What Happened in 1955

Major Events

  • Apr 11 Chartered Air India plane the "Kashmir Princess" is bombed and crashes into the South China Sea in a failed assassination attempt on Zhou Enlai by a Kuomintang secret agent
  • May 5 West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers
  • Jul 15 18 Nobel laureates sign the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by 34 more laureates
  • Aug 7 Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, begins selling its first transistor radios in Japan
  • Dec 1 Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to move to the back of a bus and give her seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama
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1955 in Film & TV

  • Jan 2 1st "Bob Cummings Show" premieres on NBC (later on CBS)
  • Jan 19 "The Millionaire" TV program premieres on CBS
  • Apr 11 "Marty" directed by Delbert Mann and starring Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair premieres in New York (Best Picture 1956)
  • Jun 30 "Johnny Carson Show" debuts on CBS-TV
  • Aug 25 16th Venice Film Festival: "Ordet" directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer wins Golden Lion
  • Oct 27 "Rebel Without a Cause", directed by Nicholas Ray, starring James Dean and Natalie Wood, is released

1955 in Music

  • Jan 7 Marian Anderson becomes the 1st African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera, singing the role of Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's "Un ballo in maschera"
  • Jul 9 Bill Haley & His Comets "Rock Around the Clock" tops the billboards chart, one of the best-selling singles ever
  • Nov 5 The rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens after it was destroyed in World War II, with Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fidelio"
  • Nov 22 RCA Records make its best investment, paying $35,000 to Sun Records for Elvis Presley's contract
  • Dec 15 "Folsom Prison Blues" single released by Johnny Cash (Billboard Song of the Year 1968)

1955 in Sport

  • Feb 17 American golfer Mike Souchak sets PGA 72-hole record of 257 (not broken until 2001)

Did You Know?

Publication of "The Return of the King", the 3rd and final volume of "The Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien by George Allen and Unwin in London

October 20, 1955


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Fun Fact About 1955

Ray Kroc opens first McDonald's Inc. fast food restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois

April 15, 1955


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Famous Weddings in 1955

  • Jan 15 Film director Stanley Kubrick (26) weds theatrical designer Ruth Sobotka (29)
  • Jan 17 American murderer Charles Manson (20) weds American waitress Rosalie Jean Willis (17); divorce in 1958
  • Feb 16 Irish poet and playwright Brendan Behan (32) weds Irish illustrator Beatrice Salkeld (29) at Donnybrook Church in Dublin, Ireland, until his death in 1964

Famous Divorces in 1955

  • Aug 9 Actress Elizabeth Montgomery (22) divorces socialite Frederick Gallatin Cammann after more than a year of marriage
  • Dec 30 Actor Gregory Peck (39) divorces real estate broker Greta Kukkonen (44) after 13 years of marriage

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