1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960
Nikita Khruschev denounces the late Josef Stalin and his policies February 25 at the 20th Communist Party Conference, saying, "Lenin used severe methods only in the most necessary cases, when the exploiting classes were still in existence and were vigorously opposing the revolution . . . Stalin, on the other hand, used extreme methods and mass repression at a time when the revolution was already victorious . . . Instead of proving his political correctness and mobilizing the masses, he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the Party and the Soviet government." Moscow dissolves the 8½-year-old Cominform April 17 in a move toward reconciliation with the Western powers, but Soviet authorities crack down in the autumn on rebellious Poles and Hungarians.
The Polaris missile developed at the Woods Hole, Mass., Oceanographic Institute can be launched underwater from submarines and carry a nuclear warhead.
The U-2A spy plane built by Lockheed Aircraft for surveillance missions carries no armament, has a maximum speed of 494 miles per hour (and a cruising speed of 460), an initial range of 2,220 miles, and an initial service ceiling of more than 55,000 feet. Michigan-born engineer Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson, 46, has designed the U-2, but advanced Soviet radar can detect U-2 overflights (see 1960).
The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission explodes the world's first airborne hydrogen bomb May 21 as it conducts a new series of nuclear tests in the Pacific (see 1954; Britain, 1957).
Polish workers riot at Poznan June 28 to protest social and economic conditions under the communist regime. More than 100 demonstrators are killed as the militia moves in to suppress the riots, trials of the rioters end abruptly October 10, several Polish communists demand removal of Soviet officers from the Polish Army October 16, but Polish and Soviet frontier troops exchange fire as former Soviet officer Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossovsky, 60, orders his Polish troops to take positions near Warsaw. Former Polish Workers' Party Secretary General Wladyslaw Gomulka, 51, has been freed and rehabilitated after 5 years in prison and becomes first secretary of Poland's Communist Party October 21. Soviet troop withdrawal from Poland begins October 25, but several Soviet divisions from East Germany have entered Poland a few days earlier and remain. Marshal Rokossovsky plots to overthrow Party Secretary Gomulka, Polish militia using tear gas suppress attacks on Soviet Army installations at Liegnitz, the Soviet military coup against Gomulka is aborted by betrayal of his plans, Rokossovsky returns to Moscow October 28, and the Polish prelate Stepan Cardinal Wyszinski, 55, is released from custody October 29.
Hungarian university students meet at Budapest October 22 and put together a list of 16 demands while expressing solidarity with the Polish rebels. They post the petition during the night on trees and walls and at tram stops throughout the city, and make plans to present their demands to the minister of internal affairs, who is also the head of the secret police. Students mob Bem Square beginning at 4:30 in the afternoon of October 23 as the ministry of internal affairs retracts its denial of permission to hold a rally, truckloads of workers arrive, and the crowd moves toward Parliament Square two miles away as its numbers swell to more than 100,000 men and women demanding democratic government, the return of former premier Imre Nagy to power, withdrawal of Soviet troops, and the release of Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty, who has been held in solitary confinement since the end of 1948. Imre Nagy is restored as premier October 24; the Stalinist head of the Communist Party Ernö Gerö is succeeded October 25 by János Kádár, 44, but the revolt begins to spread across Hungary. Marshal Zhukov orders occupation of Hungary after a long debate in the Politburo, where a majority has initially opposed military action. Soviet ordnance contains only intermediate ballistic missiles, they can reach certain strategic areas of southern Europe only if launched from bases in Hungary, and Zhukov insists on having those bases. Moscow responds also to pressure from its allies at Beijing (Peking), who urge suppression of the Hungarian revolution lest world communism disintegrate. Soviet forces withdraw from Budapest beginning October 30, Cardinal Mindszenty is released from prison that day, Premier Nagy goes on the radio to promise Hungarians free elections and a prompt end to one-party dictatorship, Nagy announces Hungary's unilateral withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact November 1, and 16 Soviet divisions move in 3 days later with 2,000 tanks to crush the Hungarian defiance. Politician Gyula Kallai, 46, helps to restore communist rule after the pro-democratic uprising, and Premier Nagy is succeeded by János Kádár, 44, who has been one of his ministers and will continue as premier until 1958 (and then from 1961 to 1965). Cardinal Mindszenty takes refuge in the U.S. embassy at Budapest, where he will occupy the top floor for 15 years, supported by funds from U.S. bishops. The United Nations General Assembly condemns Soviet interference in Hungary November 4 and calls for an investigation, the last rebel stronghold on Csepel Island in the Danube falls to Soviet forces November 14, and the Russians seize Imre Nagy November 22 as he leaves the Yugoslav embassy at Budapest (see 1958). Premier Kádár begins his regime with extravagant promises: abolition of compulsory deliveries of farm produce, abolition of pressure on peasants to enter collectives, a grant of more control to workers' councils in mines and factories, more production of consumer goods, and the like (but see 1957). The Eisenhower administration makes no effort to intervene in Hungary until after the president's reelection; it offers asylum to Hungarian "freedom fighters" November 29. Hungarians stage a general strike in December to protest the János Kádár regime. Nearly 200,000 people emigrate, including some of the country's best minds and talents.
British Royal Air Force cofounder Hugh Montague Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, dies at Chelsea, London, February 10 at age 83; former German field Marshal Erich R. von Leeb at Augsburg April 29 at age 79; former Italian field marshal Pietro Badoglio at Curzano, Italy, October 31 at age 82; former Finnish statesman Juho Kusti Paasikivi at Helsinki December 14 at age 86.
Jordan and Israel accept UN truce proposals January 24, Washington announces January 25 that it is not prepared to sell arms to Israel (which has sought aid to balance Soviet arms shipments to Egypt), the Declaration of Washington issued February 1 by President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Eden reaffirms joint Anglo-American policy in the Mideast urging a settlement of Arab-Israeli differences and a reaffirmation of the 1950 tripartite agreement, Moscow states February 12 that sending U.S. or British troops to the Mideast would violate the UN Charter, Jordan abruptly dismisses the Arab Legion's commander Gen. John B. Glubb March 3 (now 58, "Glubb Pasha" is credited with having made Jordan's army the most efficient in the Mideast, but Jordan has come under Arab pressure to eliminate British influence). A military alliance signed April 21 at Jedda joins Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld arranges a cease-fire between Israel and Jordan that takes effect April 29, cease-fires with Lebanon and Syria take effect May 1.
Egypt announces June 4 that she will not renew the Suez Canal Company's concession after it expires in 1968, the last British troops leave the Canal base June 13, Soviet Foreign Minister Dmitri Trofimovitch Shepilov, 51, arrives at Cairo June 16, Israel and the Arab states accuse each other July 4 of massing troops on the Israeli border, Washington withdraws its offer to help Egypt build an Aswan Dam on the Nile July 19, President Nasser nationalizes the Canal July 26 under a decree outlawing the company, British and French nationals leave Egypt August 2, the last British families are airlifted out of the Canal Zone August 9, Nasser boycotts an 18-nation London conference on the Suez August 16, and a month later he rejects the conference's recommendation for international control of the canal.
Britain and France submit the Suez dispute to the UN Security Council September 23, Israel launches an all-out attack on Egypt October 19 in reprisal for border raids by fedayeen, Israeli troops invade the Sinai Peninsula October 29 following a secret agreement at Sèvres, outside Paris, between British, French, and Israeli leaders. Israeli forces under the command of Palestine-born 1948 war veteran Ariel (originally Arik) Sharon, 28, capture the strategic Mitla Pass in the Sinai Peninsula but Sharon comes under criticism for his ruthlessness; Israel accepts an October 30 Anglo-French ultimatum calling for a cease-fire and withdrawal of troops 10 miles from the Suez Canal, but Egypt does not accept, French and British planes bomb Egyptian airfields October 31, President Eisenhower says the United States will not support colonial aggression on the part of Britain or France and Washington remains aloof. Jordan refuses to permit RAF planes to use Jordanian bases for operations against Egypt, Gaza falls to British forces November 2, the UN General Assembly adopts a Canadian resolution November 4 to send an international force to the Mideast, but Britain and France abstain. British paratroops land at Port Said November 5 to recover control of the canal that Prime Minister Eden says is vital if his country is not to starve, Moscow threatens to use rockets, possibly armed with nuclear warheads, if Britain and France do not accept a cease-fire in Egypt, the cease-fire begins November 7, but Britain says she will evacuate her troops only upon the arrival of a UN force. Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, now 41, obtains terms from U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for withdrawal of his country's troops from the Suez (Dulles agrees that Israel will have the right to act in self defense should Egypt again try to interfere with Israeli shipping through the Red Sea). A UN force arrives at the Suez November 15, the UN rejects British and French offers to help clear the canal of scuttled ships December 17 in response to Egyptian objections, the last Anglo-French forces leave Port Said December 22, and a UN fleet begins clearing the canal December 27, but the Suez will remain under Egyptian control.
Cairo-born Palestinian Mohammed "Yasir" Arafat, 27, founds the underground terrorist organization Al Fatah. Raised in Jerusalem after his mother died when he was 4, Arafat studied civil engineering at the University of Cairo, where he headed the Palestinian Students League; Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and other Arab nations have organized the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and will ignore Arafat until 1967.
Sudan proclaims herself an independent democratic republic January 1 and joins the Arab League January 19, increasing membership in the league to nine.
Morocco gains independence from France March 1 and from Spain April 7 (see 1955; 1957).
Tunisia gains independence from France March 20; nationalist Habib (ibn Ali) Bourguiba, 52, founded the radical Neo-Deslour Party in 1934, was imprisoned by the French from 1938 to March 1943, convinced militants to support the Allies, appealed Tunisia's case for independence to the United Nations, and accepts the premiership April 10 at the invitation of the bey of Tunis (see 1957).
Britain grants Gold Coast independence September 18 after 54 years in which the former Asanate (Ashanti) state has been a colony (see Ghana, 1957).
Pakistan proclaims herself an Islamic republic March 23 but remains within the British Commonwealth (see 1947). Her president Iskander Mirza rules with army support (but see 1958).
Ceylon's voters elect a new government headed by Oxford-educated nationalist S. W. R. D. (Solomon West Ridgeway Dias) Bandaranaike, 57, who takes office as prime minister April 12 (see 1948). An Official Language Act certified July 7 declares Sinhala the nation's one official tongue, it has been passed at Bandaranaike's insistence to fulfill a campaign promise, but Tamils stage a satyagraha (nonviolent protest), Bandaranaike meets with Tamil leader S. J. V. Chelvanayakam and agrees to permit the use of Tamil in administrative matters in Tamil-speaking provinces, but Buddhists denounce the agreement as a betrayal and Tamil protests will turn violent (see 1959; communications, 1958).
Indonesia's parliament revokes the 1949 Hague Agreement with the Netherlands April 21 as animosities continue between Dutch and Indonesian nationalists (see 1959).
Japan is admitted to the United Nations December 18.
Japanese economist Tanzan Ishibashi, 72, heads a new cabinet as prime minister in December, eking out a narrow victory in the polls by advocating "independent diplomacy" for the country and trade relations with the People's Republic of China. His cabinet will prove unstable, his health will decline, and he will serve only until February of next year.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling March 26 upholds a federal law passed in 1954 to compel witnesses to testify in cases involving national security. The court rules in Ullmann v. United States that the witnesses will have immunity from prosecution equivalent to the protection guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court excludes states from punishing persons for sedition. It rules April 3 in Pennsylvania v. Nelson that the federal government has "occupied the field" under the Smith Act of 1940.
Former U.S. vice president Alben W. Barkley dies at Lexington, Va., April 30 at age 78 while addressing a mock Democratic Party convention held by students of Washington & Lee University; Admiral Ernest J. King, U.S. Navy (ret.), dies of heart failure due to hypertension at Portsmouth, N.H., June 25 at age 77. He is credited with having masterminded the Allied victory at sea in World War II; Canadian World War I flying ace William Avery "Billy" Bishop dies at Palm Beach, Fla., September 11 at age 62.
President Eisenhower wins reelection against a second challenge from Democratic hopeful Adlai Stevenson despite the president's illness and warnings that in the event of his death he would be succeeded by his controversial vice president Richard M. Nixon. Ike receives 57 percent of the popular vote and wins 457 electoral votes, Stevenson gets only 42 percent of the popular vote and 73 electoral votes, but the Democrats retain control of Congress.
"History is on our side. We will bury you!" says Nikita Khrushchev to Western ambassadors November 17 at a Kremlin reception.
El Salvador's president Oscar Osario ends his 6-year term, having extended collective bargaining rights to urban workers (although most of his reforms are perceived as having been designed to spur economic growth to benefit the middle class) (see 1948). His vice president Lieut. Col. José Maria Lemus succeeds to power, continues the Osario policies, but will not improve workers' living standards and will retain office only until 1960.
Peru's dictator Manuel A. Odria goes into self-imposed exile after public pressure forces him to hold a free election following 8 years of repressive rule (see 1950). Former president Manuel Prado wins the election, defeating architect and Democratic Youth Front leader Fernando Belaunde Terry, 43, whose party is renamed Popular Action (Acción Popular) (see 1963).
Britain's 85-year-old Leeward Islands Colony ends July 1 as the Caribbean island of Montserrat becomes a colony in her own right.
Cuban rebel leader Fidel Castro returns from Mexico aboard the yacht Gramma and lands on the coast of Oriente Province December 2 with 81 armed men, all of whom are killed or captured with the exception of Castro himself, his brother Raul, his Argentine-born communist supporter Ernesto "Che" Guevara (who is wounded), and nine others (see 1953). The survivors make their way into the Sierra Maestra, where they join Frank País, Armando Hart, and Enrique Oltuski, who have remained in Cuba to carry on the 26th of July Movement with sabotage and political activities. The revolutionists will attract volunteers to their cause and wage guerrilla warfare against the forces of dictator Fulgencio Batista (see 1959).
Haiti's president Paul E. Magloire resigns under pressure in December after 6 years in which a devastating hurricane has crippled the nation's economy. Former minister of public health François Duvalier, 49, has rallied opposition to Magloire, and his followers will have positions in most of the six governments that will try to rule in the next 10 months (see 1957).
South Africa's Nationalist government reveals plans January 13 to remove 60,000 mixed-blood "coloreds" from the Cape Province voting roll (see 1953); on August 25 the government orders more than 100,000 nonwhites at Johannesburg to leave their homes within a year to make room for whites. Civil rights worker Helen Joseph leads a march of 20,000 women on the Union Buildings at Pretoria to protest the extension of laws requiring blacks to carry passes (see 1948). She is arrested, charged with treason, and next year will be placed under a ban order (see 1961).
Alabama graduate student Autherine (Juanita) Lucy, 26, enters the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa February 3 but is allowed to attend classes for only a few days before riots erupt on campus, and she is suspended by the board of trustees for "her own safety." The first black student to be admitted to the university, she has been pelted with rotten eggs February 7 by a racist mob screaming, "Let's kill her," and chanting, "Hey, hey, ho, where did Autherine go? Hey, hey, ho, where in hell did the nigger go?" "That girl sure has guts," says NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall. The U.S. district court rules February 29 that she must be readmitted, but the university expels her March 1, charging that she has made libelous statements (e.g., accusing university officials of cooperating with the white mob).
Southern congressmen issue a manifesto March 11 pledging to use "all lawful means" to upset the Supreme Court's 1954 desegregation ruling.
A South Carolina law enacted April 19 forbids city employees from affiliating with any civil-rights organization. Schoolteacher Septima Poinsette Clark, 58, loses both her job and her retirement benefits when she refuses to resign from the NAACP and stop protesting the new law. Clark will travel throughout the South in the next 5 years, teaching prospective voters how to write their names, write letters, balance their checkbooks, and vote in elections; her retirement pay will be restored in 1976 after 20 years of fighting the system (see 1961).
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling April 23 outlaws racial segregation in intrastate public transportation, but segregation of intracity buses continues, as does the boycott of Montgomery, Ala., buses organized in December of last year in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leads a protest against racial discrimination, and the Montgomery bus boycott does not end until December 21 after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that intracity bus segregation violates the Constitution (see Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1957).
Egypt, Tunisia, Comoros, and Mauritius grant women the right to vote on the same basis as men.
A new Japanese law enacted May 21 outlaws brothels, ends licensed prostitution, but permits individual prostitutes to operate so long as they do not solicit in public (see 1958).
Chinese who resist communization continue to be liquidated as they have been since 1949 (and especially since 1952) and will be for another 4 years. By 1960 some 26.3 million Chinese will have been killed according to some estimates, the largest massacre in world history.
Israeli border police massacre 47 Arab men, women, and children at the village of Kafr Kassem October 29. Acting on shoot-to-kill orders designed to discourage curfew breakers, the police have fired on people returning from their fields; eight of the men responsible will be tried and convicted, despite their pleas that they were merely following orders, but none will serve more than 3½ years in prison. Arabs will commemorate the atrocity each year, and Israelis will acknowledge in 1999 that the massacre was a "disgrace."
Harijan leader Bhimrao Ramni Ambedkar dies at New Delhi December 6 at age 65, having renounced Hinduism in October and become a Buddhist, despairing that Hindu doctrine has not ended the idea of "untouchability."
The Ford Foundation sells 20 percent of its Ford Motor stock to Wall Street investors, permitting the public to buy into Ford for the first time and bringing in some $643 million to the Foundation, which announces that it will give away more than $500 million in the next 18 months, $150 million more than in the 20 years since 1936 (see 1950; 1954).
Onetime explorer Hiram Bingham dies at Washington, D.C., June 6 at age 80, having discovered Macchu-Pichu in the Peruvian Andes in 1911 and served in the U.S. Senate from 1924 to 1933.
A United Nations economic report July 6 shows that trade in the Mideast is moving away from the West and towards Soviet-bloc countries.
Congress amends the Social Security Act of 1935 to provide benefits to workers aged 50 to 64 who have become permanently and totally disabled, and to provide benefits to adult children of disabled or retired workers if the worker was disabled before age 18 (see 1939; 1972).
IBM signs a consent decree agreeing to sell its tabulating and computer machines as well as leasing them, thus ending a legal skirmish with the Department of Justice (see 1955; 1969). Graphic designer Paul Rand creates a distinctive IBM logotype, dividing the three letters into blue and white horizontal stripes.
Former Reconstruction Finance Corp. chairman Jesse Jones dies at Houston June 1 at age 82 (his South Texas Lumber Co. has built most of the city's skyscrapers); Celanese Corp. founder Camille E. Dreyfus dies at New York September 27 at age 78; Merrill, Lynch founder Charles E. Merrill at Southampton, Long Island, October 6 at age 70, leaving $5.5 million to a philanthropic foundation.
Omaha investor Warren Buffett, 25, starts the Buffet Partnership with $5,000 of his own money and $100,000 from family and friends. Buffett began playing the market with an older sister at age 11, joined a friend in high school to run a pinball-machine business that earned him $50 per week, purchased 40 acres of Nebraska farmland, met Benjamin Graham in graduate school, learned to look for undervalued stocks, and will become the richest man in America by buying such stocks and holding them for appreciation (see 1963).
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 500 for the first time March 12, having risen 100 points in just over a year; it peaks at 521 and closes December 31 at 499.47, up from 488.40 at the end of 1955.
Stanley Home Products Co. founder Frank Stanley Beveridge dies at Westfield, Mass., December 3 at age 77, having established a philanthropic foundation in 1947 and retired in 1951.
England's Calder Hall initiates full-scale use of nuclear fuel to produce electricity August 20 when the facility's first turbine goes into operation. It feeds power into the grid of the Central Electricity Authority beginning October 17. Designed by nuclear engineer Christopher Hinton, 55, to generate some 90,000 kilowatts of power, it also manufactures the artificial nuclear fuel plutonium for military purposes (see 1954; United States, 1958).
Parliament passes a Finance Act giving the British government direct responsibility for long-term financing of the electric utilities industry, which has been nationalized since 1948.
Uranium ore bodies found north of Saskatchewan's Lake Athabasca will make the province the world's leading uranium producer (see 1953).
Canada pledges to help India develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in an agreement signed by Prime Minister Louis Saint Laurent with Prime Minister Jawahrlal Nehru. India will complete nuclear power reactors north of Bombay at Trapur in 1969, but peaceful application of nuclear energy for India will not come until later (see politics, 1974).
Libya's first oil well comes into production on a concession granted by Idris I to the Libyan American Oil Co. Rights to the oil go to Oakland, Calif.-born explorer-archaeologist Wendell Phillips, 35, who has persuaded the king that an independent company will work harder to develop Libya's petroleum resources than will any of the seven world oil giants. Oil revenues will transform Libya from a state dependent for its revenues on international aid and rents paid for British and U.S. air bases to a rich monarchy (see politics, 1969).
Royal Dutch/Shell prospectors discover petroleum in Nigeria, whose oil production will grow to yield $10 billion per year for Mobil, Gulf, Shell, Texaco, and other Western companies as well as for the country's government and military leaders.
Getty Oil is created by a reorganization of Jean Paul Getty's Pacific Co. (see 1951). Getty's Saudi-Arabian wells have been producing since 1953; the world's largest personally owned oil producer and distributor, Getty Oil will coordinate his interests in other areas.
Oilman Harry F. Sinclair dies at Pasadena, Calif., November 10 at age 80.
Britain imposes petrol (gasoline) rationing December 17 as the Suez crisis cuts off supplies from the Middle East.
The container ship Ideal X leaves Port Newark, N.J., April 26, heads down the coast, rounds Florida, and arrives at Houston (see 1955). Former trucker Malcom McLean has strengthened the decks of a World War II tanker and had 58 simple trailer vans hoisted onto her decks, each container measuring 33 feet by eight feet square (10 meters x 2.4 square m.). The world's first container-ship port opens at Elizabeth, N.J., where the Port of New York Authority has paid $3.5 million to buy 40 acres for the new facility; container ships will revolutionize cargo handling in ports worldwide by reducing the need for longshoremen (see Mechanization and Modernization Agreement, 1960), reducing damage and pilferage, increasing productivity, and giving a boost to international trade. Elizabeth will remain the world's leading container-ship port until it is overtaken by Hong Kong (see Matson Line, 1958).
The Italian passenger liner S.S. Andrea Doria collides in a heavy fog 60 miles off Nantucket Island, Mass., July 24 with the Swedish liner S.S. Stockholm. The 29,500-gross-ton Italian ship has used improper radar procedure, she has turned to her left at the last moment rather than to her right, her engine room is missing a watertight door, she has diminished her stability by failing to ballast her empty fuel tanks, and she goes down in 225 feet of water the next morning with a loss of 52 lives.
Boeing and Douglas battle for leadership in the commercial jet aircraft industry (see 1953). American Airlines, Air France, Air India, and eight other airlines order Boeing 707s; United, Trans Canada, SAS, and nine other airlines order Douglas DC-8s, but Boeing orders will exceed Douglas orders by three to one within a year (see 1958).
An Aeroflot Tupolev-104 airliner takes off from Moscow for Irkutsk September 15 on the world's first scheduled passenger jet flight (see 1932). The airline was absorbed into the Soviet airforce in 1941, and the new civilian jet employs the same engine and wings as the Tu-16 bomber.
Boeing Aircraft founder William E. Boeing dies on a yacht in Puget Sound September 24 at age 74; aviation pioneer Sir Richard Fairey of heart disease at London September 30 at age 69, leaving a fortune of nearly £1 million ($2.8 million); Bell Aircraft founder Lawrence D. Bell dies of a heart ailment at Buffalo October 20 at age 62.
The Federal Aid Highway Act passed by Congress June 29 authorizes construction of a 42,500-mile network of roads to link major U.S. urban centers, with 90 percent of the $33.5 billion cost to be borne by the federal government (see 1944). The new legislation indirectly subsidizes trucking firms, intercity bus lines, motor vehicle producers, and oil companies, while railroads remain unsubsidized and will depreciate and abandon their unprofitable passenger services. The system is to be completed by 1972, and while that target date will prove beyond reach, some 38,000 miles of the Interstate Highway System will be open by 1976.
U.S. traffic accidents kill 6.28 people for every 100 million miles traveled. The rate will drop to 3.57 by 1974 and on interstate highways it will be 1.55.
General Motors announces 1955 earnings of more than $1 billion after taxes and is indicted for using anticompetitive actions to obtain an 85 percent monopoly on the U.S. market for new buses (see 1949; 1955). The Justice Department charges GM with inducing municipal transit systems to adopt specifications which only GM buses could meet, entering into long-range requirement contracts with bus company operators, and installing a GM officer and director as board chairman and leading stockholder of GM's chief competitor in bus making (see 1965).
New York makes Broadway one-way southbound below 47th Street (see 1954; 1957).
The red Routemaster (RM) double-decker bus introduced in London replaces the trolley bus with an aluminum-body vehicle whose rear platform makes it easier for passengers to hop on and off quickly, at red lights and in traffic jams as well as at regular stops. Standing 14' 4½" high, the vehicle seats 64 and has improvements that include power-assisted steering, power-hydraulic brakes, electronic automatic gear changing, and fuel efficiency; its simplicity makes it easy to maintain and cheap to run, nearly 2,900 will be built, but each requires a conductor to collect fares as well as a driver; rising labor costs will force London Transport to stop introducing new RMs after 1976.
Tire manufacturer Piero Pirelli dies at his native Milan August 7 at age 75; synthetic rubber pioneer Fritz Hofmann at Hanover, Germany, October 31 at age 89.
An IBM laboratory headed by Minnesota-born engineer Reynold B. Johnson, 50, develops a computer disk drive that will revolutionize the way information (rendered in ones and zeros) is magnetically stored. A former high-school science teacher, Johnson invented a device for scoring test forms marked with a pencil. His RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control) 305 disk drive holds five megabytes of data on 50 large, spinning, 24-inch magnetic plates, stacked one atop the other. A read-write mechanism floats between the disk, the drive's combined weight is 2,000 pounds, it makes it much faster to access data than from huge reels of tape, and it presages the floppy and hard drives that will characterize modern computers.
IBM chairman Thomas J. Watson Sr., dies of a heart attack at New York June 19 at age 82, having built a company whose assets total more than $630 million, with factories in six cities, branch offices in 189, and a domestic workforce of 41,000 with another 19,000 employed in 11 factories and 208 branch offices in 82 countries worldwide. Watson's son Thomas J., Jr. invites top management to Williamsburg, Va., and restructures the company along modern lines, replacing the company's centralized control. The senior Watson balked at going into the computer business, but by August IBM has sold 76 computers to Univac's 46, with orders for 193 machines versus 65 for Univac (see 1954); while there are few intrinsic differences between the computers, IBM employs superior salesmanship and is far ahead of Remington Rand by year's end.
New Jersey-born physicist Frederick Reines, 37, and his colleague Clyde L. Cowan Jr. at South Carolina's Savannah River laboratories use a nuclear reactor and a tank of water to discover the neutrino—a virtually massless subatomic particle that moves through space and matter (see Powell, 1947). Wolfgang Pauli proposed the existence of a lepton with no electrical charge in 1930, Enrico Fermi elaborated on the proposal 4 years later and gave the hypothetical particle its name, other physicists have doubted its existence, its lack of any mass or electrical charge has made it difficult to detect, but Reines and Cowan record the existence of gamma rays when a beam of antineutrinos from the nuclear reactor produces neutrons and positrons by reacting with protons. Billions of neutrinos travel through the Earth every second, but the neutrino does not cause ionization. It has only a weak interaction with matter (traveling through matter a distance equal to the Earth's diameter, only one in 10 billion neutrinos reacts with a neutron or proton), and it is therefore the most penetrating of subatomic particles (see Pontecorvo, 1957).
Shanghai-born Columbia University physicist Tsung-Dao Lee, 29, and his Chinese-born former Princeton Institute of Advanced Study colleague Chen Ning "Frank" Yang, 33, refute the long-held assumption in particle physics that left-handed and right-handed coordinate systems are symmetrical in their physical phenomena (see Bijvoet, 1946; Barton, 1950). They show that when certain elementary particles decay this parity is violated and conclude that the theta-meson and tau-meson are in fact the same particle (it will later be called the K-meson), although they have heretofore been regarded as separate. Lee's Chinese-born Columbia colleague Chien-Shung Wu, 44, designs and conducts experiments that will confirm Lee and Yang's theoretical conclusion, disproving what has heretofore been considered an immutable law of nature—the conservation of parity principle that the interactions between fundamental particles (e.g., those that take place in decaying atomic nuclei) do not distinguish between right and left or clockwise and counterclockwise (see Fitch, Cronin, 1964; Perl, 1974).
Alberta-born nuclear physicist Bertram N. (Neville) Brockhouse, 38, and his colleagues at Chalk River, Ont., complete the first true triple-axis crystal spectrometer, an apparatus that focuses a neutron beam on solids such as minerals, metals, and gems to reveal their structures.
Astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper refutes conventional wisdom by proving that the polar icecaps on Mars are composed not of carbon dioxide but rather of frozen water (see 1944; 1969).
Scientist Irene Joliot-Curie dies of radiation-induced leukemia at Paris March 17 at age 58; science history pioneer George Sarton at Cambridge, Mass., March 22 at age 81; linguist-cryptographer Michael Ventris in a motorcar accident near Hatfield, Hertfordshire, September 6 at age 34; Nobel chemist Frederick Soddy at Brighton, England, September 22 at age 79.
Biochemist George H. Hitchings and other Burroughs Wellcome scientists at North Carolina's Research Triangle synthesize trimethorpim, an active ingredient in the antibacterial medication Septra that is effective against meningitis, septicemia, and other bacterial infections.
Chemist Robert B. Woodward synthesizes reserpine (see 1952). His technique permits commercial production of the drug.
Kansas-born pharmacologist and physiologist Earl W. (Wilbur) Sutherland Jr., 40, at Cleveland's Western Reserve University isolates cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cyclic AMP) and demonstrates its function in a large variety of metabolic processes that occur in animals.
Texas-born physician E. (Edward) Donnall Thomas, 36, at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital performs the first successful bone marrow transplant between two humans—a leukemia patient and his identical twin (see Medawar, 1953). Leukemia heretofore has been inevitably fatal, but the body of Thomas's patient accepts the donated marrow and uses it to make new, healthy blood cells and immune system cells. Further work by Thomas will enable him (in 1969, at Seattle) to perform the first such transplant successfully in a leukemia patient whose donor is unrelated, and by 1990 leukemia patients will have a better than 50-50 chance of survival.
Sex researcher Alfred C. Kinsey dies of a heart ailment and pneumonia at Bloomington, Ind., August 25 at age 62, having been in a state of depression for the past 2 or 3 years, but his work has begun what will be a sexual revolution in the next decade, and the Kinsey Institute will survive into the 21st century; plaster-cast therapy pioneer H. Winnett Orr dies at Lincoln, Neb., October 11 at age 79.
Painless Childbirth by Fernand Lamaze develops the theories advanced by Lamaze and Pierre Vellay in 1951. Pope Pius XII gives his blessings to the Lamaze method, but Lamaze will be dismissed next year from the communist-controlled Bluets Hospital where he has perfected his "psychoprophylactic" breathing technique and die of a heart attack the next day at age 66 (see 1991).
Oxford physician Richard Doll, 37, reports research linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer, showing that people with jobs that expose them to engine exhausts do not have higher rates of lung cancer than other people, but the Times of London refuses to print a letter from a Brompton Hospital physician supporting Doll's study.
Christianity Today begins publication with support from evangelist Billy Graham as a counterpart to the more liberal magazine Christian Century published since 1884. Baptist fundamentalist Carl F. H. Henry, now 43, will edit the new magazine until 1968 (see 1947). Finding the term fundamentalist to have been discredited, he and his followers will call themselves neo-evangelicals.
Former Berlin rabbi (and Theresienstadt concentration camp survivor) Leo Baeck dies at London November 2 at age 83.
Cambodia's National University of Phnom Penh is founded under the name Royal Khmer University.
Educator Edmund Walsh dies at Washington, D.C., October 31 at age 71, having been an invalid for the past 4 years. Georgetown University's 37-year-old School of Foreign Service will be named in his honor in 1958; I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient) Test pioneer Lewis M. Terman dies at Palo Alto, Calif., December 21 at age 79.
The first successful videotape recorder (VTR) is demonstrated in February in an Ampex Corp. laboratory at Redwood City, Calif. (see 1952). A research team headed by San Francisco-born engineer Charles Paulson Ginsburg, 35, has developed the broadcast-quality VTR, which sells for $50,000; CBS airs the first tape-delayed news broadcast from Los Angeles in September, most TV shows quickly move from live performance to videotape, and U.S. companies race to develop home VCRs (video cassette recorders) (see 1965; Betamax, 1975).
The Space Command designed by Viennese-born Zenith Electronics engineer Robert Adler, 43, and introduced by Zenith is the first wireless remote control device for television sets. Zenith founder Eugene F. McDonald Jr. asked for a way to counter what he saw as the threat of commercials (see 1923), the Lazy Bones remote control introduced by Zenith in 1950 used a wire connection that enabled viewers to change channels. The Flashmatic device offered last year employed a flashlight beam in place of the wire cable, Adler's mechanical device allows viewers to turn their sets on or off, control volume, and switch channels from across the room by means of ultrasound, but sets with remote control retail at between $259.95 and $550—much higher than ordinary sets. Since viewers can easily switch channels with the new remote controls, they will put pressure on advertisers to find creative new ways to hold viewers' attention, dooming the repetitive, hard-sell commercials that have cluttered the airwaves. By 1976 about 9.5 percent of TV sets sold in America will have remote controls; by 1990, some 90 percent of new sets will be thus equipped.
Television broadcasting begins in Uruguay and other Latin American countries.
The first transatlantic telephone cable opens between Newfoundland and Scotland. The TAT-1 submarine cable carries 36 voice calls simultaneously at what later will be calculated as 1,152,000 bits per second.
Fiber optics gets its name from Indian-born, English-educated California engineer Narinder S. (Singh) Kapany, 29, who has invented a glass-coated bundle of glass rods that can transmit an image without distortion and with minimum loss of light (see Snitzer, 1961).
Poland's communist leadership returns control of the weekly Tygodnik Powszerchny to Jerzy Turowicz in an effort to gain credibility (see 1953). Turowicz was dismissed 3 years ago for refusing to publish a eulogy of the late Josef Stalin (see 1968).
Comic-strip artist Alex Raymond is killed in an automobile accident near Westport, Conn., September 6 at age 46.
Collier's magazine ceases publication at year's end (see 1895).
Nonfiction: The Organization Man by Pennsylvania-born Fortune magazine editor William Hollingsworth Whyte Jr., 39, argues that a new collective ethic has arisen from the bureaucratization of society and is replacing the old Protestant individualist code. "Belongingness" rather than personal fulfillment has become the ultimate need of the individual (compare Riesman, 1950); The Presidency at Mid-Century by New York-born Columbia University professor Richard E. (Elliott) Neustadt, 37, who has advised former president Harry S. Truman; The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills; The Anti-Capitalist Mentality by Ludwig von Mises; Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand, who expresses her belief in unfettered individualism, nurtured in a capitalist state, but espouses a right-wing "politics without philosophy"; The Coming World Civilization by philosopher William Ernest Hocking; Night (La Nuit; initially, Un Di Veit Hot Geshvign) by Romanian-born journalist Elie (Eliezer) Wiesel, 28, is about the Holocaust (Wiesel was 16 when he and the other inmates of Buchenwald were liberated in 1945); Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East by Breslau-born historian Walter (Ze'ev) Laqueur, 35, who came to Israel (then Palestine) early in 1939 to escape the Holocaust; A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (Volume I, The Birth of Britain) by former prime minister Winston S. Churchill; The Age of Enlightenment by Isaiah Berlin; The Militant South by John Hope Franklin, who is appointed chairman of Brooklyn College's history department; Naught for Your Comfort by British Anglican priest Trevor Huddleston, 43, who has been in charge of a mission in a Johannesburg slum, calls apartheid immoral, and is banned this year by the South African government as a threat to the system; The Secret of the Hittites: The Discovery of an Ancient Civilization by German-born author C. W. Ceram (Kurt W. [Wili] Marek), 41, who was a Berlin film critic before the war, was badly wounded fighting with the Wehrmacht at Monte Cassino, and moved 2 years ago to a house at Woodstock, N.Y.; The Art of Loving by German-born U.S. psychoanalyst-philosopher Eric Fromm, 56; Profiles in Courage by Sen. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (D. Mass.) (actually ghost-written, mostly by Columbia University historian Allan Nevins, now 66, and New York lawyer Theodore C. Sorensen, 28) examines men prominent in American history. Now 39, Kennedy is himself a profile in courage, having given himself painful injections of corticosteroids twice each day for years to replace the adrenaline his glands failed to produce because of Addison's disease (he underwent surgery for the condition in October 1954 at New York Hospital, despite warnings that he would probably die on the operating table, and became the first Addisonian to survive such surgery); The Outsider by English author Colin (Henry) Wilson, 24, who has studied alienation through the lives and writings of some major 20th-century intellectuals.
Pundit H. L. Mencken dies in his sleep of a coronary occlusion at his native Baltimore January 29 at age 75, having reputedly said, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public" (he never fully recovered from a stroke he suffered in 1948); psychologist Robert M. Yerkes dies at New Haven, Conn., February 3 at age 79; writer John McNulty of a heart attack at West Wakefield, R.I., July 29 at age 60; historian Lucien Febvre at Saint-Amour September 17 at age 78.
Fiction: The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien; The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay, who produces her most successful novel at age 75; Thin Ice by Compton Mackenzie, now 73; The Quiet American by Graham Greene; The Floating Opera by Cambridge, Md.-born novelist John Barth, 26, whose nihilist hero decides after a comic analysis not to commit suicide; Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin; Seize the Day by Saul Bellow; The Last Hurrah by Boston novelist Edwin Greene O'Connor, 38, whose fictional Frank Skeffington is based on the politician James Michael Curley, now 81, whose autobiography I'd Do It Again will appear next year; The Fall (La Chute) by Albert Camus; A Certain Smile (Un Certain Sourire) by Françoise Sagan; The Roots of Heaven (Les Racines du ciel) by Romain Gary; Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by English novelist-playwright Angus (Frank Johnstone) Wilson, 43; Tunes of Glory by Scottish novelist James Kennaway, 28; The Tribe That Lost Its Head by Nicholas Monsarrat; Old Soldiers Never Die (My Old Man's a Dustman in England) by Wolf Mankowitz; The Butterfly of Dinard (La farfalla di Dinard) (prose sketches) by poet Eugenio Montale; The Last of the Wine by English-born South African novelist Mary Renault (Eileen Mary Challens), 51, who was trained as a nurse, has made only two brief trips to the Mediterranean, yet writes knowledgeably and compellingly of ancient Athenians; Pincher Martin by William Golding; Here Be Dragons by Stella Gibbons; A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren; Peyton Place by Manchester, N.H., novelist Grace Metalious (née Repentigny), 31; Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is about a secession of the meritocracy: says her hero John Galt, "We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt"; Mother and Son by Ivy Compton-Burnett; Six Feet of the Country (stories) by Nadine Gordimer; Comfort Me with Apples by Peter De Vries; O Beulah Land by West Virginia-born novelist Mary Lee Settle, 38; On a Darkling Plain by New York-born novelist Clifford M. (Michael) Irving, 25, whose work was rejected by eight publishers; A Tangled Web by Irish novelist C. Day Lewis, now 52, who gains great success with his detective novel; State of Siege by Eric Ambler; Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming; Death of a Fool by Dame Ngaio Marsh (who in 1948 was made a dame of the Order of the British Empire); The Barbarous Coast by Ross MacDonald (Kenneth Millar, who has dropped the "John" from his nom de plum); Cop Hater by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter), who will write dozens of thrillers about the "87th Precinct."
Author-farmer Louis Bromfield dies of jaundice and bone cancer at Columbus, Ohio, March 18 at age 59; Sir Max Beerbohm at Rapallo, Italy, May 20 at age 83 (he has recently married his secretary-companion Elizabeth Jungmann, with whom he has lived since his first wife's death in 1951); Michael Arlen dies of lung cancer at New York June 23 at age 62; Robert Walser at the town of Herisau in eastern Switzerland December 25 at age 78 (confined in various institutions since about 1930, he has gone missing from the local mental asylum and his body is found by children Christmas Day in a snowy field).
Poetry: "Zima junction" ("Stantsiya Zima") by Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 23, who presents problems that tormented him after Stalin's death in 1953 when the poem was written and reopens long forbidden themes; A String of Light by Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, 32; The False and the True Green by Salvatore Quasimodo; The Storm, Etc. (La Bufera e Altro) by Eugenio Montale; "Chaka" by Senegalese poet Leopold Sedar Senghor, 50; Platero and I (Platero y yo) by Juan Ramon Jimenez; Homage to Mistress Bradstreet by John Berryman; Some Trees by John Ashbery, who last year quit his advertising copywriter job and moved to Paris, where he will remain until 1965; The Form of Loss by Georgia-born poet Edgar Bowers, 32; In Defense of the Earth by Kenneth Rexroth; The Unicorn and Other Poems by Ann Morrow Lindbergh.
Poet-novelist Walter de la Mare dies at Twickenham June 22 at age 83.
Juvenile: If I Ran the Circus by Dr. Seuss; The Island of Horses by Eilis Dillon; One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie (Dorothy Gladys) Smith.
Author A. A. Milne dies in Sussex January 31 at age 74.
Painting: Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? (photo-collage) by English pop artist Richard Hamilton, 34; Pins (tar and oil) by Italian artist Piero Manzoni, 23; A Tir d'Aile by Georges Braque; Easter Monday by Willem de Kooning; Gray Alphabets by Jasper Johns; Yellow Over Deep Purple by Mark Rothko; Dial by Philip Guston; Maboning by Franz Kline; Atlantic by Ellsworth Kelly; Eden by Helen Frankenthaler; Hemlock by Chicago-born abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell, 30. Lyonel Feininger dies at his native New York January 13 at age 84; Jackson Pollock dies in an auto accident at age 44 while driving drunk on Long Island August 17; Aleksandr Rodchenko dies at Moscow December 23 at age 64.
Sculpture: Stringed Figure (Curlew) (wood) by Barbara Hepworth.
Photographer David "Chim" Seymour is killed near the Suez Canal November 10 at age 44 while covering the Arab-Israeli war.
Theater: The Great Sebastians by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse 1/4 at New York's ANTA Playhouse (to Coronet Theater 2/8) with Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Eugenia Rawls, 174 perfs.; The Visit (Der Besuchder alten Dame) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt 1/29 at Zürich's Schauspielhaus; Middle of the Night by Paddy Chayefsky 2/8 at New York's ANTA Playhouse, with Edward G. Robinson, Cambria, Wash.-born actress Gena (originally Virginia Cathryn) Rowlands, 25, Martin Balsam, June Walker, 477 perfs.; Look Back in Anger by London-born playwright John (James) Osborne, 27, 5/8 at London's Royal Court Theatre, with Kenneth Haigh, Glasgow-born actress Mary Ure, 14, Alan Bates expresses the frustration of radical youth in a strident attack on the middle class, 152 perfs.; Romanoff and Juliet by Peter Ustinov 5/17 at London's Piccadilly Theatre, with Ustinov, Katy Vail, John Philip; Auntie Mame by Cleveland-born playwright Jerome Lawrence, 41, and Elyria, Ohio-born playwright Robert E. Lee, 38 (who have adapted last year's Patrick Dennis novel) 10/31 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with Rosalind Russell, Peggy Cass, 634 perfs.; Saturday Sunday Monday (Sabato Dominico e Lunedi) by Eduardo de Filippi 11/6 at Rome's Teatro Quirino; Long Day's Journey into Night by the late Eugene O'Neill 11/7 at New York's Helen Hayes Theater, with Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, Chicago-born actor Jason Robards Jr., 34, San Francisco-born actor Bradford Dillman, 25, Hollywood, Calif.-born actress Katharine Ross, 12, in an autobiographical play about morphine addiction and alcoholism, 390 perfs.; The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder 12/5 at New York's Royale Theatre, with Ruth Gordon, Arthur Hill in a play directed by Tyrone Guthrie that will be the basis of the 1964 Broadway musical Hello, Dolly!, 486 perfs.
Actress Jane Seymour dies at New York January 30 at age 57; playwright Charles MacArthur of internal hemorrhaging at New York April 21 at age 60 with his wife, Helen Hayes, at his bedside; actress Margaret Wycherly dies at New York June 6 at age 74; actor Ralph Morgan at his native New York June 11 at age 72; Bertolt Brecht of a heart attack in East Berlin August 14 at age 58; Percy MacKaye at Cornish, N.H., August 31 at age 81; playwright Owen Davis at New York October 14 at age 82; actress Marion Kerby at Hollywood, Calif., December 18 at age 79; monologist Ruth Draper of a heart attack at New York December 31 at age 72.
The Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus plays under the canvas "Big Top" for the last time July 16 and will book all future engagements in indoor spaces (see 1936). Bad weather has combined with labor problems and competition from television to produce losses for John Ringling North and his brother Henry, who cut costs by eliminating 900 roustabout, aerialist, and equestrian jobs and shortening the circus train from 85 cars to 25. The "tented circus as it now exists is in my opinion a thing of the past," says John Ringling North in a statement issued from his private railroad car; he and his brother will sell their interest in the show in 1967.
Radio: Chicago-born raconteur Jean (Parker) Shepherd, 35, begins a 21-year career on New York's WOR, telling humorous stories to insomniacs. Working without a script, he creates 45-minute episodes that incorporate invented characters (including his alter ego Ralph Parker) based loosely on experiences growing up in the town of Hammond, Ind.
Comedian Fred Allen drops dead of a heart attack on a New York street March 17 at age 61.
Television: Queen for a Day (quiz show) 1/3 on NBC (to 9/2/1960); The Adventures of Robin Hood 2/17 on BBC with Richard Greene, 36, in the title role, Paul Eddington, 28, as Will Scarlett, Alan Wheatley as the sheriff of Nottingham (to 1960; 143 episodes); As the World Turns 4/2 on CBS with Nancy Hughes, Don McLaughlin in a soap opera created by Irna Phillips, now 54; Edge of Night 4/2 on ABC with John Larkin (both daytime, the first half-hour soaps) (to 12/1984); The $64,000 Challenge (quiz show) 4/8 on CBS (to 9/14/1958); It Could Be You (quiz show) 6/4 on NBC (to 12/29/1961); Twenty-One (quiz show) 9/12 on NBC with two contestants in isolation booths competing under rules based on those of the card game popular at casinos. Sponsor of the show is the 6-year-old liquid tonic Geritol (to 5/2000; see Van Doren, 1958); Rat Patrol 9/12 on ABC with Christopher George (to 9/16/1968); Heckle and Jeckle (daytime cartoon show) 10/14 on CBS (to 9/24/1960); To Tell the Truth (Goodson and Todman quiz show) 12/18 on CBS with host Bud Collyer and a panel of celebrities (initially Polly Bergen, Dick Van Dyke, Hildy Parks, John Cameron Swayze) guessing which of several guests is the "real" whoever (to 5/20/1967 plus daytime 5/18/1962 to 9/6/1968, syndication from 1969 to 1977).
Films: Anatole Litvak's Anastasia with Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, Helen Hayes, Akim Tamiroff; Norman Panama and Melvin Frank's The Court Jester with Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone; William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion with Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Marjorie Main; George Stevens's Giant with Winetka, Ill.-born actor Rock Hudson (Roy Scherer Jr.), 30, Elizabeth Taylor, the late James Dean; Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life with Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh, Mexican-born actor Anthony (Rudolph) Quinn, 41, as Gauguin; Robert Bresson's A Condemned Man Escapes with François Leterrier; Jules Dassin's Rififi with Jean Servais, Carl Mohner; John Ford's The Searchers with John Wayne, New Orleans-born actor Jeffrey Hunter (Henry H. McKinnies), 30; Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal with Max von Sydow. Also: Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman with Brigitte Bardot (originally Camille Javal), 22; Satyajit Ray's Aparajito with Smaran Ghosal; Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street with Vittorio Gassman, now 34, Marcello Mastroianni, 32; Joshua Logan's Bus Stop with Marilyn Monroe, Eileen Heckart, Don Murray; Helmut Kautner's The Devil's General with Curt (or Curd) Jurgens, 42; Kon Ichikawa's Harp of Burma with Rentaro Mikuni, Shoji Yasui; Don Siege's Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Canadian actor Donald Sutherland, 22, Brooke Adams, 8; Stanley Kubrick's The Killing with Sterling Hayden; Alexander Mackendrick's The Ladykillers with Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, 31; Nunnally Johnson's The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit with Gregory Peck, Jennifer Jones, Fredric March; Fielder Cook's Patterns with Van Heflin, Everett Sloane, Ed Begley; Albert Lamorisse's The Red Balloon with Lamorisse's son Pascal; Laurence Olivier's Richard III with Olivier, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Claire Bloom; Robert Wise's Somebody Up There Likes Me with Cleveland-born actor Paul Newman, 31, Pier Angeli (originally Anna Maria Pierangeli), 24; Kenji Mizoguchi's Street of Shame with Machiko Kyo; Alexander Mackendrick's Sweet Smell of Success with Burt Lancaster, New York-born actor Tony Curtis (originally Bernard Schwartz), 31; Daniel Mann's The Teahouse of the August Moon with Marlon Brando, Glenn Ford, Machiko Kyo; Frank Launder's Wee Geordie with Bill Travers, Alastair Sim. Plus Terry Morse and Inoshiro Honda's Godzilla, King of the Monsters with Canadian actor Raymond Burr, 39, Takashi Shimura.
Director Sir Alexander Korda dies of a heart attack at his London home in Kensington Gardens January 23 at age 62; actor Robert Newton of a heart attack at Beverly Hills March 25 at age 50; Edward Arnold of a cerebral hemorrhage at Encino, Calif., April 26 at age 66; Louis Calhern of a heart attack on location at Tokyo May 12 at age 61; Guy Kibbee of Parkinson's disease at an East Islip, N.Y., nursing home May 24 at age 74; Jean Hersholt of cancer at Hollywood June 2 at age 69; Bela Lugosi of a heart attack at Hollywood August 16 at age 71; George Bancroft at Santa Monica October 2 at age 74; Paul Kelly of a heart attack at Beverly Hills, Calif., November 6 at age 57.
Hollywood musical: Michael Anderson's Around the World in 80 Days with David Niven, Mexican comedian Cantinflas (Mario Moreno), 44, Shirley MacLaine, Robert Newton, Marlene Dietrich, music by Victor Young.
Stage musicals: My Fair Lady 3/15 at New York's Mark Hellinger Theater, with Walton-on-Thames-born singer Julie Andrews (originally Julia Elizabeth Wells), 20, as Eliza Doolittle, Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins, Bramwell Fletcher, book based on the 1914 Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, music by Frederick Loewe, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, songs that include "Why Can't the English Teach Their Children How to Speak," "The Rain in Spain," "The Street Where You Live," "I'm Getting Married in the Morning," "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," "I Could Have Danced All Night," 2,717 perfs.; Mr. Wonderful 3/22 at New York's Broadway Theater, with Sammy Davis, Jr. and Sr., Chita Rivera, Kay Medford, music by Jerry Bock, 27, lyrics by Larry Holofcener and George Weiss, songs that include "Too Close for Comfort," 388 perfs.; South Sea Bubble 4/25 at London's Lyric Theatre, with Vivien Leigh, Alan Webb, Joyce Carey, music and lyrics by Noël Coward, 276 perfs.; The Most Happy Fella 5/3 at New York's Imperial Theater, with Baltimore-born Metropolitan Opera baritone Robert Weede, 53, Art Lund, Jo Sullivan, book based on the 1924 Sidney Howard play They Knew What They Wanted, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, songs that include "Big D" and "Standing on the Corner," 676 perfs.; New Faces of 1956 (revue) 6/15 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Indianapolis-born soprano Gretchen Cryer, 20, Kentucky-born actor Bill McCutcheon, 32, English-born ingénue Margaret Natalie "Maggie" Smith, 21, Omaha-born actress Inga Swenson, 23, 220 perfs.; Li'l Abner 11/10 at the St. James Theater, with Peter Palmer as Abner Yokum, Edith Adams as Daisy Mae, Charlotte Rae as Mammy Yokum, Stubby Kaye as Marryin' Sam, Julie Newmar, New York-born actress Tina Louise (originally Tina Blacker), 22, as Appasionata von Climax, book by Chicago-born Hollywood producer-directors Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, both 46, music by Gene de Paul, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, songs that include "Jubilation T. Cornpone," 693 perfs.; Grab Me a Gondola 11/28 at London's Lyric Theatre, Hammersley (later to the Lyric on Shaftesbury Avenue), with film star Joan Heal, Dennis Quiley, Jane Wenham, music by James Gilbert, book by Julian More, songs that include "Cravin' for the Avon," "Rockin' at the Cannon Ball," "Star Quality," 687 perfs.; Bells Are Ringing 11/29 at the Sam S. Shubert Theater, with Judy Holliday, Jean Stapleton, dancer Peter Gennaro, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, songs that include "Just in Time," "The Party's Over," 924 perfs.
Mistinguett (Jeanne Bourgeois) dies at Bougival, outside Paris, January 5 at age 82; Elsie Janis of ulcers at her Beverly Hills home February 27 at age 67; Broadway musical star Jed Prouty at New York May 10 at age 77; André Charlot at Woodland Hills, Calif., May 20 at age 74 following cancer surgery; former West End musical comedy star Violet Loraine at Newcastle-on-Tyne July 19 at age 69; lyricist John Latouche of a heart attack at his Calais, Vt., summer home August 7 at age 38; composer Jean Schwartz at Sherman Oaks, Calif., November 30 at age 78.
Opera: Italian baritone Tito Gobbi, 42, makes his Metropolitan Opera debut 1/13 singing the role of Baron Scarpia in the 1900 Puccini opera Tosca; The Ballad of Baby Doe 7/7 at Colorado's Central City Opera House, with music by Cutchogue, N.Y.-born composer Douglas Stuart Moore, 61, libretto by John Latouche based on the career of silver magnate Horace Tabor and his widow (see everyday life, 1935); English mezzo-soprano Janet (Abbott) Baker, 23, makes her operatic debut at Glyndebourne singing the role of Roza in the 1878 Smetana opera The Secret (Tagernstvi); Maria Callas her Metropolitan Opera debut 10/2 in the lead role of the 1831 Bellini opera Norma; Italian tenor Carlo Bergonzi, 32, his Metropolitan Opera debut 11/3 singing the role of Radames in the 1871 Verdi opera Aïda.
Ballerina Tanaquil LeClerq, now 26, is stricken with poliomyelitis while dancing at Copenhagen and paralyzed from the waist down.
First performances: Proclamation for Trumpet and Orchestra by Ernest Bloch 2/3 at Houston; ModernPsalm for Speaker, Mixed Chorus, and Orchestra by the late Arnold Schoenberg 5/29 at Cologne; Johannesburg Festival Overture by William Walton 9/25 at Johannesburg; Robert Browning Overture by the late Charles Ives 10/14 at New York's Carnegie Hail.
Austrian-born conductor Erich Kleiber dies at Zürich January 27 at age 65; blind koto player Michio Miyagi at Tokyo June 25 at age 67 in a fall from a train; German pianist Walter W. Gieseking at London October 26 at age 60 following pancreatic surgery.
Popular songs: "Love Me Tender" by Elvis Presley and Vera Matson; "Don't Be Cruel" by Otis Blackwell and Elvis Presley; "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley, Mae Boren Axton, Tommy Durden; "Blue Suede Shoes" by Tennessee-born guitarist-songwriter-rockabilly singer Carl Perkins, 24, who has written the lyrics on a paper bag (Elvis Presley releases his own version in March). Perkins sustains serious injuries in an auto accident en route to his first appearance on nationwide television but recovers and writes, "Honey Don't;" "I Walk the Line" by Arkansas-born singer-composer John R. "Johnny" Cash, 24, who last year made his first record "Hey, Porter" and followed it with "Folsom Prison Blues;" "Roll Over, Beethoven" by Chuck Berry; "Louie Louie" by Louisiana-born California singer-songwriter Richard Berry, 21; "Since I Met You, Baby" and "I Almost Lost My Mind" by Texas-born blues balladeer Ivory Joe Hunter, 45, whose music and rhythm-and-blues numbers will include "My Wish Came True" and "I Need You So" for Elvis Presley, Pat Boone, and Sonny James; "Touch the Hem of His Garment" and "Jesus, Wash Away my Troubles" by Sam Cooke, whose gospel songs gain wide popularity; Birth of the Cool (album) by jazz trumpeter-composer Miles Davis, who recorded the numbers in 1949 and 1950 and last year formed a quintet with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones; "Around the World in 80 Days" by Victor Young, lyrics by Harold Adamson (title song for film); "Que Será, Será (What Will Be, Will Be)" by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.
Songwriter Mort Dixon dies of a sleeping-pill overdose at Bronxville, N.Y., March 23 at age 64; London-born singer-songwriter Little Jack Little (John Leonard) by his own hand at Hollywood, Fla., April 9 at age 55 (he has been under treatment for hepatitis); hard-bop jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown dies in an automobile accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike June 26 at age 25; composer Harry Link at New York July 5 at age 60; Danny Russo at Hollywood, Calif., September 5 at age 71; Albert von Tilzer of cancer at Los Angeles October 1 at age 78; Isham Jones of cancer at Hollywood, Fla., October 19 at age 63; jazz pianist Art Tatum of uremia at Los Angeles November 5 at age 46; composer Victor Young of a cerebral hemorrhage and stroke at Palm Springs November 10 at age 56; bandleader Tommy Dorsey in his Greenwich, Conn., home November 26 at age 51 having choked to death in his sleep from a piece of food lodged in his windpipe.
Lewis A. "Lew" Hoad, 21, (Australia) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Shirley Fry, 29, (U.S.) in women's singles; Kenneth R. "Ken" Rosewall, 21, (Australia) wins in men's singles at Forest Hills, Fry in women's singles.
Jockey Johnny Longden gains his 4,871st victory September 3, beating the record set by English jockey Sir Gordon Richards, now 52, who retired 2 years ago after 34 seasons. Richards was knighted in 1953, the first jockey to be so honored.
Baseball legend Connie Mack dies at Philadelphia February 18 at age 93; athlete Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias of cancer at Galveston, Texas, September 27 at age 42.
The New York Yankees win the World Series, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers 4 games to 3 after losing last year's Series to the Dodgers by the same one-game margin. Don Larsen, 27, of the Yankees pitches the first "perfect" game in Series history, allowing no hits in the fifth game (see Cy Young, 1904).
The Olympic games at Melbourne in November attract 3,539 contestants from 67 nations. Soviet athletes win the most medals. The U.S. 400-meter relay team wins the gold medal with help from Chicago-born five-foot-four-inch sprinter Ira Murchison, 23, whom the Russians will call a "human Sputnik" (see exploration, 1957). Seal Beach, Calif.-born diver Patricia J. "Pat" McCormick, now 26, wins the springboard and platform dive events (the only woman in Olympic history to score a "double-double"—two gold medals in each of two Olympiads). Tenley Albright has won her event in the winter games at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, becoming the first U.S. woman figure skating gold medalist despite a serious foot injury.
Louisiana-born basketball player William Felton "Bill" Russell, 22, plays on the U.S. team that wins the gold medal at Melbourne, is drafted by the Boston Celtics, and leads it to the first of eight successive National Basketball Association (NBA) titles that he will help the team achieve (the six-foot-ten Russell will coach the Celtics from 1965 to 1969, becoming the first black to coach an NBA team, and will continue to play until 1969, helping the team win again in 1968 and 1969).
Brazilian soccer player Edson Arantes "Pele" do Nascimento, 15, signs with the Santos team to begin an 18-year career of 1,253 games in which he will score 1,216 goals to become the world-famous athletic figure known in Brazil as Perola Negra (Black Pearl).
North Carolina-born prizefighter Floyd Patterson, 21, wins the world heavyweight title November 30 by knocking out Archie Moore, now 42, in the fifth round of a championship bout at Chicago. Moore had taken over the heavyweight title vacated by Rocky Marciano; he remains light-heavyweight champion (see Moore, 1962).
Designer Hattie Carnegie dies at New York February 22 at age 66.
"Does she or doesn't she?" ask advertisements for "Miss Clairol" hair coloring that show children with mothers to convey the idea that hair coloring is not just for women of dubious virtue (see 1950). Written by New York copywriter Shirley Polykoff, 48, of Foote, Cone & Belding, the ads bid for beauty-parlor acceptance by answering the question, "Only her hairdresser knows for sure." As of 1950, only 7 percent of U.S. women dyed their hair; within a dozen years the figure will be nearly 70 percent as annual sales of dyes, tints, and rinses soar from $25 million to more than $200 million with Clairol accounting for more than half the total.
Actress Grace Kelly, now 26, is married April 19 at Monaco's Cathedral of St. Nicholas to Prince Rainier III (Rainer Grimaldi), 32, who has divorced his first wife because a medical condition prevents her from bearing children and he wants an heir.
Marilyn Monroe, now 30, is married at London June 29 to playwright Arthur Miller (her third husband, his second wife).
Comet cleanser is introduced by Procter & Gamble to compete with Colgate's Ajax (see 1947); the silica-sand product will soon be the top seller in its field.
Raid House and Garden Bug Killer is introduced in an aerosol can by S. C. Johnson of Racine, Wis., which diversifies from its floor-wax business (see Off, 1957).
Corgi miniature cars are introduced by Johannesburg-born English toy maker Arthur Katz, 48, who moved with his mother to Nuremberg in 1920, finished his schooling there, went to work for his mother's cousin Philip Ullmann, emigrated to England in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution, was joined by Ullmann, and went into business with him under the name Mettoy. Katz was appointed a colonel in the British Army 10 years ago and sent to Germany to see what could be salvaged from the remains of the German toy industry. Unlike existing toy cars, which are often simply zinc-alloy forms given wheels and painted, Corgi cars have doors, hoods, and trunks that open, spring-mounted wheels, plastic windshields, and diamond-crystal headlights. Within 15 years Mettoy Ltd. will have 3,500 employees.
Salem cigarettes are introduced in a green pack by R. J. Reynolds; they will overtake Brown & Williamson's Kools and be the leading mentholated brand within 18 months.
The Clean Air Act adopted by Parliament July 5 begins a systematic ban on burning of soft coal and other smoky fuels in Britain (see 1955).
Georgia's Buford Dam, completed on the Chattahoochee River, creates a reservoir and makes Lake Lanier a recreation area with 540 miles of shoreline.
Congress establishes Virgin Islands National Park on 15,150 acres donated to the National Park Service by Laurance S. Rockefeller, now 46, who has acquired 50,000 acres on the island of St. John and will open the Caneel Bay Hotel on the smallest and most unspoiled of the Virgin Islands.
Brookline, Mass.-born University of Rochester botany professor Richard Goodwin, 45, succeeds Richard Pough as president of the Nature Conservancy (see 1950). The Conservancy received a grant last year from the Old Dominion Foundation, and Goodwin will push use of the organization's new loan fund to provide cash for down payments that enable teams to snap up significant tracts of land for protection against commercial exploitation. By 1961 the Conservancy will have protected 10,000 acres, and by the end of the century it will have more than 1 million members.
Rock paintings found 900 miles southeast of Algiers establish that the Sahara was once fertile land. French archaeologist Henri Lhote, 53, dates the paintings in the Tibesti Mountains to 3,500 B.C.
U.S. Department of Agriculture wheat expert Edgar S. Macfadden dies at College Station, Texas, January 5 at age 64 (he developed the first rust-resistant bread wheat).
President Eisenhower proposes a soil-bank plan to ease the problem of declining U.S. farm income in a special January 9 message to Congress. Congress votes May 28 to authorize a program to pay farmers for withdrawing land from production (see AAA, 1938).
India receives a $300 million food loan August 29 to buy surplus U.S. farm products that are depressing domestic American prices (see P.L. 480, 1954).
The People's Republic of China begins forcing some 100 million peasant families into large collective farms called Agricultural Producers' Cooperatives (see politics [Great Leap Forward], 1957).
Poland ends efforts to collectivize agriculture after a decade marked by little success. Wladyslaw Gomulka reverses collectivization policies.
Poultry raisers get their first effective coccidiostat to fight the disease that has prevented large concentrations of chickens and turkeys, which are prone to flock-destroying epidemics of coccidiosis. Farmers or their wives have raised backyard flocks of 20 to 50 chickens, and the cost of chicken has been higher than the cost of beef, since beef cattle can be raised more efficiently. The animal health products division of Merck Pharmaceutical Co. introduces Nicarb 25® (nicarbazin), which kills the deadly intercellular parasites that infect epithelial cells of the intestines and associated glands. In combination with higher-protein feeds, coccidiostats will permit companies to build three-story poultry houses with 30,000 birds per floor and have mature birds ready for market in just 42 days (see Tyson's Rock Cornish game hen, 1965).
Banana production shifts to Ecuador, which was not a major exporter before the war but rarely has high winds, provides good growing conditions, and will become the world's leading exporter within a decade, accounting for half the bananas shipped to the United States. The disease-prone Gros Michel banana grown in Central America and the Caribbean islands since 1820 gives way in many areas to the Cavendish (Valery) variety, which is less vulnerable to disease and less likely to be blown down in hurricanes since it grows on a shorter plant.
Swedish-born University of Chicago physiologist and nutrition authority Anton J. "Ajax" Carlson dies at Chicago September 2 at age 81.
Actress and health enthusiast Gloria Swanson, now 57, lectures congressmen's wives on the hazards of American foods. They persuade their husbands to support a Food Additives Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, which Rep. James J. Delaney, 56, (D. N.Y.) of Brooklyn has been pushing without success (see 1958).
Parliament passes a new Food and Drugs Act to regulate the labeling of products sold in Britain (see 1860).
A British survey shows that six out of 10 Englishmen still eat their midday meals at home. Two out of three families eat potatoes at midday, and more than half the population enjoys roast beef or roast lamb at Sunday dinner, with fewer than 6 percent having pork or poultry. Milk pot pudding is the most popular sweet (dessert). Those who drink anything with their meals drink tea; only 10 percent drink coffee at midday and only 5 percent in the evening, and 3 percent at most have wine or beer with their meals.
Britain discontinues "National" flour under terms of the new Flour (Composition) Regulation.
La Leche League International, Inc., has its beginnings in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park, Ill., where Marian (Mrs. Clement R.) Tompson and Mary (Mrs. Gregory) White have mastered the technique of breast-feeding. Wife of a research engineer, Tompson ran into problems trying to breast-feed her first three children and was told each time by a physician to put the baby on the bottle. Only about 22 percent of U.S. mothers breast-feed, down from 38 percent 10 years ago, partly because more mothers are in the workforce and find it difficult to accommodate breast-feeding on demand in their schedules. Atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons has produced radioactive fallout that has fallen on the grass and been consumed by cows, whose milk contains six times as much strontium 90 as human milk, and mothers' milk has numerous other advantages over milk from cows, goats, ewes, and mares. Women in lower socioeconomic classes will continue to consider bottle-feeding more "modern" and convenient (the incidence of breast-feeding in the United States will decline to 18 percent in the next 10 years before recovering).
U.S. canners ship 700 million cases of food, up from 400 million in 1940.
Sainsbury's food-store-chain head John Benjamin Sainsbury dies May 23 at age 85 from injuries suffered in a fall from the fourth floor of a London clinic.
Williams-Sonoma has its beginnings in a kitchenware store opened at the California town just before Christmas under the direction of Florida-born merchant Charles "Chuck" Williams, 41, who worked overseas as an aircraft mechanic during World War II, acquired a hardware store 2 years ago, visited Paris, added housewares such as madeleine pans that he found in Europe, and will soon be selling charlotte bowls, soufflé dishes, tart molds, and other traditional French kitchen equipment—by mail order as well as in his shop (see 1958).
Mister Softee is founded at Runnemede, N.J., by entrepreneur James Conway and his brother William, whose ice-cream truck business challenges Good Humor and will grow to have some 600 franchisees nationwide.
Anheuser-Busch introduces Busch Bavarian beer to augment its 80-year-old Budweiser and 60-year-old Michelob brands.
China's Ministry of Public Health issues a directive in August requiring local health agencies to promote birth control actively (see 1954). A major propaganda campaign gets underway to encourage family size limitation, but authorities maintain that the campaign has been motivated not by concern about runaway population growth but rather out of concern for the health and welfare of mothers and children. Abortion and sterilization do not play major roles in the effort and are available only under stringent limitations (see 1957).
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