Also Within This Year in History:
1955
As the Cold War heated up in 1955, the U.S.S.R. and seven of its European satellite countries formed the Warsaw Pact defense alliance to counter NATO. In the U.S., the first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, while Disneyland debuted in Anaheim, California and the Mickey Mouse Club premiered on TV. Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus in Alabama, and the racially inspired murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till sparked national outrage.
On the evening of January 7, 1955, the curtain at the Metropolitan Opera in New York rises to reveal Marian Anderson, the first African American to perform with the Met.…
A full nine months before Rosa Parks‘s famous act of civil disobedience, 15‑year‑old Claudette Colvin is arrested on March 2, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama bus. Colvin…
On March 16, 1955, NHL president Clarence Campbell suspends Montreal Canadiens star Maurice “Rocket” Richard for the remainder of the regular season and playoffs after he attacks an opponent with…
Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens in New York, two days before his 44th birthday. The play would win Williams his second Pulitzer Prize. Williams had…
On March 26, 1955, white pop singer Georgia Gibbs scores a hit with “Dance With Me Henry (Wallflower),” setting off a dubious trend in the music industry known as “whitewashing.”…
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain and the Allies through the crisis of World War II, retires as prime minister of Great Britain. Born…
The Afro‑Asian Conference—popularly known as the Bandung Conference because it was held in Bandung, Indonesia—comes to a close on this day. During the conference, representatives from 29 “non‑aligned” nations in…
On May 1, 1955, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, one of the greatest athletes in sports history, wins the Peach Blossom LPGA Tournament in Spartanburg, S.C. The victory, the 41st LPGA title…
The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) becomes a sovereign state when the United States, France and Great Britain end their military occupation, which had begun in 1945. With this…
Ten years after the Nazis were defeated in World War II, West Germany formally joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense group aimed at containing Soviet expansion…
The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces…
On June 11, 1955, a racing car in Le Mans, France, goes out of control and crashes into stands filled with spectators, killing 83 people, including the driver, Frenchman Pierre…
On July 13, 1955, nightclub owner Ruth Ellis is executed by hanging for the crime of murdering her boyfriend David Blakely. Ellis was the last woman in Great Britain to…
Disneyland, Walt Disney’s metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy and futurism, opens on July 17, 1955. The $17 million theme park was built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim,…
President Dwight D. Eisenhower presents his “Open Skies” plan at the 1955 Geneva summit meeting with representatives of France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The plan, though never accepted,…
On August 28, 1955, while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14‑year‑old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days…
On August 31, 1955, William G. Cobb of the General Motors Corp. (GM) demonstrates his “Sunmobile,” the world’s first solar‑powered automobile, at the General Motors Powerama auto show held in…
Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita is published in Paris on September 15, 1955. The novel, about a man’s obsession with a 12‑year‑old girl, had been rejected by four publishers before…
After a decade of rule, Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón is deposed in a military coup. Perón, a demagogue who came to power in 1946 with the backing of the working classes, became…
On September 21, 1955—during an era when most homosexual people are deeply closeted—four lesbian couples meet at a private San Francisco house and launch America’s first lesbian‑rights group. The eight…
