This Year in History:
1956
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On January 2, 1956, Oklahoma University’s champion football team, the Sooners, defeat Maryland 20‑6 in the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, winning the national championship and scoring their 30th straight…
South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem issues Ordinance No. 6, allowing the internment of former Viet Minh members and others “considered as dangerous to national defense and common security.” The…
On January 24, 1956, Look magazine publishes the confessions of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, two white men from Mississippi who were acquitted in the 1955 kidnapping and murder of…
In a long interview with visiting American attorney Marshall MacDuffie, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev adopts a friendly attitude toward the United States and indicates that he believes President Dwight Eisenhower…
On January 30, 1956, an unidentified suspected white supremacist terrorist bombed the Montgomery home of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. No one was harmed, but the explosion outraged the community and…
Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, former members of the British Foreign Office who had disappeared from England in 1951, resurface in Moscow. Their surprise appearance and formal statement to the…
On February 25, 1956, Sylvia Plath meets her future husband, Ted Hughes, at a party in Cambridge, UK. The two poets fell in love at first sight and married four months…
Noted for his innovative use of wide‑angle shots, low‑key lighting and deep focus, cinematographer James Wong Howe becomes the first Asian American to win an Academy Award on March 21,…
On April 19, 1956, American film actress Grace Kelly, 26, marries Prince Rainier of Monaco, 32, in a spectacular ceremony—a “royal wedding of the century” watched by more than 30…
On April 27, 1956, world heavyweight champ Rocky Marciano retires from boxing at age 31, saying he wants to spend more time with his family. Marciano ended his career as…
On May 4, 1956, rockabilly legend Gene Vincent records the smoldering early‑rock classic “Be‑Bop‑A‑Lula,” in Nashville, Tennessee. When a music critic wants to indicate that a song lacks lyrical sophistication,…
On this day in 1956, Henry Ford II, the namesake and grandson of the legendary automobile pioneer, resigns as chairman of his family’s charitable organization, the Ford Foundation. Henry II’s…
On this day in 1956, executives from the Detroit‑based automotive giant General Motors (GM) dedicate the new GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. Costing around $100 million–or about half a…
The United States conducts the first airborne test of an improved hydrogen bomb, dropping it from a plane over the tiny island of Namu in the Bikini Atoll in the…
On June 3, 1956, Santa Cruz, California captured national attention when city authorities announced a total ban on rock ‘n’ roll at public gatherings. Officials called the music “detrimental to…
On June 5, 1956, in an appearance on “The Milton Berle Show,” Elvis Presley he set his guitar aside and put every part of his being into a blistering, scandalous…
Bestselling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, creator of crime‑solving medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, is born on this day in Miami, Florida. Cornwell’s family moved to North Carolina when she was seven,…
On June 9, 1956, one of the world’s top‑selling crime novelists, Patricia Cornwell, best known for her forensic pathologist character Dr. Kay Scarpetta, is born in Miami, Florida. Cornwell, whose…
Playwright Arthur Miller defies the House Committee on Un‑American Activities and refuses to name suspected communists. Miller’s defiance of McCarthyism won him a conviction for contempt of court, which was…
On June 23, 1956, 99.95 percent of Egyptian voters mark their ballots to elect Gamal Abdel Nasser as the first president of the Republic of Egypt. Nasser, who toppled the…
