1956

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Years: 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 - 1956 - 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961

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Events:

• January 1 - End of Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in Sudan.
• January 16 - President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt vows to reconquer Palestine
• January 26 - 1956 Winter Olympic Games[?] open in Cortina d'Ampezzo[?], Italy
• February 22 - Elvis Presley enters the music charts for the first time, with "Heartbreak Hotel".
• February 23 - Nikita Khrushchev attacks the veneration of Joseph Stalin as a "cult of personality"
• March 2 - Morocco declares its independence from France
• March 15 - The Broadway musical My Fair Lady opens in New York City.
• March 20 - Tunisia gains independence from France
• March 23 - Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic.
• April 7 - Spain relinquishes its protectorate in Morocco.
• May 21 - Nuclear testing: In the Pacific Ocean, Bikini Atoll is nearly obliterated by the first airborne explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
• October 29 - November 3: English, French and Israeli forces participate in the 1956 Suez War against Egypt.
• November - Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Adlai Stevenson in the U.S. presidential election
• December 12 : Japan becoms member of the UN

• Summer Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia
• Eindhoven University of Technology founded in Eindhoven, The Netherlands
• Hungary attempts to leave the Warsaw Pact and is invaded by the Red Army
• First hard disk (5MB) invented by IBM.

Art, Culture & Fashion

• 1956 in film
  • Around the World in Eighty Days
  • The King and I
  • The Ten Commandments
  • Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much starring Jimmy Stewart
  • The Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• 1956 in literature
• 1956 in music
  • First ever Eurovision Song Contest - May 24
• 1956 in sports
• 1956 in television
  • April - WNBQ Chicago becomes the first TV station to broadcast all its local programming in color.
  • April Ampex demonstrates a videotape recorder at the NAB Convention in Chicago. The three networks place orders for the recorders.
  • August 8 - Final telecast of the DuMont network
  • October 1 - Ernie Kovacs becomes the host for NBC's Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays.
  • October 29 - First use of videotape in network television programming; CBS uses its Ampex VTR to record the evening news, anchored by Douglas Edwards[?]. The tape is then fed to West Coast stations three hours later
  • October 29 - Chet Huntley[?] and David Brinkley take over anchor duties of the NBC evening newscast, which is renamed The Huntley-Brinkley Report
  • November - The first use of videotape on a network television entertainment program; Jonathan Winters, uses videotape and superimposing techniques to be able to play two characters in the same skit for his NBC television show
  • The Price Is Right game show premieres
  • Black-and-white portable TV sets hit the market

Births:

• January 3 - Mel Gibson, actor and director
• January 7 - David Caruso[?], actor
• January 10 - Shawn Colvin[?], singer
• January 17 - Paul Young[?], English musician
• January 18 - Ray Dolby[?], inventor of the Dolby noise reduction system
• January 20 - Bill Maher[?], actor, comedian, political analyst
• January 21 - Geena Davis, actress
• January 27 - Mimi Rogers[?], actress
• January 31 - Johnny Rotten, musician (The "Sex Pistols")
• February 3 - Nathan Lane[?], actor
• February 11 - Kathleen Beller[?], actress.
• February 24 - Paula Zahn[?], television journalist
• March 2 - Mark Evans[?], bassist of AC/DC
• March 13 - Dana Delany[?], actress
• March 17 - Patrick McDonnell, creator of syndicated cartoon strip "Mutts"
• March 29 - Kurt Thomas[?], gymnast
• April 4 - David E. Kelley, writer, television producer
• April 26 - Koo Stark, actress
• May 17 - Sugar Ray Leonard, boxer
• May 17 - Bob Saget[?], actor
• May 19 - James Gosling, the "father" of Java programming language
• May 21 - Judge Reinhold[?], actor
• June 23 - Glenn Danzig, rock and roll preformer of Danzig
• July 9 - Tom Hanks, actor

Deaths:

• January 5 - Mistinguett, French cabaret singer
• January 31 - A. A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh
• February 8 - Connie Mack[?], baseball executive, coach
• March 17 - Irene Joliot-Curie, scientist
• May 12 - Louis Calhern, silent film actor
• May 17 - Austin Osman Spare, magician
• May 20 - Max Beerbohm, theater critic
• December 7 - Huntley Gordon, pioneer Hollywood actor
• December 16 - Nina Hamnett, artist

Awards/Prizes

Winner of Eurovision Song Contest 1956: Lys Assia with Refrain

Nobel Prizes:

• Physics - William Bradford Shockley, John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain
• Chemistry - Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood[?], Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov[?]
• Medicine - André Frédéric Cournand[?], Werner Forssmann[?], Dickinson W Richards[?]
• Literature - Juan Ramón Jiménez[?]
• Peace - not awarded