November 1957

[November 1], 1957 (Friday)

• The Public Health Service in Washington, D.C., announced that manufacturers would soon be producing a more powerful vaccine for the so-called "Asian influenza" and said that many people who had already been vaccinated should receive a second shot.
• The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at this time, opened in the United States, to connect Michigan's two peninsulas.
• Yale University commemorated the 100th anniversary year of the birth of former U.S. President William Howard Taft, a Yale alumnus, born on September 15, 1857.
• Died: Charlie Caldwell, 56, American football, basketball and baseball player and coach, died of cancer.

  [November 2], 1957 (Saturday)

• Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who had been relieved of his position as Soviet Minister of Defence on October 26, was removed from all of his high-level positions in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• A seven-story apartment building in El Manial, Cairo, collapsed, killing 25 people.
• The New Statesman published "Britain and the Nuclear Bombs", an article by J. B. Priestley. Popular response to the article would lead to the foundation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
• On the night of November 2–3, a UFO sighting by multiple people occurred west of Levelland, Texas.
• Died:
• * William Coffin Coleman, 87, American businessman and politician, founder of Coleman, died of an acute myocardial infarction.
• * William Haywood, 81, British architect, died of a cerebral haemorrhage.
• * Ted Meredith, 65, American Olympic champion athlete, died after surgery.
• * Tokutomi Sohō, 94, Japanese journalist and historian
• * Mahonri Young, 80, American sculptor and artist, grandson of Brigham Young, died from bleeding ulcers complicated by pneumonia.

  [November 3], 1957 (Sunday)

• The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, the second spacecraft in the Sputnik program, with the first animal to orbit the Earth on board. There was no technology available to return her to Earth. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other animal rights groups worldwide protested the launching of Laika into space.
• In the 1957 Portuguese legislative election, the ruling National Union won all 120 seats.
• The Roman Catholic Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains in Cincinnati, Ohio, was rededicated after a $5 million rebuilding project.
• Born: Dolph Lundgren, Swedish actor and martial artist; in Stockholm, Sweden
• Died:
• * Charles Brabin, 75, American director and screenwriter
• * Dick Buek, 27, American Olympic alpine ski racer and stunt pilot, died in an air crash.
• * Linn Enslow, 66, American sanitary engineer and chemist, died of a heart attack.
• * Laika, 2–3, Soviet space dog
• * Wilhelm Reich, 60, Austrian psychoanalyst
• * Giuseppe Di Vittorio, 65, Italian trade union leader and Communist politician, died of a heart attack.

  [November 4], 1957 (Monday)

• Aeroflot Flight 200, an Ilyushin Il-14 airplane carrying officials of the Romanian Communist Party, crashed at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, killing former Foreign Minister Grigore Preoteasa and three crewmembers. Prime Minister Chivu Stoica, future Romanian Communist Party leader and Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu, and Party official Leonte Răutu in charge of Agitprop, survived the accident.
• Born:
• * Tony Abbott, 28th Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015; in Lambeth, London, England
• * Aleksandr Tkachyov, Soviet Olympic champion gymnast; in Semiluki, Voronezh Oblast, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union
• Died:
• * Joseph Canteloube, 78, French composer and singer
• * Shoghi Effendi, 60, Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith
• * Grigore Preoteasa, 42, Romanian activist, died in an air crash.
• * Thomas Robins, 89, American inventor and manufacturer

  [November 5], 1957 (Tuesday)

• Two U.S. states, New Jersey and Virginia, voted to elect governors. In the 1957 New Jersey gubernatorial election, incumbent Democrat Robert B. Meyner defeated Republican Malcolm Forbes for the position of Governor of New Jersey. In the 1957 Virginia gubernatorial election, Democrat J. Lindsay Almond, the former Attorney General of Virginia, defeated Republican Virginia State Senator Theodore Roosevelt Dalton for the position of Governor of Virginia.
• Born: Jon-Erik Hexum, American actor; in Englewood, New Jersey

  [November 6], 1957 (Wednesday)

• The Downend air crash in Downend, South Gloucestershire, killed all 15 crewmembers and technicians aboard a prototype Bristol Britannia aircraft and caused injuries to two people on the ground.
• The Fairey Rotodyne compound gyroplane made its first flight, piloted by Squadron Leader W. Ron Gellatly and Lieutenant Commander John G.P. Morton.
• Born:
• * Cam Clarke, American voice actor and singer; in Burbank, California
• * Ciro Gomes, Brazilian lawyer and politician; in Pindamonhangaba, São Paulo, Brazil
• * Klaus Kleinfeld, German business executive; in Bremen, West Germany
• * Lori Singer, American actress and musician; in Corpus Christi, Texas

  [November 7], 1957 (Thursday)

• The Security Resources Panel of the Office of Defense Mobilization Science Advisory Committee submitted the Gaither Report to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
• A total lunar eclipse took place.
• Born: Christopher Knight, American actor; in New York City
• Died:
• * Hasui Kawase, 74, Japanese painter and printmaker, died of cancer.
• * Roy Worters, 57, Canadian National Hockey League goaltender, died of throat cancer.

  [November 8], 1957 (Friday)

• Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, told the House of Commons that the release of radioactive material due to the Windscale fire on October 10 had caused no significant harm to human or animal life or property.
• United States Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy directed the U.S. Army to proceed with the launching of the Explorer earth satellites. This order, in effect, resumed the Orbiter project that had been eliminated from the International Geophysical Year satellite planning program on September 9, 1955.
• Warner Bros. released The Story of Mankind, a film adaptation of Hendrik Willem van Loon's book of the same name, directed by Irwin Allen. The New York Times called the film "a protracted and tedious lesson in history that is lacking in punch, sophistication and a consistent point of view."
• Pan Am Flight 7 crashed in the Pacific Ocean en route from San Francisco to Honolulu, killing all 44 people aboard.
• Died: Fred Anderson, 71, American Major League Baseball pitcher, died by suicide.

  [November 9], 1957 (Saturday)

• Two major opera singers, bass Ezio Flagello and baritone Mario Sereni, both made their debut for the Metropolitan Opera, with Flagello appearing as the jailer in Tosca, and Sereni as Gerard in Andrea Chénier.
• Died:
• * John Bartlet Brebner, 62, Canadian-born American historian
• * Ulric Ellerhusen, 78, German-American sculptor
• * George W. Merck, 63, American chemist and businessman, died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
• * Peter O'Connor, 85, English-born Irish Olympic champion athlete and solicitor
• * Alan Wace, 78, English archaeologist, died of a heart ailment.

  [November 10], 1957 (Sunday)

• A bus accident killed 27 people in Saint-Paul, Réunion.
• Born: George Lowe, American voice actor and comedian; in Dunedin, Florida
• Died:
• * Louise Carter, 82, American actress
• * Henderson Lovelace Lanham, 69, member of the United States House of Representatives from Georgia, died in a traffic collision.
• * Frank Weil, 63, American lawyer

  [November 11], 1957 (Monday)

• West Berlin awarded the Freiheitsglocke, its highest cultural honor, to singer and actress Lotte Lenya.
• Border campaign : In County Louth, Ireland, four members of the Irish Republican Army and a civilian were killed in a premature land mine explosion.
• Born: Ana Pastor, Spanish politician; in Cubillos, Province of Zamora, Spain
• Died:
• * Masao Maruyama, 68, Japanese general
• * Howard R. Reiter, 86, American football player, coach and athletic director
• * Gerald Burton Winrod, 57, American antisemitic evangelist, author and activist, died of pneumonia.

  [November 12], 1957 (Tuesday)

• At a meeting of the NACA Subcommittee on Fluid Mechanics on November 12 and 13, it was stated that many aspects of space flight and astronautics would depend heavily on research advances in the field that had been broadly termed fluid mechanics. Research in this area involved internal and external gas flows associated with high-speed flights within the atmosphere and reentry into the atmosphere of spacecraft vehicles. The subcommittee recommended to the NACA that research in these matters be intensified.
• Born: Cécilia Attias, wife of French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy; in Boulogne-Billancourt, France
• Died:
• * Ella Bradna, 78, Bohemian-born equestrian circus performer
• * Maxwell M. Hamilton, 60, American diplomat, United States Ambassador to Finland
• * Arthur Asahel Shurcliff, 87, American landscape architect

  [November 13], 1957 (Wednesday)

• Flooding in the Po Valley of Italy led to flooding in Venice as well.
• American physicist Gordon Gould, then a graduate student at Columbia University, had a page of his notebook notarized at a candy store. The page contained notes headed, "Some rough calculations on the feasibility of a LASER: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation".
• Paramount Pictures released the aviation drama film Zero Hour!, directed by Hall Bartlett. According to New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther, "This isn't the sort of picture you'd want to see before embarking on a flight, but it is an exciting contemplation of a frightening adventure in the skies." It would be remade in 1980 as the parody film Airplane!
• Born:
• * Greg Abbott, American attorney and politician, 48th Governor of Texas; in Wichita Falls, Texas
• * Stephen Baxter, English science fiction author; in Liverpool, England
• * Roger Ingram, American jazz musician, author, educator and trumpet designer; in Pasadena, California
• Died:
• * Rosamond Marshall, 55, American novelist
• * E. Alexander Powell, 78, American war correspondent, author and explorer, died of coronary thrombosis.
• * Claude U. Stone, 78, American newspaper editor and politician, member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois
• * Antonín Zápotocký, 72, 6th President and 15th Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, died of a heart attack.