1955

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Events of 1955

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 health.
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 2 - Northeast High School, Lincoln, Nebraska presents diplomas to the class of 1955.
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 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.

Fictional events

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 clock tower 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.

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 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, and will run until 1982.
- The Mickey Mouse Club debuts, featuring "Mouseketeer" Annette Funicello, and will run until 1959.

Births

Deaths

March 11 - Sir Alexander Fleming, British discoverer of penicillin.
March 12 - Charlie Parker, jazz saxophonist (b. 1920)
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
September 30 - James Dean, actor
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 Famer (b. 1874)

Nobel Prizes

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

Updated 09/18/2009

Fictional events

Year in topic

Births

January-February

March-September

October-December

Deaths

Nobel Prizes