World Events
Population: 2.780 billion
Nikolai A. Bulganin becomes Soviet premier, replacing Malenkov (Feb. 8). Background: Rulers of Russia since 1533
Churchill resigns (April 5); Anthony Eden succeeds him (April 6).
Federal Republic of West Germany becomes a sovereign state (May 5).
The Soviet Union and seven East European countries sign the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense treaty (May 14).
Argentina ousts dictator Juan Perón (Sept. 19).
US starts sending $216 million in aid to Vietnam.
The US, UK, USSR, and France meet at a summit in Geneva.
U.S. Events
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
Population: 165,931,202
Life expectancy: 69.6 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 4.5
Economics
US GDP (1998 dollars): $415.1 billion
Federal spending: $68.44 billion
Federal debt: $274.4 billion
Consumer Price Index: 26.8
Unemployment: 5.5%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.03
President Eisenhower suffers coronary thrombosis in Denver (Sept. 24).
Rosa Parks refuses to sit at the back of the bus, breaking Montgomery, Ala., segregated seating law (Dec. 1). Martin Luther King, Jr., leads 381-day black boycott of Montgomery bus system; desegregated service begins Dec. 21, 1956. Background: Civil Rights
AFL and CIO merge to become the AFL-CIO (Dec. 5).
Sports
World Series
Brooklyn Dodgers d. NY Yankees (4-3)
NBA Championship
Syracuse d. Ft. Wayne Pistons (4-3)
Stanley Cup
Detroit d. Montreal (4-3)
Wimbledon
Women: Louise Brough d. B. Fleitz (7-5 8-6)
Men: Tony Trabert d. K. Nielsen (6-3 7-5 6-1)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Swaps
NCAA Basketball Championship
San Francisco d. La Salle (77-63)
NCAA Football Champions
Oklahoma (11-0-0)
Entertainment
Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: A Fable, William Faulkner
Music: The Saint of Bleecker Street, Gian Carlo Menotti
Drama: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams
Oscars awarded in 1955
Academy Award, Best Picture: On the Waterfront, Sam Spiegel, producer (Columbia)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Halldór Kiljan Laxness (Iceland)
Miss America: Lee Meriwether (CA)
On the Waterfront nearly sweeps the 1954 Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Supporting Actress (Eva Maria Saint), and Best Director (Elia Kazan).
Gunsmoke debuts on CBS, and will go on to be television's longest-running western.
70mm film is introduced with Oklahoma!
James Dean dies in a car accident at age 26.
Movies
Rebel without a Cause, Marty, East of Eden, Bad Day at Black Rock, Picnic
Books
James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pictures of a Gone World
William Gaddis, The Recognitions
Mary McCarthy, A Charmed Life
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Satan in Goray
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Vincent du Vigneaud (US), for work on pituitary hormones
Physics: Polykarp Kusch and Willis E. Lamb, Jr. (US), for atomic measurements
Physiology or Medicine: Hugo Theorell (Sweden), for work on oxidation enzymes
Narinder Kapany (England) develops fiber optics.
Owen Chamberlain and Emilio Segrè discover the antiproton, a form of antimatter.
The corticosteroid prednisone is developed.
Severo Ochoa at NYU synthesizes DNA- and RNA-like molecules. Background: genetic engineering
Deaths
Albert Einstein
Alexander Fleming
Thomas Mann
Carmen Miranda
Charlie Parker