1957 in the United States

1957 in the United States
Decades:	1930s 1940s – 1950s – 1960s 1970s
Years:	1954 1955 1956 – 1957 – 1958 1959 1960
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48 stars (1912 – 1959)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1945–1964)

Events from the year 1957 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President: Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican)
• Vice President: Richard Nixon (Republican)
• Chief Justice: Earl Warren
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-Texas)
• Senate Majority Leader: Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas)
• Congress: 84th (until January 3), 85th (starting January 3)

Events

January

• January 2 – The San Francisco and Los Angeles stock exchanges merge to form the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.
• January 6 – Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the 3rd and final time. He is only shown from the waist up, even during the gospel segment, singing "Peace In The Valley". Ed Sullivan describes Elvis thus: "This is a real decent, fine boy. We've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you. You're thoroughly all right."
• January 20 – Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
• January 22 – The New York City "Mad Bomber," George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut and is charged with planting more than 30 bombs.
• January 23 – Ku Klux Klan members force truck driver Willie Edwards to jump off a bridge into the Alabama River; he drowns as a result.
• January 31 – Three students on a junior high school playground in Pacoima, California are among the 8 persons killed following a mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet, in the skies above the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.

February

• February 4 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
• February 17 – A fire at a home for the elderly in Warrenton, Missouri kills 72 people.

March

March 26: Elvis Presley buys Graceland

• March 7 – The United States Congress approves the Eisenhower Doctrine.
• March 10 – Floodgates of The Dalles Dam are closed, inundating Celilo Falls and ancient Indian fisheries along the Columbia River in Oregon.
• March 13 – The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests Jimmy Hoffa and charges him with bribery.
• March 26 – 22-year-old Elvis Presley buys Graceland on 3734 Bellevue Boulevard (Highway 51 South) for $100,000. He and his family move from the house on 1034 Audubon Drive.
• March 27 – The 29th Academy Awards ceremony is held.
• March 31 – Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, the team's only musical written especially for television, is telecast live and in color by CBS, starring Julie Andrews in the title role. The production is seen by millions, but this 1957 version is not be telecast again for more than 40 years, when a kinescope of it is shown.

April

• April 12 – Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl, printed in England, is seized by U.S. customs officials on the grounds of obscenity.

May

• May 2 – Vincent Gigante fails to assassinate mafioso Frank Costello in Manhattan.
• May 3 – Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California.

June

• June 15 – Oklahoma celebrates its semi-centennial statehood. A brand new 1957 Plymouth Belvedere is buried in a time capsule (to be opened 50 years later on June 15, 2007).
• June 25 – The United Church of Christ is formed in Cleveland, Ohio by the merger of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
• June 27 – Hurricane Audrey demolishes Cameron, Louisiana, killing 400 people.

July

• July 9 – Elvis Presley's Loving You opens in theaters.
• July 16 – United States Marine Major John Glenn flies an F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds, setting a new transcontinental speed record.

August

• August 5 – American Bandstand, a local dance show produced by WFIL-TV in Philadelphia, joins the ABC Television Network.
• August 21 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces a 2-year suspension of nuclear testing.
• August 28 – United States Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) sets the record for the longest filibuster with his 24-hour, 18-minute speech railing against a civil rights bill.

September

September: Little Rock Nine

• September 4 – American Civil Rights Movement – Little Rock Crisis: Governor Orville Faubus of Arkansas calls out the US National Guard, to prevent African-American students from enrolling in Central High School in Little Rock.
• September 4 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel on what the company proclaims as "E Day".
• September 9 – Catholic Memorial High School opens its doors for the first time in Boston, Massachusetts.
• September 24 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops to Arkansas to provide safe passage into Central High School for the Little Rock Nine.

October

• October 9 – Neil H. McElroy is sworn in as United States Secretary of Defense.
• October 10 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after he is refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant.
• October 11 – The orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket (carrying Sputnik I) is first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer by teams at The M.I.T. Computation Center and Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• October 21 – The U.S. military sustains its first combat fatality in Vietnam, Army Capt. Hank Cramer of the 1st Special Forces Group.
• October 25 – Mafia boss Albert Anastasia is assassinated in a barber shop, at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City.
• October 31 – Toyota begins exporting vehicles to the U.S., beginning with the Toyota Crown and the Toyota Land Cruiser

November

• November 1 – The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at the time, opens to traffic connecting Michigan's two peninsulas.
• November 6 – Jailhouse Rock opens nationally and Elvis Presley continues to gain more notoriety.
• November 7 – Cold War: In the United States, the Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters.
• November 14 – Apalachin Meeting: American Mafia leaders meet in Apalachin, New York at the house of Joseph Barbara; the meeting is broken up by a curious patrolman.
• November 16 – Serial killer Edward Gein murders his last victim, Bernice Worden of Plainfield, Wisconsin.
• November 16 – Oklahoma celebrates its 50th anniversary of statehood. Notre Dame beats the Oklahoma Sooners 7–0 to end the Sooners record 47 straight college football winning streak.
• November 25 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffers a stroke.

December

December 2: Shippingport Reactor goes online

• December 2 – Shippingport Atomic Power Station goes online; commercial operation begins on May 26, 1958.
• December 6 – Vanguard TV3, the first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite, fails with the rocket blowing up on the launch pad.
• December 19 – Meredith Willson's classic musical The Music Man, starring Robert Preston, debuts on Broadway.
• December 20 – The Boeing 707 airliner flies for the first time.
• December 22 – The CBS afternoon anthology series Seven Lively Arts presents Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker on U.S. television for the first time.

Undated

• The Civil Rights Commission is established in the USA under the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
• Operation Dropshot, an all-out U.S. war with the Soviet Union, is expected to be triggered by the Soviet takeover of Western Europe, the Near East and parts of Eastern Asia, as it was anticipated in 1949.

Ongoing

• Cold War (1945–1991)
• Second Red Scare (1947–1957)
• Space Race (1957–1975)

Births

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Deaths

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External links

• Media related to 1957 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons