January
January 1
The Saarland joins West Germany.
An Irish Republican Army attack on the Brookeborough police barracks leads to the deaths of Seán South and Fergal O'Hanlon.
Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini suffers the stroke that leads to his death a little over two weeks later.
January 2 – The San Francisco and Los Angeles stock exchanges merge to form the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.
January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
January 4 – After 69 years the last issue of Collier's Weekly magazine is published.
January 5 – Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be dismissed for having handled the ball in test match cricket.
January 6 – Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the 3rd and final time. He is only shown from the waist up, even during the gospel segment, singing "Peace In The Valley". Ed Sullivan describes Elvis thus: "This is a real decent, fine boy. We've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you. You're thoroughly all right."
January 9 – British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigns.
January 10 – Harold Macmillan becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
January 11 – The African Convention is founded in Dakar.
January 13 – Wham-O Company produces the first Frisbee.
January 14 – Kripalu Maharaj is named fifth Jagadguru (world teacher) after giving seven days of speeches before 500 Hindu scholars.
Humphrey Bogart passes away after a long battle with cancer.
January 15 – Release, in Japan, of the film Throne of Blood, Akira Kurosawa's reworking of Macbeth.
January 16 – The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool.
January 20
Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
Israel withdraws from the Sinai Peninsula (captured from Egypt on October 29, 1956).
The New York City "Mad Bomber", George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut, and is charged with planting more than 30 bombs.
January 23 – Ku Klux Klan members force truck driver Willie Edwards to jump off a bridge into the Alabama River; he drowns as a result.
January 26 – The Ibirapuera Planetarium (the first in the Southern Hemisphere) is inaugurated in the city of São Paulo, Brazil.
January 31 – Three students on a junior high school playground in Pacoima, California, are among the 8 persons killed following a mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet, in the skies above the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, US.
February
February 2 – President Iskander Mirza of Pakistan lays the foundation-stone of the Guddu Barrage across the Indus River near Sukkur.
February 4
France prohibits U.N. involvement in Algeria.
The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". It is decommissioned on March 3, 1980.
A coal gas explosion at the giant Bishop coal mine in Bishop, Virginia kills 37 men.
February 6 – The Soviets announce that Raoul Wallenberg had died in a Soviet prison "possibly of a heart attack" on July 17, 1947.
February 15 – Andrei Gromyko becomes foreign minister of the Soviet Union.
February 16
The "Toddlers' Truce", a controversial television closedown between 6.00 p.m. and 7.00 p.m., is abolished in the United Kingdom.
Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal opens in Sweden.
February 17 – A fire at a home for the elderly in Warrenton, Missouri, kills 72 people.
February 18
Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is executed by the British colonial government.
The last person to be executed in New Zealand, Walter James Bolton, is hanged at Mount Eden Prison for poisoning his wife.
February 23 – The founding congress of the Senegalese Popular Bloc opens in Dakar.
February 25 - The Boy In The Box is discovered along a sidewalk in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The boy is described as Caucasian in appearance and 4 to 6 years old. The case still remains unsolved.
March
Flag of Ghana, the first country in colonial Africa to gain independence
March 1
U Nu becomes Prime Minister of Burma.
Arturo Lezama becomes President of the National Council of Government of Uruguay.
Sud Aviation forms from a merger between SNCASE (Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Est) and SNCASO (Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Ouest).
Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat is published in the United States.
March 3 – Net als toen by Corry Brokken (music by Guus Jansen, text by Willy van Hemert) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1957 for the Netherlands.
March 4 – Standard & Poor's first publishes the S&P 500 guide.
March 6
United Kingdom colonies Gold Coast and British Togoland become the independent nation of Ghana.
Zodi Ikhia founds the Nigerien Democratic Front (FDN) in Niger.
March 7 – The United States Congress approves the Eisenhower Doctrine on assistance to threatened foreign regimes.
March 8 – Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal.
March 10 – Floodgates of The Dalles Dam are closed, inundating Celilo Falls and ancient Indian fisheries along the Columbia River in Oregon.
March 13
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa and charges him with bribery.
The Anglo-Jordanian Treaty of 1948 expires.
March 14 – President Sukarno declares martial law in Indonesia.
March 17 – 1957 Cebu Douglas C-47 crash: Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others are killed in a plane crash.
March 20 – The French news magazine L'Express reveals that the French army tortures Algerian prisoners.
March 25 – The Treaty of Rome (patto di Roma) establishes the European Economic Community (EEC; predecessor of the European Union) between Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
March 26 – 22-year-old Elvis Presley buys Graceland on 3734 Bellevue Boulevard (Highway 51 South) for $US100,000. He and his family move from the house on 1034 Audubon Drive.
March 27 – The 29th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Hollywood. Around the World in 80 Days wins Best Picture.
March 31 – Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, the team's only musical written especially for television, is telecast live and in color by CBS, starring Julie Andrews in the title role. The production is seen by millions, but this 1957 version is not to be telecast again for more than 40 years, when a kinescope of it is shown.
April
E. M. S. Namboodiripad, head of the first democratically elected communist government in the world
April – IBM sells the first compiler for the FORTRAN scientific programming language.
April 1 – The first new conscripts join the Bundeswehr.
April 5 – The Communist Party of India wins the elections in Kerala, making E. M. S. Namboodiripad its first chief minister.
April 9 – Egypt reopens the Suez Canal to all shipping.
April 12
The United Kingdom announces that Singapore will gain self-rule on January 1, 1958.
Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems, printed in England, is seized by U.S. customs officials on the grounds of obscenity.
April 15
The Distant Early Warning Line is handed over by contractors to the U.S. and Canadian military.
White Rock secedes from Surrey, British Columbia, following a referendum.
April 17 – Suspected English serial killer John Bodkin Adams is found not guilty of murder at the Old Bailey.
April 24 – First broadcast of BBC Television astronomy series The Sky at Night in the U.K., presented by Patrick Moore. This will run with the same presenter until his death in December 2012.
May
May 2 – Vincent Gigante fails to assassinate mafioso Frank Costello in Manhattan.
May 3 – Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles.
May 15.
Operation Grapple: At Malden Island in the Pacific, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb, which fails to detonate properly.
Stanley Matthews plays his final international game, ending an English record international career of almost 23 years.
May 16 – Paul-Henri Spaak becomes the new Secretary General of NATO.
May 22 – 42,000-pound hydrogen bomb accidentally fell from a bomber near Albuquerque [1]
May 24 – Anti-American riots erupt in Taipei, Taiwan.[2]
June
June 1 – Three year old thoroughbred Gallant Man wins the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park.
June 9 – Broad Peak, on the China-Pakistan border, is first ascended.
June 15 – Oklahoma celebrates its semi-centennial statehood. A brand new 1957 Plymouth Belvedere is buried in a time capsule (to be opened 50 years later on June 15, 2007).
June 15 – Gallant Man wins the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in record time.
June 20 – Toru Takemitsu's Requiem for Strings is first performed, by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.[3]
June 21 – John Diefenbaker becomes the 13th Prime Minister of Canada.
June 25 – The United Church of Christ is formed in Cleveland, Ohio, by the merger of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
June 27 – Hurricane Audrey demolishes Cameron, Louisiana, U.S., killing 400 people.
July
July
The International Geophysical Year begins.
The University of Waterloo is founded in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
July 6 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, 3 years before forming the Beatles.
July 9 – Elvis Presley's Loving You opens in theaters.
July 11 – His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan becomes the 49th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims at age 20. His grandfather Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan III appoints Prince Karim in his will.
July 14 – Rawya Ateya takes her seat in the National Assembly of Egypt, thereby becoming the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
July 16 – United States Marine Major John Glenn flies an F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds, setting a new transcontinental speed record.
July 25 – Tunisia becomes a republic, with Habib Bourguiba its first president.
July 28
The 6th World Festival of Youth and Students, a high point of the Khrushchev Thaw, kicks off in Moscow.
Heavy rains and mudslides at Isahaya, western Kyūshū, Japan, kill 992.
A strong earthquake shakes Mexico City and Mexican port city Acapulco.
July 29 – The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.
August
August 4 – Juan Manuel Fangio, driving for Maserati, wins the Formula One German Grand Prix, clinching (with 4 wins that season) his record 5th world drivers championship, including his 4th consecutive championship (also a record); these 2 records endure for nearly half a century.
August 5 – American Bandstand, a local dance show produced by WFIL-TV in Philadelphia, joins the ABC Television Network.
August 21 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces a 2-year suspension of nuclear testing.
August 28 – United States Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) sets the record for the longest filibuster with his 24-hour, 18-minute speech railing against a civil rights bill.
August 31 – The Federation of Malaya gains independence from the United Kingdom. Tuanku Abdul Rahman ibni Almarhum Tuanku Muhammad, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan becomes the first Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaya.
August 31 – Malaysia National Day
September
September 1 – 175 die in Jamaica's worst railway disaster.
September 3 – The Wolfenden report on homosexuality is published in the United Kingdom.
September 4
American Civil Rights Movement – Little Rock Crisis: Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas calls out the US National Guard, to prevent African-American students from enrolling in Central High School in Little Rock.
The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel on what the company proclaims as "E Day".
September 5 – The first edition of Jack Kerouac's On the Road goes on sale.
September 7 – NBC introduces an animated version of its famous "living color" peacock logo.
September 9 – Catholic Memorial School opens its doors for the first time in Boston.
September 14 – Have Gun, Will Travel premieres on CBS.
September 21
Olav V becomes King of Norway on the death of his father Haakon VII.
The sailing ship Pamir sinks off the Azores in a hurricane.
September 23 – The Academy Award-winning movie The Three Faces of Eve is released.
September 24 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops to Arkansas to provide safe passage into Central High School for the Little Rock Nine.
September 26 - Leonard Bernstein's musical West Side Story makes its first appearance on Broadway and runs for 732 performances.
September 29 – The Kyshtym disaster occurs at the Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in Russia.
October
October 2 – David Lean's film The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in the UK.
October 4
Space Age – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth.
Canada's Avro Arrow is unveiled to the public.
The sitcom Leave It to Beaver premieres on CBS.
October 9 – Neil H. McElroy is sworn in as United States Secretary of Defense.
October 10
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, after he is refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant.
A fire at the Windscale power station in the UK releases radioactive material into the surrounding environment, including iodine-131.
October 11
The Jodrell Bank radio telescope opens in Cheshire, UK.
The orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket (carrying Sputnik I) is first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer by teams at The M.I.T. Computation Center and Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
October 12 – Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged is published.
October 21
Two trains collide in Turkey; 95 die.
The U.S. military sustains its first combat fatality in Vietnam, Army Capt. Hank Cramer of the 1st Special Forces Group.
October 23 – Morocco begins its invasion of Ifni.
October 25 – Mafia boss Albert Anastasia is assassinated in a barber shop, at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City, US.
October 27 – Celâl Bayar is re-elected president of Turkey.
October 31 – Toyota begins exporting vehicles to the U.S., beginning with the Toyota Crown and the Toyota Land Cruiser
November
November 1
The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at the time, opens in the US to connect Michigan's two peninsulas.
The westbound tube AKA the first tube of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel linking to Norfolk, Virginia and Hampton, Virginia opens at a cost of $44 million.
November 3 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, with the first animal to orbit the Earth (a dog named Laika) on board.
November 7 – Cold War: In the United States, the Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters.
November 8 – Film Jailhouse Rock opens across the U.S. to reach #3, and Elvis Presley continues to gain more notoriety.
November 13
Gordon Gould invents the laser.
Flooding in the Po Valley of Italy leads to flooding also in Venice.
November 14 – Apalachin Meeting: American Mafia leaders meet in Apalachin, New York at the house of Joseph Barbara; the meeting is broken up by a curious patrolman.
November 15
A plane crash in the Isle of Wight leaves 43 dead.
Yugoslavia announces the end of an economic boycott of Franco's Spain (although it does not reinstitute diplomatic relations).
November 16
Serial killer Edward Gein murders his last victim, Bernice Worden of Plainfield, Wisconsin, US.
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower has a stroke.
Adnan Menderes of DP forms the new government of Turkey (23rd government,last government formed by DP and Adnan Menderes)
November 30 – Indonesian president Sukarno survives a grenade attack at the Cikini School in Jakarta, but six children are killed.
December
December 1 – In Indonesia, Sukarno announces the nationalization of 246 Dutch businesses.
December 4 – The Lewisham train disaster in the UK leaves 92 dead.
December 5 – All 326,000 Dutch nationals are expelled from Indonesia.
December 6 – The first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite fails when the Vanguard rocket blows up on the launch pad.
December 10 – Canadian diplomat Lester B. Pearson receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his peacekeeping efforts in the United Nations.
December 18 – The Bridge on the River Kwai is released in the U.S. It goes on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Additional Oscars go to Alec Guinness (Best Actor) and David Lean (Best Director), among others. This is Lean's first Oscar for directing.
December 19 – Meredith Willson's classic musical The Music Man, starring Robert Preston, debuts on Broadway.
December 20 – The Boeing 707 airliner flies for the first time.
December 22 – The CBS afternoon anthology series Seven Lively Arts presents Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker on U.S. television for the first time, although heavily abridged.
January 1
The Saarland joins West Germany.
An Irish Republican Army attack on the Brookeborough police barracks leads to the deaths of Seán South and Fergal O'Hanlon.
Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini suffers the stroke that leads to his death a little over two weeks later.
January 2 – The San Francisco and Los Angeles stock exchanges merge to form the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.
January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
January 4 – After 69 years the last issue of Collier's Weekly magazine is published.
January 5 – Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be dismissed for having handled the ball in test match cricket.
January 6 – Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the 3rd and final time. He is only shown from the waist up, even during the gospel segment, singing "Peace In The Valley". Ed Sullivan describes Elvis thus: "This is a real decent, fine boy. We've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you. You're thoroughly all right."
January 9 – British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigns.
January 10 – Harold Macmillan becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
January 11 – The African Convention is founded in Dakar.
January 13 – Wham-O Company produces the first Frisbee.
January 14 – Kripalu Maharaj is named fifth Jagadguru (world teacher) after giving seven days of speeches before 500 Hindu scholars.
Humphrey Bogart passes away after a long battle with cancer.
January 15 – Release, in Japan, of the film Throne of Blood, Akira Kurosawa's reworking of Macbeth.
January 16 – The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool.
January 20
Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
Israel withdraws from the Sinai Peninsula (captured from Egypt on October 29, 1956).
The New York City "Mad Bomber", George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut, and is charged with planting more than 30 bombs.
January 23 – Ku Klux Klan members force truck driver Willie Edwards to jump off a bridge into the Alabama River; he drowns as a result.
January 26 – The Ibirapuera Planetarium (the first in the Southern Hemisphere) is inaugurated in the city of São Paulo, Brazil.
January 31 – Three students on a junior high school playground in Pacoima, California, are among the 8 persons killed following a mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet, in the skies above the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, US.
February
February 2 – President Iskander Mirza of Pakistan lays the foundation-stone of the Guddu Barrage across the Indus River near Sukkur.
February 4
France prohibits U.N. involvement in Algeria.
The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". It is decommissioned on March 3, 1980.
A coal gas explosion at the giant Bishop coal mine in Bishop, Virginia kills 37 men.
February 6 – The Soviets announce that Raoul Wallenberg had died in a Soviet prison "possibly of a heart attack" on July 17, 1947.
February 15 – Andrei Gromyko becomes foreign minister of the Soviet Union.
February 16
The "Toddlers' Truce", a controversial television closedown between 6.00 p.m. and 7.00 p.m., is abolished in the United Kingdom.
Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal opens in Sweden.
February 17 – A fire at a home for the elderly in Warrenton, Missouri, kills 72 people.
February 18
Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is executed by the British colonial government.
The last person to be executed in New Zealand, Walter James Bolton, is hanged at Mount Eden Prison for poisoning his wife.
February 23 – The founding congress of the Senegalese Popular Bloc opens in Dakar.
February 25 - The Boy In The Box is discovered along a sidewalk in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The boy is described as Caucasian in appearance and 4 to 6 years old. The case still remains unsolved.
March
Flag of Ghana, the first country in colonial Africa to gain independence
March 1
U Nu becomes Prime Minister of Burma.
Arturo Lezama becomes President of the National Council of Government of Uruguay.
Sud Aviation forms from a merger between SNCASE (Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Est) and SNCASO (Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Ouest).
Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat is published in the United States.
March 3 – Net als toen by Corry Brokken (music by Guus Jansen, text by Willy van Hemert) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1957 for the Netherlands.
March 4 – Standard & Poor's first publishes the S&P 500 guide.
March 6
United Kingdom colonies Gold Coast and British Togoland become the independent nation of Ghana.
Zodi Ikhia founds the Nigerien Democratic Front (FDN) in Niger.
March 7 – The United States Congress approves the Eisenhower Doctrine on assistance to threatened foreign regimes.
March 8 – Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal.
March 10 – Floodgates of The Dalles Dam are closed, inundating Celilo Falls and ancient Indian fisheries along the Columbia River in Oregon.
March 13
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa and charges him with bribery.
The Anglo-Jordanian Treaty of 1948 expires.
March 14 – President Sukarno declares martial law in Indonesia.
March 17 – 1957 Cebu Douglas C-47 crash: Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others are killed in a plane crash.
March 20 – The French news magazine L'Express reveals that the French army tortures Algerian prisoners.
March 25 – The Treaty of Rome (patto di Roma) establishes the European Economic Community (EEC; predecessor of the European Union) between Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
March 26 – 22-year-old Elvis Presley buys Graceland on 3734 Bellevue Boulevard (Highway 51 South) for $US100,000. He and his family move from the house on 1034 Audubon Drive.
March 27 – The 29th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Hollywood. Around the World in 80 Days wins Best Picture.
March 31 – Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, the team's only musical written especially for television, is telecast live and in color by CBS, starring Julie Andrews in the title role. The production is seen by millions, but this 1957 version is not to be telecast again for more than 40 years, when a kinescope of it is shown.
April
E. M. S. Namboodiripad, head of the first democratically elected communist government in the world
April – IBM sells the first compiler for the FORTRAN scientific programming language.
April 1 – The first new conscripts join the Bundeswehr.
April 5 – The Communist Party of India wins the elections in Kerala, making E. M. S. Namboodiripad its first chief minister.
April 9 – Egypt reopens the Suez Canal to all shipping.
April 12
The United Kingdom announces that Singapore will gain self-rule on January 1, 1958.
Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems, printed in England, is seized by U.S. customs officials on the grounds of obscenity.
April 15
The Distant Early Warning Line is handed over by contractors to the U.S. and Canadian military.
White Rock secedes from Surrey, British Columbia, following a referendum.
April 17 – Suspected English serial killer John Bodkin Adams is found not guilty of murder at the Old Bailey.
April 24 – First broadcast of BBC Television astronomy series The Sky at Night in the U.K., presented by Patrick Moore. This will run with the same presenter until his death in December 2012.
May
May 2 – Vincent Gigante fails to assassinate mafioso Frank Costello in Manhattan.
May 3 – Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles.
May 15.
Operation Grapple: At Malden Island in the Pacific, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb, which fails to detonate properly.
Stanley Matthews plays his final international game, ending an English record international career of almost 23 years.
May 16 – Paul-Henri Spaak becomes the new Secretary General of NATO.
May 22 – 42,000-pound hydrogen bomb accidentally fell from a bomber near Albuquerque [1]
May 24 – Anti-American riots erupt in Taipei, Taiwan.[2]
June
June 1 – Three year old thoroughbred Gallant Man wins the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park.
June 9 – Broad Peak, on the China-Pakistan border, is first ascended.
June 15 – Oklahoma celebrates its semi-centennial statehood. A brand new 1957 Plymouth Belvedere is buried in a time capsule (to be opened 50 years later on June 15, 2007).
June 15 – Gallant Man wins the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in record time.
June 20 – Toru Takemitsu's Requiem for Strings is first performed, by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.[3]
June 21 – John Diefenbaker becomes the 13th Prime Minister of Canada.
June 25 – The United Church of Christ is formed in Cleveland, Ohio, by the merger of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
June 27 – Hurricane Audrey demolishes Cameron, Louisiana, U.S., killing 400 people.
July
July
The International Geophysical Year begins.
The University of Waterloo is founded in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
July 6 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, 3 years before forming the Beatles.
July 9 – Elvis Presley's Loving You opens in theaters.
July 11 – His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan becomes the 49th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims at age 20. His grandfather Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan III appoints Prince Karim in his will.
July 14 – Rawya Ateya takes her seat in the National Assembly of Egypt, thereby becoming the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
July 16 – United States Marine Major John Glenn flies an F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds, setting a new transcontinental speed record.
July 25 – Tunisia becomes a republic, with Habib Bourguiba its first president.
July 28
The 6th World Festival of Youth and Students, a high point of the Khrushchev Thaw, kicks off in Moscow.
Heavy rains and mudslides at Isahaya, western Kyūshū, Japan, kill 992.
A strong earthquake shakes Mexico City and Mexican port city Acapulco.
July 29 – The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.
August
August 4 – Juan Manuel Fangio, driving for Maserati, wins the Formula One German Grand Prix, clinching (with 4 wins that season) his record 5th world drivers championship, including his 4th consecutive championship (also a record); these 2 records endure for nearly half a century.
August 5 – American Bandstand, a local dance show produced by WFIL-TV in Philadelphia, joins the ABC Television Network.
August 21 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces a 2-year suspension of nuclear testing.
August 28 – United States Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) sets the record for the longest filibuster with his 24-hour, 18-minute speech railing against a civil rights bill.
August 31 – The Federation of Malaya gains independence from the United Kingdom. Tuanku Abdul Rahman ibni Almarhum Tuanku Muhammad, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan becomes the first Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaya.
August 31 – Malaysia National Day
September
September 1 – 175 die in Jamaica's worst railway disaster.
September 3 – The Wolfenden report on homosexuality is published in the United Kingdom.
September 4
American Civil Rights Movement – Little Rock Crisis: Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas calls out the US National Guard, to prevent African-American students from enrolling in Central High School in Little Rock.
The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel on what the company proclaims as "E Day".
September 5 – The first edition of Jack Kerouac's On the Road goes on sale.
September 7 – NBC introduces an animated version of its famous "living color" peacock logo.
September 9 – Catholic Memorial School opens its doors for the first time in Boston.
September 14 – Have Gun, Will Travel premieres on CBS.
September 21
Olav V becomes King of Norway on the death of his father Haakon VII.
The sailing ship Pamir sinks off the Azores in a hurricane.
September 23 – The Academy Award-winning movie The Three Faces of Eve is released.
September 24 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops to Arkansas to provide safe passage into Central High School for the Little Rock Nine.
September 26 - Leonard Bernstein's musical West Side Story makes its first appearance on Broadway and runs for 732 performances.
September 29 – The Kyshtym disaster occurs at the Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in Russia.
October
October 2 – David Lean's film The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in the UK.
October 4
Space Age – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth.
Canada's Avro Arrow is unveiled to the public.
The sitcom Leave It to Beaver premieres on CBS.
October 9 – Neil H. McElroy is sworn in as United States Secretary of Defense.
October 10
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, after he is refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant.
A fire at the Windscale power station in the UK releases radioactive material into the surrounding environment, including iodine-131.
October 11
The Jodrell Bank radio telescope opens in Cheshire, UK.
The orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket (carrying Sputnik I) is first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer by teams at The M.I.T. Computation Center and Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
October 12 – Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged is published.
October 21
Two trains collide in Turkey; 95 die.
The U.S. military sustains its first combat fatality in Vietnam, Army Capt. Hank Cramer of the 1st Special Forces Group.
October 23 – Morocco begins its invasion of Ifni.
October 25 – Mafia boss Albert Anastasia is assassinated in a barber shop, at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City, US.
October 27 – Celâl Bayar is re-elected president of Turkey.
October 31 – Toyota begins exporting vehicles to the U.S., beginning with the Toyota Crown and the Toyota Land Cruiser
November
November 1
The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at the time, opens in the US to connect Michigan's two peninsulas.
The westbound tube AKA the first tube of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel linking to Norfolk, Virginia and Hampton, Virginia opens at a cost of $44 million.
November 3 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, with the first animal to orbit the Earth (a dog named Laika) on board.
November 7 – Cold War: In the United States, the Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters.
November 8 – Film Jailhouse Rock opens across the U.S. to reach #3, and Elvis Presley continues to gain more notoriety.
November 13
Gordon Gould invents the laser.
Flooding in the Po Valley of Italy leads to flooding also in Venice.
November 14 – Apalachin Meeting: American Mafia leaders meet in Apalachin, New York at the house of Joseph Barbara; the meeting is broken up by a curious patrolman.
November 15
A plane crash in the Isle of Wight leaves 43 dead.
Yugoslavia announces the end of an economic boycott of Franco's Spain (although it does not reinstitute diplomatic relations).
November 16
Serial killer Edward Gein murders his last victim, Bernice Worden of Plainfield, Wisconsin, US.
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower has a stroke.
Adnan Menderes of DP forms the new government of Turkey (23rd government,last government formed by DP and Adnan Menderes)
November 30 – Indonesian president Sukarno survives a grenade attack at the Cikini School in Jakarta, but six children are killed.
December
December 1 – In Indonesia, Sukarno announces the nationalization of 246 Dutch businesses.
December 4 – The Lewisham train disaster in the UK leaves 92 dead.
December 5 – All 326,000 Dutch nationals are expelled from Indonesia.
December 6 – The first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite fails when the Vanguard rocket blows up on the launch pad.
December 10 – Canadian diplomat Lester B. Pearson receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his peacekeeping efforts in the United Nations.
December 18 – The Bridge on the River Kwai is released in the U.S. It goes on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Additional Oscars go to Alec Guinness (Best Actor) and David Lean (Best Director), among others. This is Lean's first Oscar for directing.
December 19 – Meredith Willson's classic musical The Music Man, starring Robert Preston, debuts on Broadway.
December 20 – The Boeing 707 airliner flies for the first time.
December 22 – The CBS afternoon anthology series Seven Lively Arts presents Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker on U.S. television for the first time, although heavily abridged.