Events from the year 1956 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government President: Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-Kansas/New York) Vice President: Richard Nixon (R-California) Chief Justice: Earl Warren (California) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-Texas) Senate Majority Leader: Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas) Congress: 84th
State governments Governors and lieutenant governors Governors
Lieutenant governors
Events
January–March January 1 – Carl Perkins' record "Blue Suede Shoes" is released by Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. January 3 – Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin, is restaged live by Producers' Showcase on NBC television by popular demand. January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them. January 22 – Redondo Junction train wreck in Los Angeles kills thirty people. January 28 – Elvis Presley makes his national television debut on CBS in the United States on the program Stage Show, the first of six appearances on the series. c. January – The first book in Ed McBain's long-running 87th Precinct police procedural series, Cop Hater, is published under Evan Hunter's new pseudonym. February 14 – Dwight D. Eisenhower's doctors say that he is healthy enough to seek another term at the White House. February 16 – Only a little more than four months after the release of the 70 mm version of Oklahoma!, the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, is released in CinemaScope 55. MacRae and Jones had previously starred in Oklahoma! Carousel, intended for showing in 55 mm, ends up being shown only in 35 mm. February 22 – Elvis Presley enters the U.S. music charts for the first time with "Heartbreak Hotel". February 23 – Norma Jean Mortenson legally changes her name to Marilyn Monroe. February 24 – Doris Day records her most famous song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)"; it is from Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, in which Day co-stars with James Stewart. February 29 – Dwight D. Eisenhower announces he will seek re-election as President. March 11 – Laurence Olivier's film, Richard III, adapted from Shakespeare's play, premieres in the U.S. in theaters and on NBC Television, on the same day as an afternoon matinée. It is one of the first such experiments of its kind. Olivier is later nominated for an Oscar for his performance. March 12 The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 500 for the first time rising 2.40 points, or 0.48%, to 500.24. 96 U.S. Congressmen sign the Southern Manifesto, a protest against the 1954 Supreme Court ruling (Brown v. Board of Education) desegregating public education. March 13 – Elvis Presley releases his first Gold Album titled "Elvis Presley". March 15 – The Broadway musical My Fair Lady opens in New York City. March 21 – The 28th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Jerry Lewis, is held at RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, with the television broadcast hosted by Claudette Colbert and Joseph L. Mankiewicz in New York. Delbert Mann's Marty wins four awards, including Best Motion Picture and Best Director for Mann. The film is also tied for the most nominations with eight, along with Henry King's Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing and Daniel Mann's The Rose Tattoo.
April–June
April 2 – The first episodes of As the World Turns and The Edge of Night are broadcast on CBS television. April 14 – Videotape is first demonstrated at the 1956 NARTB (now NAB) convention in Chicago by Ampex. It is the demonstration of the first practical and commercially successful videotape format known as 2" Quadruplex. April 19 – American actress Grace Kelly marries Rainier III, Prince of Monaco. April 21 – Former U.S. First Daughter Margaret Truman marries Clifton Daniel. April 27 – Heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano retires without losing a professional boxing match. May 2 – The Methodist Church in the U.S. decides, at its General Conference, to grant women full ordained clergy status. It also calls for an end to racial segregation in the denomination. May 22 – The Peacock logo of NBC is introduced on television. June 4 – Montgomery bus boycott: Browder v. Gayle is decided by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, ruling state bus segregation laws unconstitutional; this will be confirmed on appeal. June 5 – Elvis Presley performs "Hound Dog" on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements. June 8 – General Electric/Telechron introduces model 7H241 "The Snooz Alarm", first snooze alarm clock. June 14 The Flag of the United States Army is formally dedicated. June 21 – Playwright Arthur Miller appears before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, D.C. June 26 & August 23 – Books published by discredited psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich are burned under a court injunction. June 29 Actress Marilyn Monroe marries playwright Arthur Miller in White Plains, New York. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Federal Aid Highway Act, creating the Interstate Highway System. June 30 – A TWA Lockheed Constellation and United Airlines Douglas DC-7 collide in mid-air over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, killing all 128 people aboard both aircraft in the deadliest civil aviation disaster to date; the accident leads to sweeping changes in the regulation of cross-country flight and air traffic control over the U.S. June – 19-year-old Hunter S. Thompson is arrested as an accessory to robbery.
July–September July 2 – Sylvania Electric Products explosion: A laboratory experiment involving scrap thorium at Sylvania Electric Products in Bayside, New York, results in an explosion. July 4 – A U.S. Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft makes its first flight over the Soviet Union. July 13 Elvis Presley's recording of "Hound Dog" is released by RCA Records. John McCarthy (Dartmouth), Marvin Minsky (MIT), Claude Shannon (Bell Labs) and Nathaniel Rochester (IBM) assemble the first coordinated research meeting on the topic of artificial intelligence, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. July 16 – With the closing of its "Big Tent" show in Pittsburgh, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus announces all subsequent circuses will be "arena shows" due to changing economics. July 24 – At New York City's Copacabana Club, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform their last comedy show together (their act started on July 25, 1946). July 25 – south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner sinks after colliding with the Swedish ship in heavy fog, killing 51 people. July 29 – McKee refinery fire kills 19 in Texas. July 30 – A Joint Resolution of Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing "In God We Trust" as the U.S. national motto. August 6 – After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network has its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena. August 11 – Painter Jackson Pollock dies in a car crash in Springs, New York. September 9 – Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time. September 13 – The hard disk drive is invented by an IBM team led by Reynold B. Johnson. September 27 – The Bell X-2 becomes the first manned aircraft to reach Mach 3.
October–December
October 5 – Cecil B. DeMille's epic film The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston as Moses, is released in the U.S. It will be in the top ten of the worldwide list of highest-grossing films of all time, adjusted for inflation. October 8 – Baseball pitcher Don Larsen of the New York Yankees throws the only perfect game in World Series history in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Yogi Berra catches the game. Dale Mitchell is the final out. The New York Yankees win the series. Larsen is named series MVP. October 10 – The prototype Lockheed L-1649 Starliner, the final Lockheed Constellation model, makes its first flight. October 17 – The Game of the Century: 13-year-old Bobby Fischer beats GM Donald Byrne in the NY Rosenwald chess tournament. October 29 – The Huntley-Brinkley Report debuts on NBC-TV. October 31 – A U.S. Navy team becomes the third group to reach the South Pole (arriving by air) and commences construction of the first permanent Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. October – The Ladder becomes the first nationally distributed lesbian magazine in the U.S. November 1 City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco publishes Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg, a key work of the Beat Generation. The film Oklahoma! (1955), previously released to select cities in Todd-AO, now receives a U.S. national release in CinemaScope, since not all theatres are yet equipped for Todd-AO. To accomplish this, the film has actually been shot twice, rather than printing one version in two different film processes, as is later done. November 3 – MGM's screen classic, The Wizard of Oz, is shown on television for the first time by CBS, as the final installment of their Ford Star Jubilee. November 6 – 1956 United States presidential election: Republican incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democratic challenger Adlai E. Stevenson in a rematch of their contest four years earlier. November 13 – Browder v. Gayle: The United States Supreme Court declares Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott. November 30 – African American boxer Floyd Patterson wins the world heavyweight championship that is vacant after the retirement of Rocky Marciano. December 2 – A pipe bomb planted by George Metesky explodes at the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn, New York, injuring 6 people. December 3 – The 1956 Bush Terminal explosion occurs in Brooklyn. December 4 – The Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash) get together at Sun Studio for the only time. December 18 – To Tell the Truth debuts on CBS-TV. December 31 – Bob Barker makes his TV debut as host of the game show Truth or Consequences.
Ongoing Cold War (1947–1991) Second Red Scare (1947–1957)
Births
January
January 1 Mark R. Hughes, entrepreneur (d. 2000) Mike Mitchell, basketball player (d. 2011) January 3 – Mel Gibson, actor and filmmaker January 7 – David Caruso, actor (NYPD Blue) January 9 – Kimberly Beck, actress January 10 Shawn Colvin, singer George Merrill, singer-songwriter and keyboard player January 11 Big Bank Hank, rapper (d. 2014) Robert Earl Keen, singer-songwriter and guitarist January 13 – Janet Hubert, African-American actress January 15 – Don Cooper, baseball player (d. 2026) January 18 Sharon Mitchell, American sexologist Jim Mothersbaugh, American rock drummer January 19 – Carman, singer (d. 2021) January 20 – Bill Maher, actor, comedian and political analyst January 21 Robby Benson, actor, voice actor, director, singer and educator Geena Davis, actress January 26 – Pat Musick, voice actress January 27 Susanne Blakeslee, actress Mimi Rogers, actress January 29 – Irlene Mandrell, actress and singer
February
February 3 Nathan Lane, actor (The Birdcage) Lee Ranaldo, musician (Sonic Youth) February 6 – Terry Teachout, writer and director (died 2022) February 7 John Posey, actor Mark St. John, American guitarist (died 2007) February 11 – Catherine Hickland, actress February 12 – Arsenio Hall, entertainer February 13 – Paul Stojanovich, television producer (died 2003) February 18 – Bruce Rauner, businessman, politician, philanthropist and the 42nd governor of Illinois February 19 Kathleen Beller, actress Roderick MacKinnon, biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003 February 22 – Hugh Hewitt, lawyer, academic and radio host February 24 Howard Bragman, crisis management expert (died 2023) Judith Butler, philosopher Eddie Murray, baseball player