islands.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1955 Feb 23, Eight nations (the
United States, Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, the
Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand) met in Bangkok for the first SEATO
council.
(HN, 2/23/98)(HN, 9/8/98)
1955 Feb 24, Steven Jobs,
co-founder (Apple Computer), was born.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1955 Feb 24, The Cole Porter
musical "Silk Stockings" opened at the Imperial Theater on Broadway for
461 performances.
(AP, 2/24/99)(MC, 2/24/02)
1955 Feb 24, Ike Eisenhower met
with newspaper publisher Roy Howard and expressed his resistance under
pressure to commit American troops to Vietnam. The conversation was
recorded on a dictabelt machine that Eisenhower had secretly installed
in the president’s office.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, p.A14)
1955 Feb 26, "Peter Pan" closed at
Winter Garden Theater in NYC after 149 performances.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1955 Feb 26, G.F. Smith became the
1st aviator to bail out at supersonic speed.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1955 Mar 1, The SF Chronicle
reported that a Univ. of California survey found that Americans spend
more money on comic books that all the country’s elementary schools and
high schools spend on textbooks.
(SFC, 2/25/05, p.F4)
1955 Mar 1, Israeli assault on
Gaza killed 48.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1955 Mar 2, The William Inge play
"Bus Stop" opened at the Music Box Theatre in New York.
(AP, 3/2/02)
1955 Mar 2, Claudette Colvin
refuses to give up her seat in Montgomery, Alabama, nine months before
Rosa Parks' famous arrest for the same offense.
(HN, 3/2/00)
1955 Mar 2, King Norodom Sihanouk
of Cambodia put his father on the throne and assumed the position of
prime minister.
(SC, 3/2/02)(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A8)
1955 Mar 4, 1st radio facsimile
transmission (fax) was sent across the continent.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1955 Mar 5, A truck driver from
Tupelo, Miss., made his first-ever TV appearance on this night. Elvis
Aron Presley was featured on "Louisiana Hayride". This prompted
promoters to send Elvis to New York City to audition for Arthur
Godfrey's immensely popular and career-making "Talent Scouts" program.
Talent coordinators and Godfrey are said to have passed on Elvis
appearing on the show. Not much later, he was tossed out of the Grand
Ole Opry as well, and told to "go back to driving a truck." In a little
over a year, however, the nation was caught up in Presley-mania which
continues even today.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt1087605/)(www.scottymoore.net/tourdates50s.html)
1955 Mar 6, A US Atomic Energy
Spokesman said a cloud from the atomic blast at Nevada’s Yucca Flat
passed over the Central California coastline.
(SFC, 3/4/05, p.F3)
1955 Mar 7, Baseball Commissioner
Ford Frick said he favors legalization of spitter.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1955 Mar 7, Mary Martin as "Peter
Pan" was televised.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1955 Mar 11, Alexander Fleming
(73), English bacteriologist (penicillin), died.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1955 Mar 15, The U.S. Air Force
unveiled a self-guided missile.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1955 Mar 16, President Eisenhower
upheld the use of atomic weapons in case of war.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1955 Mar 18, USF Dons won the NCAA
basketball championship over LaSalle 77-63. Center Bill Russell scored
23 and set a 5-game tournament record of 118 points.
(SFC, 3/18/05, p.F6)
1955 Mar 20, Count Mihaly Karolyi
(b.1875), a nationalist who helped form modern Hungary’s 1st government
(1918), died.
(Sm, 3/06,
p.79)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9044761)
1955 Mar 21, Walter White
(b.1893), African American leader, died. As executive secretary
(1931-1955) he built the NAACP into America’s most influential civil
rights organization. In 2008 Thomas Dyja authored “Walter White: The
Dilemma of Black Identity in America.”
(WSJ, 10/18/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Francis_White)
1955 Mar 21, Archbishop Makarios
of Cyprus desired Cyprus joining Greece.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1955 Mar 22, Linda Stout became
the first person at Mayo Clinic, and the second person in the world, to
have open-heart surgery with the aid of a heart-lung bypass machine.
(www.mayoclinic.org/history/)
1955 Mar 24, The Tennessee
Williams play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" opened on Broadway with Barbara
Bel Geddes as Maggie, Ben Gazzara as Brick and Burl Ives as Big Daddy.
Paul Newman won Gazzara’s role for the 1958 film.
(AP, 3/23/97)(SSFC, 1/23/05, Par p.2)
1955 Mar 24, The 1st seagoing oil
drill rig was placed in service.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1955 Mar 24, British Army patrols
withdrew from Belfast after 20 years.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1955 Mar 25, E. Germany was
granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1955 Mar 26, "Ballad of Davy
Crockett" by Fess Parker became the #1 record in US.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1955 Mar 27, Steve McQueen made
his network TV debut on the Goodyear Playhouse.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1955 Mar 28, John Marshall Harlan
was sworn in to the U.S. Supreme Court. [2nd source says the
appointment was in 1957]
(HN, 3/28/98)(WSJ, 6/11/99, p.A8)
1955 Mar 31, US Assay Office in
Seattle, Washington, closed.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1955 Mar 31, Chase National (3rd
largest bank) and Bank of the Manhattan Company (15th largest bank)
merged to form Chase Manhattan.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1955
Apr 1, "One Man’s Family" was seen on TV for the final time after
a six-years on NBC-TV.
(OTD)
1955 Apr 1, EOKA-bomb attacks took
place against British government buildings in Cyprus.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1955 Apr 3, In Guadalajara,
Mexico, a night train plunged into a canyon and some 300 people were
killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1955 Apr 5, Richard J. Daley was
elected mayor of Chicago. He served 6 terms until his death in 1976.
(www.chipublib.org/004chicago/mayors/daley1.html)(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey
p.14)
1955 Apr 5, Winston Churchill
resigned as British prime minister. He was replaced by Anthony Eden who
served to 1957. Eden's biography by Sir Robert Rhodes James (d.1999 at
66) was published in 1987.
(HN, 5/5/97)(SFC, 5/25/99, p.Be)
1955 Apr 7, Theda Bara (Theodosia
Goodman), silent screen sex symbol, died. Her films included "A Fool
There Was" and "Kathleen Mavoureen."
(HNPD, 7/24/98)(WUD, 1994 p.118)
1955 Apr 8, Barbara Kingsolver,
novelist (The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams), was born.
(HN, 4/8/01)
1955 Apr 11, Just before the
Bandung conference, an apparent attempt to kill China's then-Premier
Zhou Enlai resulted in the deadly crash of a chartered Air India plane.
Declassified Chinese documents have suggested that Taiwanese agents
placed the bomb in the mistaken belief that Zhou was on board. The
device detonated as the Lockheed Constellation, named Kashmiri
Princess, was descending north of Jakarta. It caused a fire that forced
the pilots to ditch the airliner. The co-pilot, flight engineer and
navigator managed to swim to safety, but 16 other passengers and crew
members drowned. They included six journalists and Air India's chief
pilot, Capt. D.K. Jatar.
(AP,
4/24/05)(www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=236591)
1955 Apr 12, The Salk Vaccine was
declared safe and effective. Salk vaccine shots for polio began to be
given out to school kids. The March of Dimes accomplished its mission
within 20 years. Research led by Dr. Jonas Salk and supported by funds
(those marching little dimes) raised annually by thousands of
volunteers, resulted in the announcement that the Salk polio vaccine
was "safe, potent and effective." The foundation also supported the
research that led to the Sabin oral vaccine, another safe, effective
polio preventative discovered by Dr. Albert B. Sabin. Following the
victory over infantile paralysis, the March of Dimes turned its
attention to conquering the largest killer and crippler of children:
the mental and physical problems that are present at birth. Some 100
million people were given the vaccine during the 1950s and 1960s which
was later found to be contaminated with the SV40 simian virus, a
possible carcinogen.
(AP, 4/12/97)(440 Int'l, 1/3/99)(SSFC, 7/15/01,
p.A16,17)
1955 Apr 15, Ray Kroc acquired the
McDonald’s chain of fast food restaurants. He was a food service
equipment salesman who owned the national marketing rights to the
milk-shake mixers used at the chain. He purchased the chain from
Richard (d.1998 at 89) and Maurice McDonald (d.1971) who started the
operation in California in 1948. Kroc built his first restaurant in Des
Plains, Illinois, and later established his world headquarters and a
company museum there.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)(HN, 4/15/98)(SFC, 7/15/98,
p.A20)
1955 Apr 16, Abdullah Seif
el-Islam, brother of Yemenite king Ahmed, was beheaded.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1955 Apr 17, The Bandung
Conference opened in the Javanese city of Bandung and continued to
April 25. This int’l. meeting founded the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
The 1st forum of 29 Asian and African nations was marked by superpower
hostility. The aim of the conference was to oppose the Western and
Soviet blocs and stay neutral.
(WSJ, 7/24/01, p.B4)(AP,
4/24/05)(http://tinyurl.com/buaol)
1955 Apr 18, Albert Einstein (76),
physicist, died in Princeton New Jersey. Dr. Thomas Harvey, chief
pathologist at Princeton Hospital, performed Albert Einstein’s autopsy.
He removed the brain and took it home. In 2000 Michael Paterniti
authored "Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s
Brain." In 1999 it was reported that Einstein’s inferior parietal lobe
was larger than normal. In 2000 Amir D. Aczel published "God's
Equation: Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe." [see Apr
15] In 1983 Abraham Pais (d.2000 at 81) authored "Subtle Is the Lord:
The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein." In 2000 Dennis Overbye
authored "Einstein In Love," on Einstein’s 1st marriage with Mileva
Maric. In 2002 Fred Jerome authored "The Einstein File: J. Edgar
Hoover’s Secret War Against the World’s Most Famous Scientist." In 2007
Walter Isaacson authored “Einstein: His Life and Universe;” Jurgen
Neffe authored “Einstein: A Biography;” and Jozsef Illy edited “Albert
Meets America,” a chronicle of Einstein’s first visit to the US (1921)
on a fundraising tour with Zionist leader Chaim Weizman.
(AP, 4/18/97)(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A18)(SFEC, 1/9/00, BR
p.4)(SFC, 8/1/00, p.B2)(WSJ, 10/20/00, p.W10)(SSFC, 3/18/01, BR
p.6)(SFC, 9/15/02, p.M5)(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.B3)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M6)
1955 Apr 21, The Jerome
Lawrence-Robert Lee play "Inherit the Wind," loosely based on the
Scopes trial of 1925, opened at the National Theatre in New York.
(AP, 4/21/99)
1955 Apr 22, Congress ordered all
U.S. coins to bear motto "In God We Trust".
(HN, 4/22/98)
1955 Apr 23, "Kismet" closed at
Ziegfeld Theater NYC after 583 performances.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1955 Apr 25, The 1st cases of
polio in children who received a vaccine were reported. It was later
found that 2 batches of vaccine made by Cutter Laboratories of
Berkeley, Ca., contained live polio virus.
(SFC, 4/25/05, p.A1)
1955 Apr 26, Popular music of the
day included: "Melody of Love" by Billy Vaughn; "Cherry Pink and Apple
Blossom White" by Perez Prado; and "In the Jailhouse Now" by Webb
Pierce. Jailhouse stayed at No. 1 for 21 weeks. Cherry Pink, sung by
Alan Dale (d.2002 at 73), stayed on the charts for 30 weeks.
(440 Int’l. Internet, 4/26/97, p.1)(SFC, 4/25/02,
p.A24)(SFC, 11/27/03, p.A24)
1955 Apr 27, The US government
suspended the use of all Salk vaccine manufactured by Cutter
Laboratories in Berkeley, Ca., pending the investigation of 7-14 cases
among children inoculated with the company’s vaccine.
(SFC, 4/22/05, p.F3)
1955 Apr 28, Stephanie Bryan (14)
failed to return home from school at Willard Jr. High in Berkeley, Ca.
She was allegedly kidnapped by Burton Abbott, a married accounting
student at Cal. Abbott was convicted and executed at San Quentin in
1957 just minutes before Gov. Knight called for a stay. In 1995 Keith
Walker authored “A Trail of Corn,” covering the case. [see Jul 20]
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.D5)(SSFC, 5/2/04, p.A2)
1955 Apr 30, West German unions
protested for 40-hour work week and more wages.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1955 Apr, Alberto Ascari, champion
race car driver, lost control of his Ferrari in Milan and was killed.
In 2004 Brock Yates authored “Against Death and Time.”
(WSJ, 7/7/04, p.D10)
1955 May 2, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Tennessee Williams for Cat on Hot Tin Roof.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1955 May 4, Georges Enescu (73),
Romanian-French violist, composer (Oedipe), died.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1955 May 5, The baseball musical
"Damn Yankees" opened on Broadway. It was produced by George Abbott and
Douglass Wallop and ran for 1022 performances. Ray Walston played the
devil in the play and the 1958 movie.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, DB p.41)(AP, 5/5/00)(SFC, 10/23/00,
p.F3)
1955 May 5, The US detonated a
29-kiloton nuclear device in Nevada. "Apple 2" was the 2nd of 40 tests
of Operation Cue, meant to study the effects of a nuclear explosion on
a typical American community.
(AH, 6/02, p.72)
1955 May 5, West Germany became a
sovereign state.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1955 May 5, India’s parliament
accepted Hindu divorce.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1955 May 6, West Germany joined
NATO.
(WSJ, 10/8/01, p.A14)(MC, 5/6/02)
1955 May 10, Mark David Chapman,
assassin (John Lennon), was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1955 May 11, Israel attacked Gaza.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1955 May 13, Mickey Mantle hit 3
consecutive HRs of at least 463’.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1955 May 14, Representatives from
eight Communist bloc countries: Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland & Romania, signed the
Warsaw Pact in Poland. Andras Hegedues signed for Hungary.
(AP, 5/14/97)(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B4)(MC, 5/14/02)
1955 May 15, A treaty was signed
in Vienna by the representatives of the four powers and Austria. It
formally reestablished the Austrian republic in its pre-1938 frontiers
as a “sovereign, independent and democratic state.”
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-33385/Austria)
1955 May 16, Rocky Marciano
defeated Don Cocknell in 9 rounds in San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium to
retain his world heavyweight title. This was the 1st international
heavyweight bout in Kezar since 1940.
(SFC, 5/13/05, p.F2)
1955 May 16, Olga Korbut, Olympic
gymnast (2 golds-1972), was born in Grodno, Belorussia.
(HN, 5/16/98)(MC, 5/16/02)
1955 May 16, American author and
critic James Agee died in New York.
(AP, 5/16/01)
1955 May 18, 28.7 cm rain fell at
Lake Maloya, NM, for a state record.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1955 May 18, Queen Juliana opened
the E55 fair in Amsterdam.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1955 May 18, Mary McLeod Bethune
(79), educator & civil rights leader, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1955 May 18, Edwin Scharff (68),
German painter, sculptor (Rossebändiger), died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1955 May 19, In Vietnam Maj. Vo
Bam, a defense supply specialist, was instructed to find a supply route
south. Bam's route became the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
(SFC, 8/18/00, p.D2)
1955 May 20, Argentine parliament
accepted the separation of church & state.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1955 May 21, The first
transcontinental round-trip solo flight was completed.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1955 May 25, Connie Selleca,
actress (Hotel, Captain America II), was born in Bronx, NY.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1955 May 25, Series of 19 twisters
destroyed Udall, KS., and most of Blackwell, OK.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1955 May 26, Khrushchev arrived in
Belgrade.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1955 May 29, Jerry Dengler, singer
(Mason Dixon-Karen Comes Around), was born in Colorado Springs, CO.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1955 May 29, John Hinckley Jr.,
attempted assassin of President Reagan, was born.
(HN, 5/29/98)
1955 May 29, Mike Porcaro, rock
bassist (Toto-Roseanna, Africa), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1955 May 29, Jordan government of
Tewfik Abdul Huda resigned.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1955 May 31, The US Supreme Court
ordered that states must end racial segregation "with all deliberate
speed."
(HN, 5/31/98)
1955 May 31, Great Britain
proclaimed emergency crisis due to railroad strike.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1955 May, Bill Vukovich, 2-time
winner of the Indianapolis 500, was killed while going for his 3rd win.
(WSJ, 7/7/04, p.D10)
1955 Jun 1, "Front Row Center", TV
Anthology; debut on CBS.
(DT, 6/1/97)
1955 Jun 1, "The Sky’s The Limit",
TV Game Show; last aired on NBC. Low ratings were the limit there.
(DT, 6/1/97)
1955 Jun 2, Dana Carvey, comedian
(Sat Night Live-Church Lady, George Bush), was born.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1955 Jun 2, Garry Grimes, actor
(Summer of '42, Class of '44), was born in SF.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1955 Jun 7, Pres. Eisenhower
became the 1st president to appear on color TV.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1955 Jun 7, "The $64,000 Question"
premiered on CBS TV. It was the top ranking network show on television
with a ranking of 47.5%. It featured Art Carney and Jackie Gleason and
was in part created by Joseph Cates (d.1998 at 74).
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)(SFC, 10/13/98, p.A22)(SC,
6/7/02)
1955 Jun 11, The 1st jet magnesium
airplane was flown.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1955 Jun 11, In Le Mans,
France, a Mercedes-Benz racer crashed killing its driver and some 81
spectators. Pierre Levegh’s car hit the bank by the grandstand and
immediately exploded. Parts of the wreckage were blown into the
enclosure, killing scores of mostly-French spectators. Levegh was
speeding down the straightaway in front of the pits when he clipped an
Austin-Healey driven by British driver Lance Macklin.
(WSJ, 7/7/04, p.D10)(http://tinyurl.com/69g9e)
1955 Jun 16, The U.S. House of
Representatives voted to extend Selective Service until 1959.
(HN, 6/16/98)
1955 Jun 16, Pope Pius XII
excommunicated Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron. The ban was
lifted eight years later.
(AP, 6/16/98)
1955 Jun 20, Michael Anthony,
(bassist for Van Halen), was born.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1955 Jun 20, The 10th
commemorative session of the UN opened in SF with delegates from 60
nations. Pres. Eisenhower pledged a US policy of “peaceful and
reasonable negotiations” with all other powers.
(SFC, 6/17/05, p.F3)
1955 Jun 20, The AFL and CIO
agreed to combine names for a merged group.
(HN, 6/20/98)
1955 Jun 21, The David Lean movie
"Summertime" starring Katharine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi had its
world premiere in New York.
(AP, 6/21/05)
1955 Jun 23, Walt Disney's "Lady
and the Tramp," the first animated feature filmed in CinemaScope,
opened in theaters.
(AP, 6/23/99)
1955 Jun 24, Soviet MIG’s down a
lightly armed US Navy patrol plane over the Bering Strait. Russia’s
foreign minister V.M. Molotov expressed his country’s regrets the next
day.
(HN, 6/24/98)(SFC, 6/24/05, p.F7)
1955 Jun 25, "Can Can" closed at
Shubert Theater NYC after 892 performances.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1955 Jun 27, Isabelle Adjani,
actress (Story of Adele H, Driver, Ishtar), was born in Paris.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1955 Jun 27, 1st automobile seat
belt legislation was enacted in Illinois.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1955 Jun 29, The Soviet Union sent
tanks to Pozan, Poland, to put down anti-Communist demonstrations.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1955 Jun 30, The "Johnny Carson
Show," debuted on CBS-TV.
(SFC, 1/24/05, p.A8)
1955 Jun 30, The U.S. began
funding West Germany’s rearmament.
(HN, 6/30/98)
1955 Jun, The Detroit centered 12
O’Clock Comics with Soupy Sales went national on the ABC network for
8-weeks.
(DFP, 7/28/96, p.F8)
1955 June, Gordon Wasson, a
vice-president of J.P. Morgan, traveled to Mexico and became one of the
first outsiders to eat the hallucinogenic psilocybin mushroom.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.78)
1955 Jul 2, "The Lawrence Welk
Show" premiered on ABC television.
(AP, 7/2/98)
1955 Jul
5, By this day, a day before Bill Haley’s 30th birthday, "Rock Around
the Clock" topped the US billboards chart and stayed there for 8 weeks.
The film “Blackboard Jungle,” released in March, helped propel it to
the top.
(www.rockabillyhall.com/RockClockTribute.html)
1955 Jul 9, Jimmy Smits, actor
(Victor-LA Law, Running Scared, NYPD Blue), was born in Brooklyn.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1955 Jul 9, Scientists in London
issued a manifesto declaring that researchers must take responsibility
for their creations, such as the atomic bomb. Bertrand Russel, British
pacifist philosopher, drafted the manifesto, which served as the
philosophical origin for the 1997 Pugwash Conference (Nova Scotia)
against nuclear arms. It was signed by ten other scientists that
included as Joseph Rotblat (1995 Nobel Peace Prize), Albert Einstein,
Linus Pauling and Frederic Joliot-Curie.
(WSJ, 10/16/95, p. A-15)
1955 Jul 11, The Air Force Academy
was dedicated at its temporary quarters, Lowry Air Force Base in
Colorado.
(AP, 7/11/05)
1955 Jul 13, Ruth Ellis, last
English woman (murderess), was executed by hanging. Ten days before she
had shot her husband, Ellis suffered a miscarriage after Blakely, the
baby's father, punched her in the stomach
(MC, 7/13/02)(AP, 9/16/03)
1955 Jul 17, Walt Disney’s
Disneyland opened to the public in Anaheim, Calif.
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.F3)(AP, 7/17/08)
1955 Jul 18, A summit opened in
Geneva, Switzerland, attended by Pres. Eisenhower, Soviet Premier
Nikolai Bulganin, British PM Anthony Eden and French Premier Edgar
Faure.
(AP, 7/18/05)
1955 Jul 18, 1st electric power
generated from atomic energy was sold commercially.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1955 Jul 20, The body of Stephanie
Bryan was found in Trinity County, Ca., where Burton Abbott owned a
fishing cabin. Burton W. "Bud" Abbott, an ex-GI, was later convicted
and executed for her murder. The story is covered in the 1997 book:
"Shallow Grave in Trinity County" by Harry Farrell. [see Apr 28]
(SFC, 12/2/97, p.D5)(SFEC,12/28/97, p.D5)
1955 Jul 21, During the Geneva
summit, President Eisenhower presented his "open skies" proposal under
which the United States and the Soviet Union would trade information on
each other's military facilities and allow aerial reconnaissance.
(AP, 7/21/07)
1955 Jul 21, First sub powered by
liquid metal cooled reactor launched - Seawolf.
(OGA, 11/24/98)
1955 Jul 25, Iman, model, David
Bowie's girlfriend, actress (Star Trek VI), was born.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1955 Jul, Mad Magazine introduced
a new format under William M. Gaines. [see 1952] In 1972 Frank Jacobs
wrote "The Mad World of William M. Gaines.
(SFC, 3/3/99, Z1 p.4)(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A20)
1955 Aug 3, Automobile Association
of America ended support of auto racing.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1955 Aug 3, Hurricane Connie began
pounding US for 11 days.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1955 Aug 4, Billy Bob Thornton,
American actor, was born. He became an occasional director, playwright,
screenwriter and singer. By 2009 he was married five times, his most
recent ex-wife being actress Angelina Jolie.
(www.spiritus-temporis.com/billy-bob-thornton/)
1955 Aug 4, Eisenhower authorized
$46 million for the construction of CIA headquarters.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1955 Aug 4, The U-2 reconnaissance
prototype made its first flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1955 Aug 5, The Oakland, Ca., fire
department ended segregation between black and white fire fighters.
(SSFC, 2/5/06, p.B7)
1955 Aug 5, Carmen Miranda (42),
singer, actress (Down Argentine Way), died.
(MC, 8/5/02)
1955 Aug 8, Fidel Castro formed
his "July 26th Movement."
(MC, 8/8/02)
1955 Aug 12, Pres Eisenhower
raised the minimum wage from $0.75 to $1 an hour.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1955 Aug 12, Thomas Mann (80),
German writer (Dr. Faustus, Nobel 1929), died. Two biographies of Mann
were published in 1995: Thomas Mann: A Biography by Ronald Hayman and
Thomas Mann: A Life by Donald Prater.
(V.D.-H.K.p.367-368)(WSJ, 12/26/95, p. A-5)(MC,
8/12/02)
1955 Aug 16, Fiat Motors ordered
the 1st private atomic reactor.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1955 Aug 17, Hurricane Diane
followed hurricane Connie and flooded the Connecticut River killing 190
and doing $1.8 billion in damage.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1955 Aug 19, US raised the import
duty on bicycles 50%.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1955 Aug 19, Severe flooding in
the Northeast caused by the remnants of Hurricane Diane claimed some
200 lives.
(AP, 8/19/97)
1955 Aug 20, Hundreds of people
were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
(AP, 8/20/97)
1955 Aug 25, Elvis Costello
(Declan McManus), musician, songwriter (I'm Not Angry, Less than Zero,
Watching the Detectives, Clubland, Oliver's Army, Every Day I
Write the Book, I'm Your Toy, Party, Party, So Young), was born.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1955 Aug 25, Last Soviet forces
left Austria.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1955 Aug 27, The "Guinness Book of
World Records" was 1st published. It posted sales of 80 million in 1997.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(WSJ, 7/30/99, p.B1)(MC,
8/27/01)
1955 Aug 28, Emmett Till (14), a
black teen-ager from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's home in
Money, Miss., by white men after he had supposedly whistled at Carolyn
Bryant, a white woman; he was found murdered three days later.
Eyewitnesses linked Carolyn’s husband Roy Bryant and half-brother J.W.
Milam to the murder. Bryant and Milam were indicted Sep 10 for a trial
on Sep 19. Both were acquitted by an all-white jury. Bryant and Milan
later confessed to the killing in a magazine interview. The area was a
cotton-trading center where the white Citizens Councils maintained
their regional headquarters. In 2004 the US Justice Dept. opened a
criminal investigation into the case. In 2005 the US Senate
acknowledged a share in the boy’s death.
(AP, 8/28/99)(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A4)(SFC, 6/14/05,
p.A2)(SFC, 9/9/05, p.F5)(SFC, 3/17/06, p.A5)
1955 Aug 31, 1st sun-powered
automobile demonstrated, Chicago, Ill.
(YN, 8/31/99)
1955 Sep 1, Philip Loeb (61),
actor (Jake-The Goldbergs), died.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1955 Sep 5, The 1st SigAlert, a
traffic alert system, was broadcast in Los Angeles. The system was
invented by Loyd C. Sigmon (d.2004).
(SSFC, 6/6/04, B5)
1955 Sep 6-1955 Sep 7,
Well-orchestrated mobs ran amok in the Greek sections of Istanbul.
Churches, shops and cemeteries were looted and desecrated and some
people were killed. In 2005 Speros Vryonis Jr. authored “The
Mechanisms of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955,
and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul.
(Econ, 8/27/05, p.67)
1955 Sep 8, The Brooklyn Dodgers
won the National League pennant, the earliest a team had achieved this.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1955 Sep 10, The TV show
"Gunsmoke," starring James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon, premiered on
CBS and lasted to 1975.
(AP, 9/10/05)
1955 Sep 14, Marine Capt. Richard
McCutchen became the 1st contestant to win the TV quiz “$64,000
Question.”
(SFC, 9/9/05, p.F5)
1955 Sep 15, Olympia Press
published Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “Lolita.”
(www.evergreenreview.com/100/nabokov2.html)
1955 Sep 19, President Juan Peron
of Argentina was ousted after a revolt by the army and navy. The
military leaders confiscated the body of Eva Peron to keep opposing
political forces from using her body to rally the masses.
(TMC, 1994, p.1955)(SFC, 12/24/96, p.A8)(AP,
9/19/97)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A15)
1955 Sep 20, Rocky Marciano
knocked out Archie Moore in the 9th round in NYC.
(SFC, 9/16/05,
p.F6)(www.fighttoys.com/Marciano-Moore.htm)
1955 Sep 21, The last allied
occupying troops left Austria.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1955 Sep 22, Commercial TV began
in England. ITV began broadcasting at 7:15 pm in the London region
only. Associated Rediffusion was awarded the London weekday license by
the ITA, with ITN established as a separate company to supply news. ATV
London began broadcasting on weekends 2 days later.
(http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1057710,00.html)
1955 Sep 22, Hurricane Janet hit
Grenada (British West Indies). 500 people were killed in the Caribbean
area. 75% of the nutmeg trees of Grenada were destroyed.
(PCh, 1992, p.952)(MC, 9/22/01)
1955 Sep 24, President Eisenhower
suffered a heart attack while on vacation in Denver. The illness didn't
prevent Eisenhower from being re-elected to a second term the following
year.
(AP, 9/24/97)(MC, 9/24/01)
1955 Sep 25, Patty Berg won the
LPGA Clock Golf Open.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1955 Sep 26, The New York Stock
Exchange suffered $44 million loss, the heaviest one-day loss since
1929 following word that Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower had suffered a
heart attack.
(AP, 9/26/03)
1955 Sep 29, The Arthur Miller
one-act play "A View From the Bridge" opened at the Coronet Theater in
New York City.
(AP, 9/29/97)(WSJ, 12/17/97, p.A20)
1955 Sep 30, Actor James Dean,
best known for his role as a restless teen in Rebel Without a Cause,
died in a high-speed two-car collision at the corner of Highways 46 and
41 in Cholame, near Paso Robles, Ca. In 1950, he had made his acting
debut in a Pepsi commercial, for which he was paid $30. Dean gained
fame after a lead role on Broadway in 1952 and appearances on
television and in movies. His first major film role was in East of Eden
in 1954. Just days after filming Giant the next year, Dean was driving
his silver Porsche, called "Little Bastard," to a race in Salinas with
his mechanic when he collided head-on with another car. He was 24 years
old.
(SFC,1/22/97, p.E1)(AP, 9/30/97)(HNPD, 9/30/98)(HN,
9/30/98)
1955 Sep, Chinese-born Tsien
Hsue-sen, an American-trained rocketry expert and co-founder of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, left the United States for China. His
departure came after five years of virtual house arrest following
accusations of communist sympathies. He became the leader of China's
rocketry program.
(AP, 10/15/03)
1955 Oct 3, "Captain Kangaroo"
with Bob Keeshan began its run on CBS TV. The show ended in 1993.
(WSJ, 3/6/97, p.B1)(AP, 10/3/00)
1955 Oct 3, The Disney sponsored
Mickey Mouse Club began on ABC TV and ran to 1959.
(WSJ, 3/6/97, p.B1)(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A8)
1955 Oct 5, A stage adaptation of
"The Diary of Anne Frank" opened at the Cort Theatre in New York.
(AP, 10/5/97)
1955 Oct 6, LSD was made illegal
in US.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1955 Oct 6, A United Airlines
plane bound for SF crashed in Wyoming killing 66 people. It was the
worst commercial airline crash to date in US history.
(SFC, 9/30/05, p.F3)
1955 Oct 7, Yo Yo Ma, Chinese
cellist, was born in Paris, France.
(HN, 10/7/00)(MC, 10/7/01)
1955 Oct 7, Allen Ginsberg (29)
his 3,600-word "Howl" at the Six Gallery at 3119 Fillmore. Kenneth
Rexroth was the host. Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti were in
the audience. Other readers included Philip Lamantia, Philip Whalen,
Michael McClure and Gary Snyder. The Gallery was run as a co-op by poet
Robert Duncan, his lover Jess (Burgess Collins) and another artist. In
2004 Jonah Raskin authored "American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"
and the Making of the Beat Generation." In 2006 Jason Shinder edited
“The Poem That Changed America.”
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.D7)(SFC, 10/28/00, p.D1)(SSFC,
4/4/04, p.M2)(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.M3)
1955 Oct 7, The aircraft carrier
USS Saratoga was launched at Brooklyn.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1955 Oct 11, All Peron feast days
were abolished in Argentina.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1955 Oct 12, Bernarr Macfadden
(b.1868), weight-lifter and publisher born as Bernard MacFadden, died
in New Jersey. His magazines included “True Story,” which first
appeared in 1919. In 2009 Mark Adams authored Mr. America: How Muscular
Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation Through Sex,
Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet.”
{USA, New Jersey}
(WSJ, 3/20/09,
p.W10)(www.bernarrmacfadden.com/macfadden7.html)
1955 Oct 14, A new US Navy
6-story, windowless structure was dedicated at the SF Naval Shipyard at
Hunters Point, Ca. The $8 million laboratory was to be devoted
exclusively to the development of defense against radiation.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.F2)
1955 Oct 18, Track and Field
magazine named Jesse Owens all-time track athlete.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1955 Oct 18, Ernest O. Lawrence,
Univ. of California Radiation lab. director, announced the discovery of
the existence of an anti-proton, an atomic particle postulated in 1928.
(SFC, 10/14/05, p.F6)
1955 Oct 18, Jose Ortega y Gasset,
Spanish philosopher, died at 72.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1955 Oct 20, "No Time for
Sergeants," starring Andy Griffith, opened on Broadway.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1955 Oct 20, Harry Belafonte
recorded "Day-O" (Banana Boat Song).
(MC, 10/20/01)
1955 Oct 22, The prototype of the
F-105 Thunder Chief made its maiden flight. Republic Aircraft’s F-105
Thunderchief, better known as the ‘Thud,’ was the Air Force’s warhorse
in Vietnam.
(HN, 10/22/98)
1955 Oct 25, Tappan sold
its 1st home microwave oven for $1,295. It was in 1947 that the first
commercial microwave oven hit the market. Amana introduced the
Radarange, the first countertop, domestic oven in 1957. It was a
100-volt microwave oven, which cost just under $500 and was smaller,
safer and more reliable than previous models..
(http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html)
1955 Oct 25, Austria resumed its
sovereignty after the departure of last Allied occupation forces, for
1st time since German occupation of 1938.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-33385/Austria)
1955 Oct 26, The Village Voice was
first published, backed in part by Norman Mailer.
(HN, 10/26/00)
1955 Oct 26, Austria, under
request by Russia, promulgated a constitutional law of perpetual
neutrality.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-33385/Austria)(Econ,
11/24/07, SR p.8)
1955 Oct 26, Ngo Dinh Diem
proclaimed Vietnam a republic with himself as the president.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1955 Oct 28, William Gates, the
chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest software
firm, was born. His 1999 wealth was about $75 [$58] billion. He
co-founded Microsoft at age 20 with Paul Allen after dropping out from
Harvard.
(HN, 10/28/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(SFEC, 5/23/99,
Par p.7)
1955 Oct 31, William "Billy"
Woodward, Jr. (b.1920), heir to the Hanover National Bank fortune
(later Manufacturer's Hanover), the Belair Estate and stud farm and
legacy, and a leading figure in racing circles, was shot to death by
his wife, Ann. In 1985 Dominick Dunne (1925-2009) authored “The Two
Mrs. Grenvilles,” based on the Woodward murder case. The book was
turned into a television movie in 1987.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Woodward,_Jr.)
1955 Oct
31, Britain's Princess Margaret ended weeks of speculation by
announcing she would not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend
because he had been divorced.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1955 Oct, Del Martin (1921-2008),
Phyllis Lyon and 6 other SF women founded the Daughters of Bilitis, the
1st national lesbian organization. It was named after “The Songs of
Bilitis” (1894) a book of lesbian love poetry by French poet Pierre
Louys.
(SFC, 6/23/00, p.A26)(SFC, 8/28/08,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_Bilitis)
1955 Nov 1, A time bomb aboard
United DC-6 killed 44 above Longmont, Colorado. Jack Gilbert Graham
rigged a time bomb for the Denver to Seattle flight and put it into his
mother’s suitcase in order to collect the insurance money. Graham was
executed in the gas chamber Jan 11, 1957.
(MC, 11/1/01)(AWC, 1982)
1955 Nov 1, McNeill Laboratories
introduced Children’s Tylenol Elixir, available only by prescription.
(SFC, 11/1/05, p.D7)
1955 Nov 1, Dale Carnegie
(b.1888), author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” (1937),
died of Hodgkin’s disease. In 2006 he was inducted into the Hall of
Famous Missourians in Jefferson City, Missouri; joining the likes of
Harry S Truman and Walt Disney.
(http://tinyurl.com/m73my)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie)
1955 Nov 2, The Crocker First
National Bank and the Anglo California National Bank announced plans to
merge. Their combined assets of $1,309,098,720 made it the largest
merger in California history.
(SFC, 10/28/05, p.F3)
1955 Nov 2, Dr. Willis E. Lamb
(1913-2008) of Stanford Univ. and Dr. Polykarp Kusch of Columbia Univ.
were named co-winners of the Nobel Prize in physics. They came up with
complementary discoveries in nuclear physics in 1947.
(SFC, 10/28/05, p.F3)(SFC, 5/23/08, p.B10)
1955 Nov 2, Clarton-Schwerdt and
Schaffer discovered the polio virus.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1955 Nov 2, David Ben-Gurion
formed an Israeli govt.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1955 Nov 3, The 1st crystallized
virus was announced.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1955 Nov 3, An Alabama woman was
bruised by a meteor.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1955 Nov 3, Argentine ex-president
Peron arrived in Nicaragua.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1955 Nov 4, August Vollmer (79),
father of modern police science, shot himself to death in Berkeley, Ca.
He was afflicted with Parkinson’s Disease late in life, and also
cancer, and he refused to be bedridden or a burden to others. Vollmer
was a pioneer in the use of radio and fingerprints for police work.
(SFC, 11/4/05,
p.F6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Vollmer)
1955 Nov 5, The new Vienna Opera
house opened.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1955 Nov 5, Lady Idina Sackville
(b.1893), notorious daughter of the eighth Earl of De La Warr, died of
cancer. In 2009 Frances Osborne authored “The Bolter,” an account of
the “Woman Who Scandalized 1920's Society and Became White Mischief's
Infamous Seductress.”
(SSFC, 6/28/09, p.F3)
1955 Nov 5, Maurice Utrillo (71),
French painter (Cathedral St-Denis), died.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1955 Nov 7, The US Supreme Court
ruled that tenants in federal housing projects may not be required to
sign loyalty oaths, which were enacted by Congress in 1952.
(SFC, 11/4/05, p.F6)
1955 Nov 9, Michael Gazzo's
"Hatful of Rain," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1955 Nov 11, Jigme Singye Wangchuk
was born. He became king of Bhutan in 1972.
(SSFC, 3/17/02, p.C10)(www.worldwhoswho.com)
1955 Nov 16, Big Four talks,
taking place in Geneva on German reunification, ended in failure.
(HN, 11/16/98)
1955 Nov 18, Bell X-2 rocket plane
was taken up for its 1st powered flight.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1955 Nov 19, William F. Buckley
Jr. (1925-2008) published the first issue of the National Review a
conservative political journal. In 1995 its circulation reached
250,000. A biography of Buckley titled "William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron
Saint of the Conservatives" was written by John B. Judis in 1995.
(WSJ, 11/10/95, p.A-14)(SFC, 2/28/08, p.A2)
1955 Nov 20, The Maryland National
Guard was ordered desegregated.
(HN, 11/20/98)
1955 Nov 21, Argentina asked
Panama for the return of ex-president Peron.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1955 Nov 22, RCA Victor's made its
best investment paying $25,000 to Sun Records & Sam Philips for
rights to Elvis Presley, a truck driver from Tupelo, Miss.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1955 Nov 22, Shemp Howard (60),
comic of "Three Stooges" fame died in Hollywood.
(AP, 11/22/05)
1955 Nov 25, The Interstate
Commerce Commission banned segregation in interstate travel.
(HN, 11/25/98)
1955 Nov 26, An emergency crisis
was proclaimed in Cyprus.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1955 Nov 30, "Pipe Dream" opened
at Shubert Theater in NYC for 245 performances.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1955 Nov 30, Argentine government
disbanded the Peronist party.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1955 Dec 1, Rosa Parks, a
42-year-old seamstress and secretary of the Montgomery NAACP, was
arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, as she sat in a section of a bus just
behind the area reserved for whites. She refused to move to the back
the bus, to accommodate a white male passenger, as ordered by driver
James F. Blake (d.2002 at 89) and defied the South’s segregationist
laws. This prompted the Dec. 5 bus boycott, a year-long boycott of the
buses by blacks, and launched the Civil Rights movement in the United
States. Virginia Durr (d.1999 at 95) helped a black civil rights leader
bail Parks out of jail. In 1985 Durr wrote her memoir: "Outside the
Magic Circle." In 1999 Pres. Clinton authorized a Congressional Gold
Medal for Rosa Parks.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-6)(SFEC, 9/15/96,
p.A2)(SFEM, 2/2/97, p.8) (AP, 12/1/97)(HN, 12/1/98)(SFC, 3/10/99,
p.A23)(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A24)
1955 Dec 1-1955 Dec 5, AFL
delegates in San Francisco approved a merger wit the CIO. The next day
CIO delegates voted 660-3 in favor of merging. The American Federation
of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form
the AFL-CIO under its first president, George Meany (1894-1980). [see
Feb 9]
(AP, 12/5/97)(HNQ, 6/9/98)(SFC, 12/2/05, p.F2)
1955 Dec 2, Martin Luther King
stepped forward with an impromptu speech that marked him as the
"acknowledged leader of a major mass protest."
(SFEM, 1/19/97, BR p.1)
1955 Dec 5, The US Montgomery Bus
Boycott began in 1955. In Montgomery, Alabama, Martin Luther King
organized a bus boycott and began the civil rights movement to end
segregation. Black residents chose Mr. King to head The Montgomery
Improvement Association, formed to sustain the protest against
segregation policies on the municipal buses.
(HFA, ‘96, p.44)(TMC, 1994, p.1955)(SFEM, 2/2/97,
p.8)
1955 Dec 6, NY psychologist Joyce
Brothers (28) won the CBS "$64,000 Question," by answering 7 questions
on boxing.
(SFC, 12/2/05, p.F2)
1955 Dec 9, Sugar Ray Robinson won
the middle-weight boxing crown for the third time when he knocked out
Carl "Bobo" Olson in Chicago.
(SFC, 6/29/96, p.E4)(HN, 12/9/98)(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F6)
1955 Dec 10, The anti-proton,
discovered in October by a team of UC Berkeley scientists that included
Owen Chamberlain, Emilio Segre and Clyde Wiegand (1915-1996), was
confirmed by scientists at the Univ. of Rome and the Univ. of
California.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A20)(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F6)
1955 Dec 11, Israel launched an
attack on Syrian positions along the Sea of Galilee.
(EWH, 1968, p.1241)(HN, 12/11/98)
1955 Dec 12, 1st prototype of
hovercraft patented by British engineer Christopher Cockerell.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1955 Dec 19, Carl Perkins recorded
"Blue Suede Shoes."
(MC, 12/19/01)
1955 Dec 22-1955 Dec 26, A "storm
of the century" caused a devastating flood in northern California and
left 76 people dead. Damages were estimated at $125 million.
(SFC, 1/4/97, p.A14)(SFC, 1/10/96, p.A21)(SFC,
12/23/05, p.F2)
1955 Dec 24, A levee break on the
Shanghai Bend of the Feather River south of Yuba City, Ca., killed 38
people.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.C1)(SFC, 11/17/99, p.E7)
1955 Dec 29, Barbra Streisand's
1st recording "You'll Never Know" at age 13.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1955 Dec, Otto John, intelligence
chief, returned to West Germany from East Germany. He was charged with
treason and in 1956 was convicted and sentenced to 4 years in prison.
He insisted to the end of his life that he had been drugged and
abducted.
(SFEC, 3/30/97, p.D5)
1955 John Diebenkorn, California
artist, painted his work "Berkeley." It sold for $1.8 million in 1998.
(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W12)(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.W12)
1955 Jasper Johns painted "Target
with Four Faces."
(SFEC, 11/24/96, C15)
1955 Willem de Kooning
(1904-1997), abstract artist, painted "Gotham News." He also completed
his oil and charcoal work "Woman Standing – Pink."
(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A6)(SFEC, 10/1/00, DB p.42)
1955 Bertolt Brecht wrote his
play: "The Caucasian Chalk Circle." It was a deliberately simplistic
fable of class oppression and squabbling over a foundling.
(WSJ, 5/20/98, p.A12)
1955 William Inge wrote his play
"Bus Stop."
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB p.37)
1955 Tennessee Williams wrote his
play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB p.37)
1955 Eliot Asinof wrote his novel
"Man on Spikes." It blew the whistle on the indentured servitude of
American major league baseball players.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, BR p.5)
1955 James Baldwin authored “Notes
of a Native Son.”
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.M4)
1955 Edward Latimer "Ned" Beach
(1918-2002), Navy captain, authored "Run Silent, Run Deep" (1955).
(SFC, 12/2/02, p.A19)
1955 John Dunbar (d.1999 at 84), a
WW II Air Forces pilot, authored "Escape Through the Pyranees," based
on his war experiences.
(SFC, 11/20/99, p.A22)
1955 Shusaku Endo (1923-1996)
wrote Shiroi Hito (White Man) and won the Akutagawa Prize for
literature.
(SFEC, 9/30/96, p.A23)
1955 James Fisher, British
ornithologist, and Roger Tory Peterson authored “Wild America,” an
account of their travels to what remained of the American wilderness.
(WSJ, 3/29/08, p.W10)
1955 Fred Friendly (b. Ferdinand
Friendly Wachenheimer) and Edward R. Murrow published their book: "See
It Now."
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A24)
1955 William Gaddis (d.1998 at 75)
published his first novel "The Recognitions."
(SFC, 12/18/98, p.A38)(SSFC, 10/20/02, p.M2)
1955 John Kenneth Galbraith
authored “The Great Crash,” a look at the 1929 stock market crash. He
supported the view that it was an inevitable consequence of excess
investment, flawed corporate governance, and speculation.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A15)
1955 Elihu Katz and Paul
Lazarsfeld authored “Personal Influence.” It became a classic in media
studies.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.77)
1955 Anne Morrow Lindbergh
authored "Gift From the Sea," a meditation on women’s lives in the 20th
century. In 1999 Susan Hertog authored her biography "Anne Morrow
Lindbergh."
(WSJ, 11/29/99, p.A26)
1955 Sir Lawrence van der Post
(1906-1996) wrote "The Dark Eye in Africa."
(SFC, 12/17/96, p.B4)
1955 "The California Grizzly" by
Tracy I. Storer and Lloyd P. Trevis was published.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.12)
1955 "All-of-a-Kind Family" by
Sydney Taylor was published.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1955 Joseph S. Weiner, anatomist
at Oxford Univ., published "The Piltdown Forgery." He documented the
case for forgery of the Piltdown bones but was unable to provide
conclusive proof that Charles Dawson was guilty of the hoax.
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.16)
1955 Graham Greene published his
novel "The Quiet American."
(SFEC, 5/2/99, BR p.3)
1955 Alan Harrington (d.1997 at
79) published his 1st novel "The Revelations of Dr. Modesto." It
established his reputation as one of the earlier "black humorists." His
friends included Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.C4)
1955 Nikos Kazantzakis published
"The Last Temptation of Christ."
(SFEC, 4/27/97, BR p.5)
1955 Philip Larkin (1922-1985),
British poet, authored his collection “The Less Deceived.” It included
the poem “Church Going.” The poem is about an agnostic who enters a
church and has been described as one of the greatest poems of the 20th
century.
(WSJ, 6/24/06, p.P18)
1955 Claude Levi-Strauss, French
anthropologist, authored “Tristes Tropiques,” a memoir of his travels
to Brazil in search of Amazon tribes untouched by civilization.
(WSJ, 3/29/08, p.W10)
1955 Walter Lord (d.2002)
authored "A Night To Remember" an account of the 1912 Titanic disaster.
(SFC, 5/21/02, p.A21)
1955 James Michener (d.1997 at 90)
wrote his novel "Floating World."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1955 John O’Hara authored “Ten
Frederick North,” a novel about thwarted political ambition.
(WSJ, 3/15/08, p.W10)
1955 Mario Puzo (d.1999) published
his first novel "The Dark Arena."
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A21)
1955 Alain Robbe-Grillet authored
won France's Critics Prize with "Le Voyeur" (The Voyeur), about the
world seen through the eyes of a sadistic killer.
(AP, 2/18/08)
1955 Ruth Stout authored “How to
Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back.”
(SFC, 6/21/08, p.F6)
1955 C. Van Woodward (d.1999)
published "The Strange Career of Jim Crow." Dr. Martin Luther King
later called the book the "historical bible of the civil rights
movement."
(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.C14)
1955 The Broadway play "The Diary
of Anne Frank" premiered with Susan Strasberg (17). Strasberg died in
1999 in Manhattan at age 60.
(SFC, 1/23/99, p.A19)
1955 Ben Bagley (d.1998 at 64)
burst onto the theater scene off Broadway at age 21 with "The
Shoestring Revue," a collection of songs and sketches from many show
business talents.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.B12)
1955 Charles Bowden (1913-1996)
and Richard Bar produced "All In One" on Broadway. It brought together
Leonard Bernstein’s opera "Trouble in Tahiti," Paul Draper in a dance
program, and Tennessee Williams "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" with Maureen
Stapleton.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A22)
1955 Ossie Davis was in the play
"No Time for Sergeants."
(SFEC, 10/20/96, Par, p.24)
1955 John Hart starred in
the Columbia serial “The Adventures of Captain Africa.”
(SFC, 9/24/09, p.D5)
1955 Lew Ayres made a 5-part
documentary based on his book "Altars of the East."
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A20)
1955 Cheyenne premiered as TV’s
1st hour-long series. It was produced by Roy Huggins.
(SFC, 4/15/02, p.B5)
1955 "The Life and Legend of Wyatt
Earp" began on TV with Hugh O'Brian. It ran to 1961 and was billed as
TV’s first adult western. doc was played by Douglas Fowley (d.1998 at
86)
(SFEC,11/30/97, Par p.2)
1955 The TV series "Sergeant
Preston of the Yukon" starred Richard Simmons (d.2003 at 89). The
series ran for 3 seasons to 1958.
(SFC, 1/15/03, p.A19)
1955 Carlisle Floyd composed his
first opera "Susannah."
(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/25/00, p.A24)
1955 Glenn Gould, Canadian
pianist, recorded the "Goldberg Variations" by Bach. The recording was
released in 1956. He abandoned the concert hall in 1964.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.C15)(WSJ, 10/7/99, p.A28)
1955 The Shostokovich composition
"From Jewish Poetry" received its first public performance. It was an
impassioned response to the institutionalized anti-Semitism of the
Stalin regime.
(WSJ, 4/30/96, p.A-12)
1955 Sir Michael Tippett, British
composer, premiered his 1st opera "The Midsummer Marriage" at Covent
Garden.
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A19)
1955 Czech composer Martinu wrote
his orchestral triptych "The Frescoes of Piero della Francesco."
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.B2)
1955 George Avakian, jazz expert,
got Miles Davis to sign a contract with Columbia, and brought him
together with Gil Evans for the album "Miles Ahead."
(WSJ, 6/03/97, p.A20)
1955 Richard Dyer-Bennett
(1913-1991) recorded the first of 15 albums called "Richard
Dyer-Bennett." He was a pioneer guitar player and folk-singer who
recorded himself with a sense of perfection. He was born in England and
grew up in Canada, California and Germany. His work was later released
on CD through Smithsonian Folkways.
(WSJ, 2/18/98, p.A20)
1955 The Coasters evolved from the
group the Robins. Carl Gardner and Bobby Nunn teamed with Billy Guy
(1936-2002) and Leon Hughes to form the group under producers Leiber
and Stoller. Their songs included "Charlie Brown," Yakety Yak" and
"Little Egypt."
(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A21)
1955 Perry Como recorded his big
hit "Hot-Diggety-Dog."
(SSFC, 5/13/01, p.A27)
1955 Dale Evans, singer and wife
of Roy Rogers, wrote the hit song "The Bible Tells Me So."
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C2)
1955 Thelonius Monk began to
record with Riverside Records.
(SFEM, 10/5/97, p.29)
1955 Charlie and Ira Louvin,
country musicians, joined the Grand Ole Opry.
(SFEM,10/19/97, DB p.45)
1955 Cuban musician Perez Prado
recorded "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White." The mambo tune became a
no. 1 hit.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, DB p.39)
1955 Faron Young (1932-1996) sang
his No. 1 country single "Live Fast, Love hard, Die Young."
(SFC, 12/12/96, p.C8)
1955 As Elvis Presley broke into
the national rock ‘n roll scene, he hired Colonel Tom Parker
(1910-1997) as his manager.
(SFC,1/22/97, p.A20)
1955 The top hits of the year were
"Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and the Comets [recorded in
1954], "The Yellow Rose of Texas" by Mitch Miller, "Love Is a Many
Splendored Thing" by the Four Aces, "Autumn Leaves" by Roger Williams,
and "16 Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford.
(WSJ, 4/10/98, p.W11)
1955 The three-chord standard
"Louie, Louie" was written as a Jamaican love song. Richard Berry wrote
"Louie, Louie" on a piece of toilet paper in a nightclub dressing room.
(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A19,20)
1955 Al Hibbler (d.2001), a blind
singer who had worked with the Ellington Orchestra, and Les Baxter both
had hits with their versions of "Unchained Melody." Hibbler recorded
the song for the prison movie "Unchained."
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A21)
1955 The Eden Roc Hotel in Miami
Beach was designed by Morris Lapidus and became the resort of choice
for stars and mob figures.
(WSJ, 4/21/97, p.A10)
1955 A group of seven Savannahian
women established Savannah’s first formal preservation movement. This
was in response to the planned demolition of the quintessential
Federal-style Isaiah Davenport House for a parking lot.
(Hem. 1/95, p. 70)
1955 Dr. Adolfas Damusis
(1908-2003), head of the American Lithuanian Roman Catholic Federation,
founded Dainava, a Lithuanian youth camp in Manchester, Mich.
(www.bernardinai.lt/index.php?url=articles/80541)
1955 Jackie Onassis had a brief
affair with William Holden. So it says in the 1996 book "Jack and
Jackie" by Christopher Anderson
(USAT, 6/19/96, p.2D)
1955 In SF Louise B. Edwards
(d.1997 at 81) took her children door-to-door in the Sunset district
gathering pennies for the purchase of an elephant for the SF Zoo to
replace one that had recently died. The campaign culminated in the
purchase of an elephant named Penny that resided at the Zoo for 40
years.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A16)
1955 Art Clokey (33) made a short
art film called "Gumbasia," featuring clay animation set to jazz music,
that inspired the beloved Gumby television series that debuted in 1956.
(SFC, 4/28/95, p.C5)(AP, 5/15/05)
1955 Time Magazine named Harlow
Curtice (1893-1962), president of General Motors, as Man of the Year.
(WSJ, 11/25/05, p.A10)
1955 Esther Friedman (2002) took
over the Ann Landers advice column in the Chicago Sun Times. Pauline
Friedman, her twin sister, went on to write the Dear Abby advice
column. Esther was the wife of Jules Lederer, founder of Budget Rent A
Car. They divorced in 1975.
(SFC, 1/25/99, p.A20)(Reuters, 6/23/02)(SSFC,
6/23/02, p.A10)
1955 Special K, the Kellogg
fat-free toasted cereal made, made its debut.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.D1)
1955 Joe DiMaggio was elected to
the Baseball Hall of Fame. DiMaggio, often considered one of the
greatest center fielders to play the game, helped his team win ten
American League championships and nine World Series titles. After
paying in the minors in San Francisco, DiMaggio was acquired by the New
York Yankees where he played from 1936 until his retirement in 1951.
(SFC, 3/9/99, p.A10)(HNQ, 9/25/00)
1955 The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the
New York Yankees in the US baseball World Series.
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-12)
1955 The Detroit Red Wings won the
hockey Stanley Cup.
(WSJ, 6/12/97, p.A16)
1955 US Pres. Ike Eisenhower had a
heart attack.
(TMC, 1994, p.1955)
1955 US Col. Edward S. Berry
(d.1999 at 93) helped establish the Ethiopian Military College.
(SFC, 7/28/99, p.C2)
1955 The first US B-52 bombers
began their Air Force duty.
(SFC, 3/13/99, p.A4)
1955 US Military spending this
year rose to $40 billion.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A4)
1955 Massachusetts Gov. Christian
Herter sent a National Guard tank to quell a Charlestown prison riot
led by Theodore "Teddy" Green (d.1998 at 82). Green’s daughter (17)
persuaded her father to surrender and ended the 85-hour standoff. He
was sent to Alcatraz after the riot. Green later bragged of robbing 20
banks and making 40 prison break attempts.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A21)
1955 New York Gov. Averell
Harriman signed legislation that prohibited the distribution of lurid
comics, banned their sale to people under the age of 18 and banned such
words as “crime,” “terror,” “horror,” and “sex” from comic book titles.
In 2008 David Hajdu authored “The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book
Scare and How it Changed America.”
(WSJ, 3/14/08, p.W2)
1955 Sen. John Kennedy began
seeing Dr. Janet Graham Travell for his back pain. Travell later became
the 1st woman to serve as White House physician.
(SFC, 11/22/04, p.A2)
1955 John Dingell (b.1926) won a
special election in Michigan, following the death of his father, and
succeeded him as a Democrat representative in the US Congress.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.A27)
1955 In San Francisco Willie Brown
helped attorney Terry Francois get elected president of the SF branch
of the NAACP by rounding up bums on the street and bringing them to a
meeting to vote for Francois. The national board nullified the election.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, BR, p.6)
1955 The US Navy turned over the
Midway Village, Daly City, site to San Mateo County, Ca., for public
housing and schools.
(SFC, 1/19/00, p.A4)(SFC, 3/2/09, p.B1)
1955 The US National Association
of Social Workers was formed from 7 smaller groups under the leadership
of Nathan Edward Cohen (d.2001 at 91).
(SFC, 2/5/01, p.A21)
1955 North American Co. was
dissolved. One of its units, St. Louis based Union Electric, took over
its assets. Today the company is awaiting regulatory approval for a
merger with Cipsco Inc., a utility based in Springfield, Ill.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, R45)
1955 The popular black picture
magazine Our World folded. Photographer Moneta J. Sleet Jr. (1926-1996)
moved on to Ebony magazine.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.C6)
1955 Becton Dickinson Corp.
acquired Baltimore Biological Laboratory (BBL).
(Horizon, summer 1995)
1955 Richard (d.2004) and Henry
Bloch formed the H&R Block company in Kansas City, Mo. It grew to
become the world’s largest tax preparing firm.
(SFC, 7/22/04, p.B8)(LSA, Spring/06, p.64)
1955 Herbert Haft (1920-2004),
pharmacist, opened his 1st Dart Drugs in Washington, DC. Over the next
30 years it grew to a chain of 77 stores and then expanded creating
Trak Auto, Crown Books, Shoppers Food Warehouse and Total Beverage. In
1997 Dart accepted $50 million in exchange for leaving the business.
(SFC, 9/3/04, p.B6)
1955 Ford Motor Co. introduced the
Thunderbird to compete with the GM Corvette.
(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A3)
1955 The Hearst Corp. acquired
WISN-TV, Milwaukee.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1955 John H. McConnell (1923-2008)
started Worthington Steel, an independent service center to shape and
process steel. He built the company into the conglomerate Worthington
Industries, where sales in 2008 reached some $3 billion.
(WSJ, 5/3/08,
p.A8)(www.worthingtonindustries.com/CorporateInformation/)
1955 The Old Milwaukee brand was
first brewered by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Wisconsin. It
was the first beer brand launched exclusively as a “popular” beer.
(www.oldmilwaukee.com/ourbeer_main.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/rvxp4)
1955 Proctor and Gamble test
marketed Crest toothpaste with stannous fluoride. It went on sale
nationally in 1956.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.B8)
1955 William Shockley founded
Shockley Semiconductor in Palo Alto.
(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)
1955 Tiffany’s jewelry store was
bought by merchandiser Walter Hoving. "we’ve got to get over this
ridiculous idea that the customer is always right."
(SFC, 8/5/00, p.B4)
1955 A TWA sponsored rocket became
part of Disney’s Tomorrowland.
(SFC, 7/14/96, p.T3)
1955 Wham-O purchased a plastic
disc from building inspector Fed Morrison, who had developed it after
watching Yale students toss pie tins. It later became the Frisbee. [See
Jan 13, 1957]
(SFC, 7/1/02, p.B5)
1955 A new medium priced home in
the US was priced at $13,400.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.B10)
1955 There were 76 prisoners
executed in the US this year.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.A2)
1955 Passenger car output hit a
new high at 7.9 million vehicles.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1955 At the Mayo Clinic the first
successful surgical repairs of congenital heart defects were performed.
(SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.5)
1955 Frederick Sanger sequenced
the 1st protein, human insulin. He later developed methods for
sequencing DNA.
(WSJ, 4/5/01, p.B1)
1955 Dr. Tomin Harada (d.1999 at
87) led a group of some 200 female survivors of the Hiroshima bombing,
the Hiroshima Maidens, to the US for plastic surgery under a program
led by Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review. Harada spent his
life treating victims of "atomic illness" who often displayed raised
scars called keloids.
(SFC, 6/29/99, p.A19)
1955 Roehr Products introduced the
first plastic disposable hypodermic syringe called the Monoject.
1955 Fred Reines and Cloyd Cowan,
American physicists, designed a neutrino trap that was effective in
catching them.
(SCTS, p.6)
1955 Harold Rhodes (d.2000 at 89)
partnered with Leo Fender to produce a 32-note piano bass. The Rhodes
electric piano became a success in 1965 when CBS took over Fender.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.B4)
1955 George Kelly (1905-1967)
expounded a constructivist system of psychology in his two-volume work:
“Principles of Personal Construct Psychology.” Kelly's fundamental
postulate for personal construct psychology was that: A person's
processes are psychologically channelized by the way in which he
anticipates events.
(http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~gaines/pcp/)
1955 Milton Friedman, American
economist, first proposed the use of government issued vouchers for
education.
(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.A1)(Econ, 5/5/07, p.73)
1955 Kaiko, a Japanese deep-sea
research submarine, dove 36,008 feet to the bottom of the Challenger
Deep, the ocean's deepest point. In 2003 it was lost in a typhoon.
(SFC, 7/1/03, p.A5)
1955 Nicolai Fechin (b.1881 in
Kazan), Russian émigré (1923) painter, died on the West
Coast. His work includes "Russian Singer with Fan" (1924). He moved to
Taos, New Mexico, in 1926 and turned his home into a work of art now
known as the Fechin Institute.
(HT, 5/97, p.50)
1955 Drucker, Heizer, and Squier
published their report on the excavations at La Venta, of the great
Olmec Ceremonial Center.
(RFH-MDHP, p.241, pictures)
1955 Katharine Drexel (b.1858), a
Philadelphia heiress turned Catholic nun, died. By the time of her
death she had given away most of her considerable trust fund. In 2000
Pope John Paul II confirmed a 2nd healing attributed to her, which
cleared the last hurdle for making her the 2nd American born Catholic
Saint.
(SFC, 1/28/00, p.A12)
1955 The father of serial killer
Gerald Gallego died in the gas chamber for killing 2 law enforcement
officials. Gerald Gallego was convicted in California and Nevada for
ten murders committed between 1978-1980.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A17)
1955 Fernand Leger (b.1881),
French painter, died.
(HN, 2/4/01)
1955 Robert R. McCormick (b.1880),
head of the Chicago Tribune, died. In 1997 Richard Norton Smith
published his biography: "The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R.
McCormick."
(WSJ, 6/19/97, p.A16)
1955 Robert Riskin, Hollywood
screenwriter and the 2nd husband of actress Fay Wray (m.1942), died.
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.B7)
1955 Wallace Stevens (b.1879),
American poet and author, died: "All history is modern history."
(AP, 1/27/00)
1955 Yves Tanguy, French-born
surrealist artist, died in the US. He had emigrated to the US in 1939
and settled in Connecticut with his 2nd wife, American painter Kay Sage.
(WSJ, 8/30/01, p.A11)
1955 Cy Young (b.1867), legendary
baseball pitcher, died. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
in 1937. Baseball’s 1st Cy Young award for best pitcher was presented
in 1956.
(AH, 10/01, p.20)
1955 The Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM) of developing nations grew out of the Bandung Conference of 29
countries for the purpose of, among other issues, establishing their
neutralism.
(AFP, 7/15/09)
1955 In Brazil Pres. Juscelino
Kubitschek took office. He vowed to modernize the country and made
economic growth his main goal.
(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.Sp.Adv)
1955 In Egypt Onsi Sawiris founded
a small construction firm. It grew to become the Orascom business group
worth over $12 billion in 2005.
(Econ, 3/12/05, p.62)
1955 Lew Grade (e.1998 at 91)
founded Associated Television, the first commercially funded channel in
Britain. Born as Louis Winogradsky in the Ukraine, he came to London at
age 6.
(SFC, 12/14/98, p.C4)
1955 In England Heathrow Airport’s
Terminal 2 was completed.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.91)
1955 Antony Fisher founded
Britain’s Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). Fisher sought advice
from Friedrich von Hayek, an Austrian-born economist, who urged him to
emulate the Fabian Society, the 1st socialist think-tank. The institute
promoted deregulation, privatization, tax cuts, trade union reform and
a free market. In 1957 Ralph Harris (1925-2006) became general director.
(Econ, 10/22/05, p.90)(Econ, 11/4/06, p.96)
1955 Britain began tracking its
gross domestic product (GDP) on a quarterly basis.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.31)
1955 France enacted a law
permitting law-enforcement chiefs known as “prefects” to place
communities under curfew “wherever necessary.”
(WSJ, 11/8/05, p.A1)
1955 In Germany the "documenta x"
art show, an exhibition of contemporary art began in Kassel under
Werner Haftmann. It began a tradition with new shows every 4-5 years.
(WSJ, 7/7/97, p.A12)(SFC, 7/30/99, p.D8)
1955 Germany established its
Gastarbeiter (guest worker) program.
(Econ, 1/5/08, SR p.14)
1955 The Bundeswehr, [West]
Germany’s postwar conscript army, was established. It served first as
West Germany's military and, since 1990, as that of the reunited
Germany.
(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A8)(AP, 11/27/08)
1955 In West Germany Wilhelm
Karmann designed and built the Karmann-Ghia in cooperation with
Volkswagen and Porsche.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.D4)
1955 In Dresden, East Germany,
Manfred von Ardenne (d.1997 at 90) established a scientific institute.
He had worked for the Soviets and innovated a process for splitting
isotopes to enrich uranium, a vital part of Soviet nuclear bomb
development.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.A17)
1955 In East Germany some Russian
soldiers came down with a neurological disorder that was thought to be
the result of CIA poisoning. It was found that the cause of illness was
the eating of a rabid fox. East vs. West tensions of this time were
later documented by 2 former spies and a director of Radio Liberty.
David Murphy, Sergei Kondrashev and George Bailey in: "Battleground
Berlin."
(WSJ, 8/27/97, p.A10)
1955 Andras Hegedues (1922-1999)
became Hungary's youngest premier.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B4)
1955 The Indian film "Pather
Panchali" by Satyajit Ray (d.1992) was produced. It was based on the
Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay and was directly
influenced by Vittorio De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief” (1948).
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.E6)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.80)
1955 India established a policy
that barred foreign print media from publishing within the country.
(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A7)
1955 In India the ICICI Bank was
founded as a state development bank. In 1994 it formed a commercial
banking subsidiary.
(Econ, 5/20/06, Survey p.19)
1955 In Indonesia open, free and
safe parliamentary elections were held.
(SFC, 5/20/98, p.A12)
1955 Iraq joined with Britain,
Turkey, Iran and Pakistan in the Baghdad Pact, a loose alliance
intended to check soviet influence in the region. The Baghdad Pact was
formed at the prompting of the U.S. in an effort to block Soviet
pressures on the northern tier of Middle Eastern states. The U.S.
provided military and economic aid to the pact members.
(HNQ, 7/28/98)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A10)
1955 The new American Embassy in
Baghdad was designed by architect Jose Luis Sert.
(WSJ, 6/2/04, p.D12)
1955 In Japan the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) was founded following the merger of the Liberal
Party (led by Shigeru Yoshida) with the Japan Democratic Party (led by
Ichiro Hatoyama), both right-wing conservative parties, as a united
front against the then popular Japan Socialist Party.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Liberal_Democratic_Party_(Japan))(Econ,
7/18/09, p.42)
1955 Toshiba introduced the
world’s first automatic electric rice cooker. In 2006 Mitsubishi
introduced an upscale rice cooker selling for $1000.
(WSJ, 6/4/07, p.A12)
1955 Nepal’s King Tribhuvan
(b.1906) died and was succeeded by his eldest son Crown Prince Mahendra
Bir Bikram Shah (b.1920).
(www.nepalmonarchy.gov.np/monarcyinnepal/monarchyinnepal.php)
1955 Fighting erupted between
north and south Sudan. The black southerners are Christian and animist,
while the northerners are mostly Arabic and Muslim. It has lasted
through 1996 with a cease-fire from 1972-1983.
(SFC, 4/15/96,A-8)
1955 In Moscow John Vassal
(1925-1996), British attaché, was plied with liquor and
photographed in a compromising position with 2-3 men. He was then
blackmailed into spying and was not caught until 1962.
(SFC, 12/6/96, p.B8)
1955 Paul Grimes (1924-2002)
worked as an editor for the Bangkok Post. He joined the NY Times in
1957 and helped establish Conde Nast Traveler in 1987.
(SFC, 5/2/02, p.A27)
1955 Bulganin and Khrushchev vied
for power in the USSR.
(TMC, 1994, p.1955)
1955 The USSR lifted a ban on
abortion that had been imposed by Stalin in 1936.
(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.A11)
1955 In Tibet Sydney Wignall, A
Welsh amateur spy for Indian intelligence, was captured by the Chinese
with 2 members of his climbing expedition and held for several weeks.
In 1997 his book: "Spy on the Roof of the World" was published.
(SFEC,12/14/97, BR p.4)
1955-1958 In Russia Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin
served as Premier.
(WUD, 1994, p.195)
1955-1959 Robert Rauschenberg painted "Monogram,"
which featured a paint-daubed stuffed goat.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.E3)
1955-1959 Joe Foss (1915-2002), WW II fighter pilot,
served as governor of South Dakota. He hosted ABC TV’s "The American
Sportsman from 1964-1967, and produced and hosted the syndicated TV
show "The Outdoorsman Joe Foss" from 1967-1974.
(SFC, 1/2/03, p.A16)
1955-1962 East German spymaster Markus Wolf led spy
operations over this time. He was charged in 1997 with kidnapping,
coercion and causing bodily harm.
(SFC, 1/8/97, p.A7)
1955-1963 In Greece Constantine Karamanlis was
appointed prime minister by King Paul. He built a solid center-right
party and won absolute parliamentary majorities in 5 elections. Clashes
with King Paul ended in his resignation.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.B4)
1955-1963 Vu Van Mau served as the foreign minister
in South Vietnam under Pres. Ngo Dinh Diem.
(SFC, 9/12/98, p.C3)
1955-1965 The 2nd Betty Crocker [General Mills
advertising icon] made her appearance.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A6)
1955-1969 Germany followed the Hallstein Doctrine
named after Walter Hallstein. According to the doctrine, the Federal
Republic of Germany had the exclusive right to represent the entire
German nation, and with the exception of the Soviet Union, West Germany
would not establish or maintain diplomatic relations with any state
that recognized East Germany. The doctrine was first applied to
Yugoslavia in 1957.
(Econ, 3/22/08,
p.59)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallstein_Doctrine)
1955-1982 William A. Hewitt (d.1998 at 83) led the
John Deere farm equipment company. Under his leadership company sales
rose from 300 million to over $5 billion. Pres. Reagan appointed him
ambassador to Jamaica in 1982.
(SFC, 5/19/98, p.A21)
Go to 1956