1955

1955 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1955; MCMLV
Ab urbe condita	2708
Armenian calendar	1404; ԹՎ ՌՆԴ
Assyrian calendar	6705
Baháʼí calendar	111–112
Balinese saka calendar	1876–1877
Bengali calendar	1362
Berber calendar	2905
British Regnal year	3 Eliz. 2 – 4 Eliz. 2
Buddhist calendar	2499
Burmese calendar	1317
Byzantine calendar	7463–7464
Chinese calendar	甲午年 (Wood Horse); 4652 or 4445; — to —; 乙未年 (Wood Goat); 4653 or 4446
Coptic calendar	1671–1672
Discordian calendar	3121
Ethiopian calendar	1947–1948
Hebrew calendar	5715–5716
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2011–2012
- Shaka Samvat	1876–1877
- Kali Yuga	5055–5056
Holocene calendar	11955
Igbo calendar	955–956
Iranian calendar	1333–1334
Islamic calendar	1374–1375
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 30; (昭和３０年)
Javanese calendar	1886–1887
Juche calendar	44
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4288
Minguo calendar	ROC 44; 民國44年
Nanakshahi calendar	487
Thai solar calendar	2498
Tibetan calendar	阳木马年; (male Wood-Horse); 2081 or 1700 or 928; — to —; 阴木羊年; (female Wood-Goat); 2082 or 1701 or 929

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century; 20th century ; 21st century;
Decades:	1930s; 1940s; 1950s ; 1960s; 1970s;
Years:	1952; 1953; 1954; 1955 ; 1956; 1957; 1958;

1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1955th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 955th year of the 2nd millennium, the 55th year of the 20th century, and the 6th year of the 1950s decade.

From top to bottom, left to right: PLA troops assaulting Nationalist positions in Battle of Yijiangshan Islands; The Freedom Charter memorial in Kliptown, Soweto.; Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California; Weather map of Hurricane Diane as it neared North Carolina; Rosa Parks being fingerprinted by Deputy Sheriff D.H. Lackey after her arrest for boycotting public transportation; Saigon City Hall display The results of the 1955 State of Vietnam referendum; the Conference that during which the Warsaw Pact was established and signed; Plenary session during the Bandung Conference.

Events

January

January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.^[1]
January 17 – USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.^[2]
January 18–20 – Battle of Yijiangshan Islands: The Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army seizes the islands from the Republic of China (Taiwan).^[3]
January 22 – In the United States, The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), armed with nuclear weapons.
January 23 – The Sutton Coldfield rail crash kills 17, near Birmingham, England.
January 25 – The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union announces the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941.
January 28 – The United States Congress authorizes President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use force to protect Taiwan from the People's Republic of China.

February

February 10 – The United States Seventh Fleet helps the Republic of China evacuate the Chinese Nationalist army and residents from the Tachen Islands to Taiwan.
February 16 – Nearly 100 die in a fire at a home for the elderly in Yokohama, Japan.
February 19 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established, at a meeting in Bangkok.
February 22 – In Chicago's Democratic primary, Mayor Martin H. Kennelly loses to the head of the Cook County Democratic Party, Richard J. Daley, 364,839 to 264,077.
February 24 – The Baghdad Pact (CENTO), originally known as Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), is signed between Iraq and Turkey.^[4]

March

March 2 – Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old African-American girl, refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white woman after the driver demands it. She is carried off the bus backwards, while being kicked, handcuffed and harassed on the way to the police station. She becomes a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle (1956), which rules bus segregation to be unconstitutional.
March 5
- WBBJ-TV signs on the air in Jackson, Tennessee, with WDXI as its initial call-letters, to expand American commercial television in mostly rural areas.
- Elvis Presley makes his television debut on "Louisiana Hayride", carried by KSLA-TV Shreveport in the United States.^[5]
March 7 – The Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, which had opened in 1954 starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC-TV, with its original cast, as an installment of Producers' Showcase. It is also the first time that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV, almost exactly as it was performed on stage. This program gains the largest viewership of a TV special up to this time, and it becomes one of the first great TV family musical classics.
March 17 – Richard Riot in Montreal: 6,000 people protest the suspension of French Canadian ice hockey star Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens by the National Hockey League, following a violent incident during a match.
March 19 – KXTV signs on the air in Sacramento, California, as the 100th commercial television station in the United States.
March 20 – The movie adaptation of Evan Hunter's novel Blackboard Jungle premieres in the United States, featuring the famous single "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets. Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the song.

April

April 1 – EOKA starts a resistance campaign against British rule in the Crown colony of Cyprus.
April 5
- Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, due to ill-health, at the age of 80.
- Richard J. Daley defeats Robert Merrian to become Mayor of Chicago, by a vote of 708,222 to 581,555.
April 6 – Anthony Eden becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
April 10 – In the American National Basketball Association championship, the Syracuse Nationals defeat the Fort Wayne Pistons 92–91 in Game 7, to win the title.
April 11
- The Taiwanese Kuomintang put a bomb on the airplane Kashmir Princess, killing 16 but failing to assassinate the People's Republic of China leader, Zhou Enlai.
- Taekwondo, a form of Korean martial arts, is officially recognized ^{[clarification needed]} in South Korea.^{[citation needed]}
April 12 – The Salk polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
April 14
- The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup in North American ice hockey for the 7th time in franchise history, but will not win again until 1997.
- A 7.1 earthquake shakes the Chinese city of Kangding leaving 70 dead.
April 15 – The first franchised McDonald's restaurant is opened by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois.^[6]
April 16 – The Burma-Japan Peace Treaty, signed in Rangoon on November 5, 1954, comes into effect, formally ending a state of war between the two countries.
April 17 – Imre Nagy, the communist Premier of Hungary, is ousted for being too moderate.
April 18–24 – The Asian-African Conference is held in Bandung, Indonesia.

May

May 5 – West Germany becomes a sovereign country, recognized by Western countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
May 6 – The Western European Union Charter becomes effective.
May 7 – Newcastle United F.C. beat Manchester City F.C. 3–1 to win the 1955 FA Cup final in English Association football.
May 9
- West Germany joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
- A young Jim Henson introduces the earliest version of Kermit the Frog (made in March), in the premiere of his puppet show Sam and Friends, on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.
May 11 – Japanese National Railways' ferry Shiun Maru sinks after a collision with sister ship Uko Maru, in thick fog off Takamatsu, Shikoku, in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan; 166 passengers (many children) and 2 crew members are killed. This event is influential in plans to construct the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge (built 1986–98).
May 12 – New York's Third Avenue Elevated runs its last train between Chatham Square in Manhattan and East 149th Street in the Bronx, thus ending elevated train service in Manhattan.
May 14
- Eight Communist Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defence treaty in Warsaw, Poland, that is called the Warsaw Pact (it will be dissolved in 1991).
- Warrington win the British Rugby League Championship title for the third time; they will not win it again within the following 60 years.
May 15
- The Austrian State Treaty, which restores Austria's national sovereignty, is concluded between the 4 occupying powers following World War II (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France) and Austria, setting it up as a neutral country.
- Lionel Terray and Jean Couzy become the first people to reach the summit of Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world, on the 1955 French Makalu expedition. The entire team of climbers reaches the summit over the next two days.^[7]
May 18 – Free movement of residents between North and South Vietnam ends.^[8]
May 25 – Joe Brown and George Band are the first to climb Kangchenjunga in the Himalayas, as part of the British Kangchenjunga expedition led by Charles Evans.

June

June 7 – The television quiz program The $64,000 Question premieres on CBS-TV in the United States, with Hal March as the host.
June 11 – Le Mans disaster: Eighty-three people are killed and at least 100 are injured, after two race cars collide in the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans.
June 13 – Mir mine, the first diamond mine in the Soviet Union, is discovered.
June 16
- Lady and the Tramp, the Walt Disney company's 15th animated film, premieres in Chicago.
- The Argentine Navy drops bombs over Plaza de Mayo and shoots unarmed civilians in an attempt to kill the then president Juan Perón.
June 26 – The Freedom Charter of the anti-apartheid South African Congress Alliance is adopted, at a Congress of the People in Kliptown.
June 30 – The Simonstown Agreement provides for control of the naval base at Simon's Town in the Union of South Africa to transfer from the British Royal Navy to the South African Navy.^[9]

July

July 1 – Transformation from the Imperial Bank of India to the State Bank of India is given legal recognition through an Act of the Parliament of India.
July 7 – The New Zealand Special Air Service is formed.
July 13 – Ruth Ellis is hanged for murder in London, becoming the last woman ever to be executed in the United Kingdom.
July 17
- The Disneyland theme park opens in Anaheim, California, an event broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company television network.
- The first atomic-generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering Arco, Idaho, from the U.S. National Reactor Testing Station; on July 18, Schenectady, New York, receives power from a prototype nuclear submarine reactor at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory.^[10]
July 18 – Illinois Governor William Stratton signs the Loyalty Oath Act, that mandates all public employees take a loyalty oath to the State of Illinois and the United States or lose their jobs.
July 18–23 – Geneva Summit between the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France.
July 22 – In Long Beach, California (United States), Hillevi Rombin of Sweden is crowned Miss Universe.
July 27 – El Al Flight 402 from Vienna (Austria) to Tel Aviv, via Istanbul, is shot down over Bulgaria. All 58 passengers and crewmen aboard the Lockheed Constellation are killed.
July 28 – The first Interlingua Congress is held in Tours, France, leading to the foundation of the Union Mundial pro Interlingua.

August

August 1 – The prototype Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft first flies, in Nevada.
August 18
- The First Sudanese Civil War begins.
- The first meeting of the Organization of Central American States (Spanish: Organización de Estados Centroamericanos, ODECA) is held, in Antigua Guatemala.
August 19 – Hurricane Diane hits the northeastern United States, killing over 200 people and causing over $1 billion in damage.
August 20 – Hundreds of people are killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
August 22 – Eleven schoolchildren are killed when their school bus is hit by a freight train in Spring City, Tennessee.
August 25 – The last Soviet Army forces leave Austria.
August 26 – Satyajit Ray's film Pather Panchali is released in India.
August 27 – The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records is published, in London.
August 28 – Black 14-year-old Emmett Till is lynched and shot in the head for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Money, Mississippi; his white murderers, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, are acquitted by an all-white jury.

September

September 2 – Under the guidance of Dr. Humphry Osmond, Christopher Mayhew ingests 400 mg of mescaline hydrochloride and allows himself to be filmed as part of a Panorama special for BBC TV in the U.K. that is never broadcast.
September 3 – Little Richard records "Tutti Frutti" in New Orleans; it is released in October.
September 6 – Istanbul pogrom: Istanbul's Greek minority is the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.
September 10 – The long-running Western television series Gunsmoke debuts, on the CBS network in the United States.
September 14 – Pope Pius XII elevates many of the apostolic vicariates in Africa to Metropolitan Archdioceses.
September 15 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in Paris, by Olympia Press.
September 16
- The military coup to unseat President Juan Perón of Argentina is launched at midnight.
- A Soviet Navy Zulu-class submarine becomes the first to launch a ballistic missile.
September 18 – The United Kingdom formally annexes the uninhabited Atlantic island of Rockall.
September 19–21 – President of Argentina Juan Perón is ousted in a military coup.
September 19 – Hurricane Hilda kills about 200 people in Mexico.
September 21–30 – Hurricane Janet, one of the strongest North Atlantic tropical cyclones on record, sweeps the Lesser Antilles and Mexico, causing more than 1,020 deaths.^[11]
September 22 – Commercial television starts in the United Kingdom with the Independent Television Authority's first ITV franchises beginning broadcasting in London, ending the BBC monopoly.
September 23 – A 6.8 earthquake shakes the Chinese county of Huili, leaving 728 dead and 1,547 injured.
September 24
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States, suffers a coronary thrombosis while on vacation in Denver, Colorado. Vice President Nixon serves as Acting President while Eisenhower recovers.
- Founder of Swiss watchmaker Glycine Watch SA, Eugène Meylan, age 64, is murdered.^[12]
September 30 – Actor James Dean is killed when his automobile collides with another car at a highway junction, near Cholame, California.

October

October 2 – Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuts on the CBS TV network in the United States.
October 3 – The Mickey Mouse Club debuts on the ABC-TV network in the United States.
October 4 – The Reverend Sun Myung Moon is released from prison in Seoul, South Korea.
October 5 – Disneyland Hotel opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
October 11 – 70-mm film for projection is introduced, with the theatrical release of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical film, Oklahoma!.
October 14 – The Organization of Central American States secretariat is inaugurated.
October 20 – Disc jockey Bill Randle of WERE (Cleveland) is the key presenter of a concert at Brooklyn High School (Ohio), featuring Pat Boone and Bill Haley & His Comets, and opening with Elvis Presley (Elvis's first filmed performance), for a documentary on Randle titled The Pied Piper of Cleveland.
October 26
- After the last Allied troops have left Austria, and following the provisions of the Austrian Independence Treaty, the country declares its permanent neutrality.
- Ngô Đình Diệm proclaims Vietnam to be a republic, with himself as its President (following the State of Vietnam referendum on October 23), and forms the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.
October 27 – The film Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean, is released in the United States.
October 29 – Soviet battleship Novorossiysk explodes at moorings in Sevastopol Bay, killing 608 (the Soviet Union's worst naval disaster to date).

November

November 1
- Official start date of the Vietnam War between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Republic of Vietnam; the north is allied with the Viet Cong.^[13]
- A time bomb explodes in the cargo hold of United Airlines Flight 629, a Douglas DC-6B, over Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and 5 crew members on board.
November 3 – The Rimutaka Tunnel opens on the New Zealand Railways, at 5.46 mi (8.79 km), the longest in the Southern Hemisphere at this time.
November 15 – The Democratic Party of Japan and Japan Liberal Party merge to form the Japan Liberal Democratic Party, beginning the "1955 System".^[14]
November 19 – C. Northcote Parkinson first propounds 'Parkinson's law', in The Economist.
November 20 – Bo Diddley makes his television debut on Ed Sullivan's Toast Of The Town show for the CBS-TV network in the United States.
November 23 – The Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean are transferred from British to Australian control.
November 26 – The British Governor of Cyprus declares a state of emergency on the island.
November 27 – The Westboro Baptist Church holds its first service in Topeka, Kansas.

December

December 1 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger, and is arrested, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott.
December 4 – The International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations is founded in Luxembourg.
December 5
- The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge, to become the AFL–CIO.
- The Montgomery Improvement Association is formed in Montgomery, Alabama, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other Black ministers to coordinate the Montgomery bus boycott by Black people.
December 9 – Adnan Menderes of DP forms the new government of Turkey (22nd government).
December 10 – 1955 Australian federal election: Robert Menzies' Liberal/Country Coalition Government is re-elected with a substantially increased majority, defeating the Labor Party led by H. V. Evatt. This election comes in the immediate aftermath of the devastating split in the Labor Party, which leads to the formation of the Democratic Labor Party. The DLP will preference against Labor, and keep the Coalition in office until 1972.
December 14
- The Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River, in New York State, opens to traffic.
- Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sri Lanka join the United Nations simultaneously, after several years of moratorium on admitting new members that began during the Korean War.
December 19 – Australian comedian Barry Humphries first introduces his character Edna Everage on stage in Melbourne.^[15]
December 20 – Cardiff is declared by the British Government as the capital of Wales.
December 22 – American cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes, forty-six.
December 31
- General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make a profit of over 1 billion dollars in 1 year.
- Austria becomes independent, under terms of the May 15 Austrian State Treaty.

World population

World population: 2,755,823,000
- Africa: 246,746,000
- Asia: 1,541,947,000
- Europe: 575,184,000
- South America: 190,797,000
- North America: 186,884,000
- Oceania: 14,265,000