March 1955

[March 1], 1955 (Tuesday)

• At the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio, future astronaut Neil Armstrong makes his first flight as a test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor organization of NASA.
• Born: Timothy Laurence, British naval officer and the second husband of Princess Anne, in Camberwell, South London.

  [March 2], 1955 (Wednesday)

• The Hong Kong-registered cargo ship Inchkeith strikes an uncharted rock in the Bay of Bengal off Port Meadows, Andaman Islands, and is abandoned as a total loss.
• Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old African-American girl, becomes the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, when she refuses to give up her seat to a white woman as demanded by the driver. She is carried off the bus backwards while 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.
• Born: Shoko Asahara, Japanese cult leader, in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture

  [March 3], 1955 (Thursday)

• The Pennsylvania Railroad runs its first "TrucTrain" piggyback train from Chicago to Kearny, NJ, the first time the Pennsylvania has carried trailers of common carrier trucking companies on its flatcars.
• Died: Katharine Drexel, 96, US heiress, philanthropist, teacher and Roman Catholic saint

  [March 4], 1955 (Friday)

[March 5], 1955 (Saturday)

• US TV station WBBJ-TV signs on the air in Jackson, Tennessee, with WDXI as its initial call-letters, to expanded American commercial television in mostly-rural areas.
• Elvis Presley makes his television debut on "Louisiana Hayride" carried by KSLA-TV Shreveport.

  [March 6], 1955 (Sunday)

• Born:
• *Alberta Watson, Canadian actress, in Toronto
• *Cyprien Ntaryamira, Burundian politician, 5th President of Burundi

  [March 7], 1955 (Monday)

• The 7th Emmy Awards ceremony takes place at the "Moulin Rouge Nightclub" in Hollywood, California, USA.
• The Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, which had opened in 1954 starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC-TV with its original cast, as an installment of Producers' Showcase. It is also the first time that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV almost exactly as it was performed on stage. This program gains the largest viewership of a TV special up to this time, and it becomes one of the first great TV family musical classics.

  [March 8], 1955 (Tuesday)

• Died: William C. deMille, 76, US screenwriter and director

  [March 9], 1955 (Wednesday)

• Died: Matthew Henson, 88, US explorer

  [March 10], 1955 (Thursday)

• Pakistan International Airlines is formed.
• The UK's Anti-Aircraft Command is officially disbanded.

  [March 11], 1955 (Friday)

• Died: Sir Alexander Fleming, 73, Scottish scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

  [March 12], 1955 (Saturday)

• Died: Charlie Parker, 34, US saxophonist

  [March 13], 1955 (Sunday)

• 1955 Swiss tenant and consumer protection referendum: The proposal for a popular initiative "for the protection of tenants and consumers", which would prolong price controls, is approved by a majority of voters, it was rejected by a majority of cantons, with the result that it does not come into force.
• Died: Tribhuwan Bir Bikram Shah, 48, King of Nepal, under "mysterious circumstances". He is succeeded by his eldest legitimate son Mahendra.

  [March 14], 1955 (Monday)

• The Greek fishing vessel Iason capsizes and sinks in the Ionian Sea with the loss of eleven of her fifteen crew. SS Stratheden sends one of her lifeboats to the aid of Iason, but it also capsizes and all eight on board are drowned. Four survivors from Iason are rescued by Stratheden.

  [March 15], 1955 (Tuesday)

• The first section of Cleveland's "Rapid" opens from Cleveland Union Terminal to Windermere.
• Colonel Tom Parker becomes Elvis Presley's de facto manager.

  [March 16], 1955 (Wednesday)

• Died: Nicolas de Staël, 41, Russian-born painter, after leaping to his death from his eleventh story studio terrace in Antibes.

  [March 17], 1955 (Thursday)

• Richard Riot in Montreal: 6,000 people protest against the suspension of French Canadian ice hockey star Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens by the National Hockey League following a violent incident during a match.
• In the UK's Wrexham by-election, brought about by the death of the town's long-serving Labour MP Robert Richards, is won by the Labour candidate James Idwal Jones, with a majority of nearly 11,000 votes.
• British Locomotive builder Vulcan Foundry and its subsidiary Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns are absorbed into the English Electric group.

  [March 18], 1955 (Friday)

• Born: Jeff Stelling, British television presenter in Hartlepool, England

  [March 19], 1955 (Saturday)

• The 1955 International Cross Country Championships are held in San Sebastián, Spain.
• TV station KXTV signs on the air in Sacramento, California, as KBET.
• Born: Pino Daniele, Italian music artist, in Naples

  [March 20], 1955 (Sunday)

• The movie adaptation of Evan Hunter's novel Blackboard Jungle is premièred in the United States, making a hit out of "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets. Teenagers jump from their cinema seats to dance to the song.
• American Airlines Flight 711, a Convair CV-240, strikes the ground during its final approach at Springfield, Missouri, US killing 13 of the 35 people on board.
• UK tanker British Craftsman runs aground off Stockholm, Sweden.
• In Italy, the Republican Party retires its support to the Scelba cabinet, because contrasts about the farm lease act.
• Erich Kleiber resigns from director of the Berlin Staatsoper, as a protest for the interferences by the DDR bureaucracy and chiefly for the ungilding of an historical inscription placed by Frederick the Great.

  [March 21], 1955 (Monday)

• The Lebanon president Camille Chamoun begins a four-day official visit in Italy; at the Ciampino airport he's welcomed by the Italian president Luigi Einaudi and by the Foreign Affairs Minister Gaetano Martino. March 25 Chamoun is received by Pope Pius XII.
• The Sovietic Foreign Affairs Minister Vjaceslav Molotov announces the constitution of a unified military command among USSR and the satellite countries.
• In South Vietnam, the National Front asks for a national union cabinet. The request is ignored by the Diem government.
• Born: Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian politician, President of Brazil, in São Paulo

  [March 22], 1955 (Tuesday)

• Landing in darkness and heavy rain at Hickam Air Force Base, Territory of Hawaii, the crew of United States Navy Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster 131612 of Air Transport Squadron 3 makes a navigational error, and the plane crashes into Pali Kea Peak in Oahus Waianae Range 15 miles northwest of Honolulu. The plane explodes, killing all 66 people on board. At the time, it would be the worst accident involving any version of the Douglas DC-6, and it remains the worst air disaster in the history of Hawaii. It would tie with the August 11 mid-air collision of two United States Air Force C-119G Flying Boxcars over West Germany and the October 6 crash of United Airlines Flight 409 in Wyoming as the deadliest air accident of 1955.
• In Morgnano, a firedamp deflagration in a lignite mine owned by the Terni Steel Mills causes the death of 23 workers; another 18 are gravely injured.

  [March 23], 1955 (Wednesday)

• Norwegian ocean liner Venus runs aground at Plymouth, Devon, United Kingdom.
• Dutch coaster Anna Henny is driven ashore at Aberavon, Wales, in a storm. It is refloated after five hours.
• In Pozzuoli, the last knightly dispute in Italy happens. Gaetano Fiorentino, senator of the People's Monarchist Party, faces in a fencing duel the attorney Attilio Romano, acting in name of his client Carlo Delcroix, war invalid. Both the two contenders are slightly wounded. The dispute was caused by a Fiorentino's press article about Delcroix, judged injurious.
• Born: Moses Malone, US basketball player, in Petersburg, Virginia
• Died: Artur Bernardes, 79, President of Brazil 1922–26

  [March 24], 1955 (Thursday)

• The West Germany President Theodor Heuss signs the Bonn-Paris conventions that authorize the rearmament of West Germany. In France, instead, the treaty causes heated debates; the Prime Minister Edgard Faure is forced to intervene in the Council of the Republic to solicit its ratification.  
• The Italian Prime Minister Mario Scelba and the Foreign Affairs Minister Gaetano Martino begin a two weeks official travel in Canada and United States.
• At the Morosco Theatre in Broadway, premiere of Cat on a hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams, directed by Elia Kazan, with Burl Ives, Ben Gazzara and Barbara Bel Geddes.
• Spanish cargo ship Urola collides with Soviet ship Storaya Pyaltylotka off Setubal, Portugal, and sinks. Storaya Pyaltylotka is badly damaged, entering the Tagus still taking on water. All 33 crew from Urola are rescued.
• An Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck becomes the first Canadian jet aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.
• Born: Vauro Senesi, cartoonist, in Pistoia.

  [March 25], 1955 (Friday)

• After West Germany, East Germany also announces its rearmament.
• In Stockholm, the Soviet vice-minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko meets the king of Sweden Gustav VI Adolf and the Prime Minister Tage Erlander.
• In Rome, premiere, in presence of the president Luigi Einaudi, of Marcello Baldi's Italia K2, the official documentary about the 1954 expedition to K2. The film gets a noticeable public success, with a 360 million liras collection in Italy.
• During a test flight with afterburner, the Lockheed XF-104 aircraft achieves a speed of Mach 1.79.
• Dutch coaster SS Lea runs aground at Kettleness, Yorkshire.