1955
| File:Decade.png ( 1950s: ) 1955 link | |
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| File:1955.jpg Atomic bomb testing in the Nevada desert. | |
| Year 1955 |
1955
Bilderberg
1955 was one of only two years in which more than one Bilderberg conferences took place. The first was the Bilderberg/1955 March conference, the second Bilderberg/1955 September conference.
Events
- January 17 – Template:USS, the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
- January 22 – In the United States, The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), armed with nuclear weapons.
- January 25 – The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union announces the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941.
- January 28 – The United States Congress authorizes President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use force to protect Formosa from the People's Republic of China.
- February 9 – Apartheid in South Africa: 60,000 non-white residents of the Sophiatown suburb of Johannesburg are forcibly evicted.
- February 10 – The United States Seventh Fleet helps the Republic of China evacuate the Chinese Nationalist army and residents from the Tachen Islands to Taiwan.
- February 19 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established, at a meeting in Bangkok.
- February 24 – The Baghdad Pact (CENTO), originally known as Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), is signed between Iraq and Turkey.
- April 1 – EOKA starts a terrorist campaign against British rule in the Crown colony of Cyprus.
- Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, due to ill-health, at the age of 80.
- Richard J. Daley defeats Robert Merrian to become Mayor of Chicago, by a vote of 708,222 to 581,555.
- April 6 – Anthony Eden becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- The Taiwanese Kuomintang (with good help from the CIA) put a time-bomb on the airplane Kashmir Princess, killing 16 but failing to assassinate the People's Republic of China leader, Zhou Enlai.
- April 12 – The Salk polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
- April 17 – Imre Nagy, the communist Premier of Hungary, is ousted for being too moderate.
- April 18–April 24 – The Asian-African Conference is held in Bandung, Indonesia.
- May 5 – West Germany becomes a sovereign country, recognized by important Western countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
- May 6 – The Western European Union Charter becomes effective.
- May 14 – Eight Communist Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defence treaty in Warsaw, Poland, that is called the Warsaw Pact (it will be dissolved in 1991).
- May 15 – The Austrian State Treaty, which restores Austria's national sovereignty, is concluded between the 4 occupying powers following World War II (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France) and Austria, setting it up as a neutral country.
- June 26 – The Freedom Charter of the anti-apartheid South African Congress Alliance is adopted, at a Congress of the People in Kliptown.
- July 7 – The New Zealand Special Air Service is formed.
- The first atomic-generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering Arco, Idaho, from the U.S. National Reactor Testing Station; on July 18, Schenectady, New York, receives power from a prototype nuclear submarine reactor at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory.
- July 18 – Illinois Governor William Stratton signs the Loyalty Oath Act, that mandates all public employees take a loyalty oath to the State of Illinois and the United States or lose their jobs.
- July 18–23 – Geneva Summit between the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France.
- July 27 – El Al Flight 402 from Vienna (Austria) to Tel Aviv, via Istanbul, is shot down over Bulgaria. All 58 passengers and crewmen aboard the Lockheed Constellation are killed.
- August 1 – The prototype Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft first flies, in Nevada.
- The First Sudanese Civil War begins.
- August 20 – Hundreds of people are killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
- August 28 – Black 14-year-old Emmett Till is lynched and shot in the head for allegedly grabbing and threatening a white woman in Money, Mississippi; his white murderers, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, are acquitted by an all-white jury.
- September 6 – Istanbul pogrom: Istanbul's Greek minority is the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.
- The military coup to unseat President Juan Perón of Argentina is launched at midnight.
- A Soviet Navy Zulu-class submarine becomes the first to launch a ballistic missile.
- September 18 – The United Kingdom formally annexes the uninhabited Atlantic island of Rockall.
- September 19–21 – President of Argentina Juan Perón is ousted in a military coup.
- October 4 – The Reverend Sun Myung Moon is released from prison in Seoul, South Korea.
- Ngô Đình Diệm proclaims Vietnam to be a republic, with himself as its President (following the State of Vietnam referendum on October 23), and forms the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.
- October 29 – Soviet battleship Novorossiysk explodes at moorings in Sevastopol Bay, killing 608 (the Soviet Union's worst naval disaster to date). Rumored to have been done by Italian frogmen.
- Official start date of the Vietnam War between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Republic of Vietnam; the north is allied with the Viet Cong.
- A time bomb explodes in the cargo hold of United Airlines Flight 629, a Douglas DC-6B, over Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and 5 crew members on board.
- November 15 - Democratic Party of Japan and Japan Liberal Party were mergered, ruling Japan Liberal Democratic Party has active started.
- The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge, to become the AFL–CIO.
- December 10 – 1955 Australian federal election: Robert Menzies' Liberal/Country Coalition Government is re-elected with a substantially increased majority, defeating the Labor Party led by H. V. Evatt. This election comes in the immediate aftermath of the devastating split in the Labor Party, which leads to the formation of the Democratic Labor Party. The DLP will preference against Labor, and keep the Coalition in office until 1972.
- Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sri Lanka join the United Nations simultaneously, after several years of moratorium on admitting new members that began during the Korean War.
- General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make a profit of over 1 billion dollars in 1 year.
- Austria becomes independent, under terms of the May 15 Austrian State Treaty.
World population
- World population: 2,755,823,000
- Africa: 246,746,000
- Asia: 1,541,947,000
- Europe: 575,184,000
- South America: 190,797,000
- North America: 186,884,000
- Oceania: 14,265,000