1955 - What happened in 1955 ?

January 1955

Sunday 02:

Panamanian president Jose Antonio Remon is assassinated.

Wednesday 19:

The Scrabble board game debuts.

February 1955

Sunday 13:

Israel obtains 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.

Thursday 17:

Christian Pineau becomes Prime Minister of France

Wednesday 23:

Edgar Faure becomes Prime Minister of France

March 1955

Tuesday 01:

Allen Fieldhouse at the University of Kansas hosts its first college basketball game.

Wednesday 02:

King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicates the throne in favor of his father, King Norodom Suramarit.

Thursday 03:

Elvis Presley appears on television for the first time.

Saturday 05:

President of Lithuania, Antanas Merkys dies, after having been imprisoned and deported to the Soviet Union.

Friday 25:

United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" as obscene.

April 1955

Tuesday 05:

Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom amid indications of failing health.

Thursday 07:

Anthony Eden becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Tuesday 12:

1955 - The polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk is declared safe and effective.

Friday 15:

The first McDonald's restaurant opens in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Thursday 21:

Bob Hope's radio program airs its last segment.

May 1955

Monday 02:

Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Thursday 05:

West Germany gains full sovereignty.

Monday 09:

Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.

Saturday 14:

Cold War: Eight communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defence treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

Sunday 15:

First ascent of Makalu, the world's fifth highest mountain.

June 1955

Thursday 02:

USSR and Yugoslavia sign the Belgrade declaration and thus normalize relations between both countries, discontinued since 1948.

Saturday 11:

Eighty-three are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the Le Mans Grand Prix.

Tuesday 14:

Chile becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

Wednesday 15:

The Eisenhower administration stages the first annual "Operation Alert" (OPAL) exercise, an attempt to assess the USA's preparations for a nuclear attack.

Thursday 16:

Pope Pius XII excommunicates Juan Perón

July 1955

Saturday 09:

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was released by Bertrand Russell in London.

Monday 11:

The phrase In God We Trust is added to all US currency.

Sunday 17:

Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California.

Wednesday 27:

The Allied occupation of Austria stemming from World War II, ends (started on May 9, 1945).

August 1955

Tuesday 02:

Velcro is patented.

Sunday 07:

Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, begins selling its first transistor radios in Japan.

Friday 19:

In the Northeast United States, severe flooding caused by Hurricane Diane, claims 200 lives.

Saturday 20:

In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria, raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.

Sunday 28:

Black Mississippian Emmett Till is murdered, allegedly for whistling to a white woman and calling her baby.

September 1955

Tuesday 06:

Istanbul Pogrom: Istanbul's Greek minority is the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.

Thursday 15:

The I Love Lucy episode featuring John Wayne premieres.

Friday 16:

Juan Perón is deposed in Argentina

Thursday 22:

In Great Britain, the television channel ITV goes live for the first time.

Friday 30:

James Dean dies in a car crash.

October 1955

Sunday 02:

Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuts (last new episode aired on June 26, 1962).

Thursday 06:

A United Airlines DC-4 crashes in Medicine Bow Peak, Wyoming, killing 66 people

Friday 07:

Aircraft carrier U.S.S. Saratoga at Brooklyn launched.

Thursday 20:

Publication of The Return of the King, being the last part of The Lord of the Rings

Saturday 29:

The Soviet battleship Novorossiisk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol.

November 1955

Tuesday 01:

A United Airlines DC-6B explodes in mid-air and crashes near Longmont, Colorado, killing 44 people

Thursday 03:

The musical film Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.

Sunday 20:

Bo Diddley becomes the first African American performer to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. Apparently Sullivan was infuriated when Diddley sang his self-titled song instead of Tennessee Ernie Ford's hit, "Sixteen Tons".

Wednesday 23:

The Cocos Islands are transferred from United Kingdom to Australian control.

December 1955

Thursday 01:

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.

Monday 05:

The trade unions American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations decide to merge and form the AFL-CIO.

Saturday 31:

General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make over USD $1 billion in a year.