1955 in the United States

Events from the year 1955 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government">Federal government of the United States">Federal government

President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
[Vice President of the United States|President of the United States|Vice President]: Richard Nixon
Chief Justice: Earl Warren
Speaker of the House of Representatives:
Senate Majority Leader:
Congress: 83rd, 84th

Events

January

January 7 – Marian Anderson is the first African-American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
January 22 – The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons.
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

February 1 – Major tornadoes in Mississippi.
February 10 – The Seventh Fleet of the United States Navy helps the Republic of China evacuate Chinese Nationalist army and residents from the Tachen Islands to Taiwan.
February 12 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends the first U.S. advisors to South Vietnam.
February 14 – WFLA-TV signs on the air in Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida.
February 22 – In Chicago's Democratic primary, Mayor Martin H. Kennelly loses to the head of the Cook County Democratic Party, Richard J. Daley, 364,839 to 264,77.

March

March 9 – Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old African-American girl, refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white woman after the driver demands it. She is carried off the bus backwards whilst being kicked and handcuffed and harassed on the way to the police station. She becomes a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, which rules bus segregation to be unconstitutional.
March 5 – WBBJ signs on the air in the Jackson, Tennessee as WDXI, to expanded U.S. commercial television in rural areas.
March 7 – The 1954 Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC. The program gains the largest viewership of a TV special up to this time and becomes one of the first great television classics.
March 12 – African-American jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker dies in New York City at age 34.
March 19 – KXTV of Stockton, California signs on the air as the 100th commercial television station in the U.S.
March 20 – The film adaptation of Evan Hunter's Blackboard Jungle premieres, featuring the famous single "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets. Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the song. On July 9 it becomes the first Rock and roll single to reach Number One on the U.S. charts.
March 26 – Bill Hayes tops the U.S. charts for five weeks with "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" and starts a coonskin cap craze.
March 28 – The important income tax case of Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co. is decided in the Supreme Court.
March 30 – The 27th Academy Awards ceremony is simultaneously held at RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood and at NBC Century Theatre in New York. Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront wins and receives the most respective awards and nominations with eight and 12, including Best Motion Picture and Kazan's second Best Director win.

April

April – Theresa Meikle becomes the presiding judge of San Francisco County Superior Court, the first woman elected to such a position in any major U.S. city.
April 5 – Richard J. Daley defeats Robert Merrian to become mayor of Chicago by a vote of 708,222 to 581,555.
April 10 – In the National Basketball Association championship, the Syracuse Nationals defeat the Fort Wayne Pistons 92-91 in Game 7 to win the title.
April 12 – Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the U.S., receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
April 14 – The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup in ice hockey for the 7th time in franchise history, but will not win again until 1997.
April 15 – Ray Kroc opens his first McDonald's in Des Plaines, Illinois.

May

May 9 – A young Jim Henson introduces the earliest version of Kermit the Frog, in the premiere of his puppet show Sam and Friends, on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.
May 21 – Chuck Berry records his first single, "Maybellene", for Chess Records in Chicago.

June

June 7 – The $64,000 Question premieres on CBS television, with Hal March as the host.
June 16 – Lady and the Tramp premieres in Chicago. It is the first animated film distributed by Disney's own Buena Vista Film Distribution and the first filmed in CinemaScope widescreen.

July

July 17
* The Disneyland theme park opens in Anaheim, California, an event broadcast on the ABC television network.
* The first atomic-generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering Arco, Idaho, from the 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 U.S. or lose their jobs.
July 18–23 – Geneva Summit between the U.S., Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France.

August

August 1 – The prototype Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft first flies, in Nevada.
August 4 – American Airlines Flight 476, a Convair CV-240-0 attempting an emergency landing at Forney Army Airfield, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri following an engine fire, crashes just short of the runway; all 27 passengers and three crew members are killed.
August 19 – Hurricane Diane hits the northeast, killing 200 and causing over $1 billion in damage.
August 22 – Eleven schoolchildren are killed when their school bus is hit by a freight train in Spring City, Tennessee.
August 28 – African-American teenager Emmett Till is lynched and shot in the head for allegedly grabbing and threatening a white woman, identified as Carolyn Bryant, in Money, Mississippi. His white murderers, Roy Bryant, the husband of Carolyn, and J. W. Milam, the half-brother of Roy, are acquitted by an all-white jury on September 23. Decades later, Carolyn recants her testimony.

September

September 3 – African American rock singer Little Richard records "Tutti Frutti" in New Orleans; it is released in October.
September 10 – Western series Gunsmoke debuts on the CBS television network.
September 24 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffers a coronary thrombosis while on vacation in Denver.
September 26 – "America's Sweethearts", singers Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, marry.
September 30 – Film actor James Dean, aged 24, is killed when his Porsche 550 Spyder collides with another automobile at a highway junction near Cholame, California.

October

October – First meeting of the lesbian group that becomes the Daughters of Bilitis.
October 3 – The Mickey Mouse Club airs on the ABC television network.
October 4 – The Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series in baseball, defeating the New York Yankees 2–0 in Game 7 of the 1955 Fall Classic.
October 7 – At the Six Gallery in San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg gives a spirited reading of his poem "Howl". Jack Kerouac and other Beat writers chant and shout along. The event is often seen as the birth of the counterculture.
October 11 – 70-mm film is introduced with the theatrical release of Rodgers and Hammerstein's masterpiece Oklahoma!.
October 20 – Disc jockey Bill Randle of WERE is the key presenter of a concert at Brooklyn High School (Ohio), featuring Pat Boone and Bill Haley & His Comets and opening with Elvis Presley, not only Elvis's first performance north of the Mason–Dixon line, but also his first filmed performance, for a documentary on Randle titled The Pied Piper of Cleveland.
October 27 – The film Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean, is released.

November

November 1 – A time bomb explodes in the cargo hold of United Airlines Flight 629, a Douglas DC-6B airliner flying above Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and five crew members.
November 5 – Racial segregation is forbidden on trains and buses in U.S. interstate commerce.
November 12 – The Bugs Bunny cartoon Roman-Legion Hare debuts.
November 20 – Bo Diddley makes his television debut on Ed Sullivan's Toast Of The Town show for the CBS network.
November 27 – Fred Phelps establishes the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.

December

December 1 – Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to surrender her seat on a bus to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama.
December 5
*The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge to become the AFL–CIO.
*The Montgomery Improvement Association is formed in Montgomery, Alabama by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other Black ministers to coordinate the Montgomery bus boycott by Black people.
December 14 – Tappan Zee Bridge in New York opens to traffic.
December 15 – Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues", recorded on July 30, is released by Sun Records.
December 22 – Cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes.
December 31
*General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
*Michigan J. Frog, a Warner Bros. cartoon character, makes his debut in One Froggy Evening.

Unknown date

The Peoria Zoo opens in Illinois.
Agricultural tractors outnumber horses on U.S. farms for the first time.
Tappan introduce the first domestic microwave oven.

Ongoing

Births

January–June

January 1 – LaMarr Hoyt, baseball player
January 2 – Bonnie Arnold, film producer
January 3
* Hal Rayle, voice actor
* Jon Tiven, composer
January 4
* Cecilia Conrad, economist and academic
* Brian Ray, session musician
* Lea Fite, politician
January 9
* Michiko Kakutani, journalist and critic
* J. K. Simmons, actor
January 11 – Max Lucado, writer on Christian themes
January 12 – Rockne S. O'Bannon, writer and producer
January 13 – Jay McInerney, novelist
January 18 – Kevin Costner, film actor, producer and director
January 21 – Jeff Koons, "kitsch" artist
January 22 – Neil Bush, businessman and investor
January 23 – Ruth Haring, chess player
January 24 – Lynda Weinman, author
January 26 – Eddie Van Halen, guitarist and innovator
January 27 – John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the U.S. from 2005
January 28 – Joe Beckwith, baseball player
January 29 – Eddie Jordan, basketball player and coach and politician
January 30
* John Baldacci, politician, 73rd Governor of Maine
* Tom Izzo, basketball player and coach
* Curtis Strange, golfer and sportscaster
February 6 – Michael Pollan, author and journalist
February 8
* John Grisham, writer of legal thrillers
* Jim Neidhart, pro wrestler
February 10
* Jim Cramer, hedge fund manager and television personality
* Lusia Harris, basketball player
February 12
* Bill Laswell, bass player and producer
* Chet Lemon, baseball player
February 15
* Janice Dickinson, model, agent, and author
* Christopher McDonald, actor
February 18
* Cheetah Chrome, musician
* Tim Hankinson, soccer coach
* Lisa See, novelist
February 21 – Kelsey Grammer, TV actor
February 21 – Kevin Carl Scholz, architect, entrepreneur, professor, artist and business owner
February 23
* Flip Saunders, basketball coach
* Francesca Simon, children's books writer
* Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange
February 24 – Steve Jobs, entrepreneur and inventor
February 28 – Gilbert Gottfried, actor and stand-up comedian
March 2 – Ken Salazar, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 2005 to 2009
March 5 – Penn Jillette, magician
March 17 – Gary Sinise, film & TV actor
March 19 – Bruce Willis, actor
March 22 – Pete Sessions, politician
March 30
* Connie Cato, country music singer
* Rhonda Jo Petty, pornographic actress
* Randy VanWarmer, singer-songwriter
April 1
*Terry Nichols, criminal
*Martin H. Levenglick, lawyer, New York
April 6 – Michael Rooker, actor
April 7
* Grace Hightower, philanthropist, actress and singer
* Gregg Jarrett, lawyer-journalist
April 8
* Ricky Bell, American football player
* Ron Johnson, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin from 2011
* Barbara Kingsolver, novelist, essayist and poet
* William Spriggs, economist
* David Wu, Taiwanese-American lawyer and politician
April 11 – Micheal Ray Richardson, basketball player and coach
April 16 – Bruce Bochy, French-born American baseball player and manager
April 26 – Mike Scott, baseball player
April 29 – Kate Mulgrew, TV actress
April 30 – Fred Hiatt, journalist and editor
May 2 – Ed Murray, Democratic politician and former mayor of Seattle
May 6 – Tom Bergeron, TV game show host
May 7 – Ben Poquette, basketball player
May 8 – Carl E. Douglas, lawyer
May 10 – Mark David Chapman, murderer
May 16
* Dean Corren, politician and scientist
* Debra Winger, film actress
May 17
* Bill Paxton, film actor
* Marc Weiner, comedian, puppeteer, and actor
May 18 – Brad Raffensperger, politician
May 26
* Randy Burke, American football player
* Wesley Walker, American football player and educator
May 29 – John Hinckley Jr., attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan
May 31
*Bruce Adolphe, pianist, composer, and scholar
*Marty Ehrlich, multi-instrumentalist
June 1
* David Schultz, professional wrestler
* Tony Snow, journalist
June 7 – Joey Scarbury, singer-songwriter
June 12 – William Langewiesche, author and journalist
June 14 – Michael D. Duvall, businessman and politician
June 16 – Laurie Metcalf, TV actress
June 25 – Patricia Smith, African-American poet, "spoken-word performer", playwright, author and writing teacher

July–December

July 1 – Lisa Scottoline, writer of legal thrillers
July 9 – Lindsey Graham, U.S. Senator from South Carolina from 2003
July 18 – Nancy Garrido, kidnapper
July 21 – Howie Epstein, bass player, songwriter and producer
July 22 – Willem Dafoe, actor
July 24 – F. Blair Wimbush, retired American railroad executive and lawyer
July 26
* Jim Avila, television journalist
* Michele Pillar, Christian music singer
August 2
* Caleb Carr, novelist and military historian
* Phase 2, graffiti artist
* Butch Vig, record producer and drummer
August 4
*Alberto Gonzales, 80th United States Attorney General
*Billy Bob Thornton, film actor, director, screenwriter, producer and singer-songwriter
August 13 – Daryl, magician
August 24 – Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas
August 29 – Jack Lew, 76th United States Secretary of the Treasury
August 30 – Marvin Powell, American football player
August 31 – Edwin Moses, track & field athlete
September 1 – Billy Blanks, martial artist and inventor of Tae Bo exercise program
September 8 – Terry Tempest Williams, writer, educator and activist
September 14 – Pope Leo XIV
September 17 – Charles Martinet, actor and voice actor
September 19
* Rebecca Blank, economist and academic administrator
* Rex Smith, actor and singer
September 29
* Joe Donnelly, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 2013 to 2019
* Gwen Ifill, journalist and author
October 15 – Emily Yoffe, journalist and advice columnist
October 17 – Tyrone Mitchell, murderer
October 20
* Thomas Newman, film composer
* Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island from 2007
October 21 – Tommy Boggs, baseball player
October 26 – Michelle Boisseau, poet
October 28
* Ronnie Bass, American football player and sportscaster
* Bill Gates, software designer and entrepreneur
October 30 – Heidi Heitkamp, U.S. Senator from North Dakota from 2013 to 2019
November 4 – David Julius, physiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
November 5 – Kris Jenner, television personality
November 6
* Maria Shriver, journalist and Arnold Schwarzenegger's former wife from 1986 to 2021.
* Paul Romer, economist, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
November 13
* Roy Cooper, rodeo cowboy
* Whoopi Goldberg, comic actress
November 23
* Steven Brust, fantasy author and musician
* Peter Douglas, television and film producer
* Mary Landrieu, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1997 to 2015
November 27 – Bill Nye, science communicator, television presenter and mechanical engineer
November 29 – Robert Jeffress, pastor
November 30
* Richard Burr, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 2005 to 2023
* Kevin Conroy, stage, screen and voice actor
December 11
* Gene Grossman, economist and academic
* Stu Jackson, basketball player, coach and manager
December 16 – Carol Browner, lawyer, environmentalist and businesswoman
December 19 – Rob Portman, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 2011 to 2023
December 21 – Jane Kaczmarek, television actress
December 26 – Evan Bayh, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1999 to 2011
December 27 – Barbara Olson, lawyer and TV commentator

Unknown dates

Mark Marderosian, cartoonist

Deaths

January

January 1 – Arthur C. Parker, part-Seneca archeologist and ethnographer of Native Americans
January 20 – Robert P. Tristram Coffin, poet, essayist and novelist
January 21 – Archie Hahn, sprinter
January 24 – Ira Hayes, Native American U.S. Marine flag raiser on Iwo Jima
January 31 – John Mott, YMCA leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

February

February 11 – Ona Munson, actress
February 12
* Tom Moore, Irish-American film actor
* S. Z. Sakall, Hungarian-American actor
February 20
* Oswald Avery, physician and medical researcher
* Rajarsi Janakananda, millionaire and disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda
February 22 – John T. Walker, Marine Corps lieutenant general
February 27 – Trixie Friganza, actress

March

March 3 – Katharine Drexel, Roman Catholic saint
March 5 – William C. deMille, screenwriter and film director
March 8 – William C. deMille, screenwriter and director
March 9 – Matthew Henson, African-American explorer
March 11 – Oscar F. Mayer, German-American entrepreneur
March 12 – Charlie Parker, African-American jazz saxophonist
March 21 – Walter White, civil rights activist
March 24 – John W. Davis, politician and presidential candidate

April

April 1 – Robert R. McCormick, newspaper publisher
April 7 – Theda Bara, silent film actress
April 14 – Cleveland Abbott, African-American football player and coach
April 15 – Edgar J. Kaufmann, merchant and patron of Fallingwater
April 18 – Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist, developer of theory of relativity
April 25 – Constance Collier, English actress and acting coach

May

May 2 – Truman Abbe, surgeon who received awards for his research on radium in medicine
May 11
* Francis Pierlot, actor
* Bradley Walker Tomlin, painter
May 14 – Charles Pelot Summerall, general
May 16 – James Agee, writer
May 18 – Mary McLeod Bethune, educator
May 22 – Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, actor
May 25 – Wardell Gray, jazz tenor saxophonist
May 30 – Bill Vukovich, race-car driver

June

June 5 – Pattillo Higgins, oil pioneer and businessman
June 10 – Margaret Abbott, golfer, first American woman to take first place in the Olympics
June 11 – Walter Hampden, film actor
June 13 – Nora Trueblood Gause, humanitarian
June 17 – Carlyle Blackwell, actor