1955

**1955** (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday in the Gregorian calendar.

## Events

- January 2 – Panama president Jose Antonio Remon is killed.
- January 7 – Marian Anderson becomes the first African-American person to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City
- January 19 -  The _Scrabble_ board game debuts.
- February 8 – Nikolai Bulganin ousts Georgi Malenkov
- February 9 – Apartheid in South Africa: 60,000 non-white people who live in a suburb of Johannesburg are forced to leave their homes
- February 13 – Israel gets 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.
- February 23 – First meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
- March: Jim Henson builds the first version of Kermit the Frog
- March 2:
    - King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia gave up the throne in favor of his father, King Norodom Suramarit.
    - Much flooding in North and Western Australia – 200 humans and tens of thousands of sheep dead, 44.000 homeless
- March 15- Fedral ALP (Australian Labor Party) split (a)
- April 5 – Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom because of health problems.  He is 80 years old
- April 12 – Jonas Salk's polio vaccine is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration
- April 15 – Ray Kroc opens the first McDonald's in Illinois
- April 7 – Anthony Eden becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- July 18 – Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California
- October 14 – Pakistan changed the name of East Bengal province to East Pakistan. Before the independence of the colonial Bangladeshi people the people of this region were referred to as East Pakistanis under the One Unit Policy. Its capital was based in Dacca (now Dhaka). The western part of Pakistan becomes West Pakistan with its capital based in Lahore. The federal capital at the time was Rawalpindi.
- October 26 - Establishment of South Vietnam and the Army of South Vietnam.
- November 1 – The Vietnam War begins between the North Vietnam Army and the South Vietnam Army
- November 20 – Bo Diddley makes his TV debut on Ed Sullivan's _Toast Of The Town_ show on CBS
- December 1 – Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white person on a bus.  She is arrested.  This starts the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
- Unknown – The stack was proposed

## Births

- January 2 – Tex Brashear, American voice actor
- January 6 – Rowan Atkinson, comedian, actor
- January 12 - Elijah-Demetrius Kovács, Hungarian politician and judge
- January 12 – Rockne O'Bannon, writer, producer
- January 13 – Jay McInerney, writer
- January 15 - JoAnne Good, British radio presenter, television presenter, broadcast journalist and actress
- January 17 – Steve Earle, musician
- January 18 – Kevin Costner, actor
- January 19 – Simon Rattle, English conductor
- January 26 – Eddie Van Halen, musician (Van Halen) (d. 2020)
- January 27 – John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
- February 8 – John Grisham, novelist
- February 10 – Greg Norman, golfer
- February 19 – Jeff Daniels, actor
- February 21 – Kelsey Grammer, actor
- February 23 – Howard Jones, musician
- February 24 – Alain Prost, Formula One driver
- February 24 – Steve Jobs, computer pioneer (d. 2011)
- March 5 – Penn Jillette, magician, comedian
- March 7 – Tommy Kramer, American football player
- March 15 – Dee Snider, singer (Twisted Sister)
- March 16 – Jiro Watanabe, Japanese boxing world champion
- March 16 – Bruno Barreto, Brazilian movie director
- March 17 – Gary Sinise, actor
- March 19 – Bruce Willis, actor
- March 22 – Pete Sessions, U.S. politician
- March 23 – Moses Malone, basketball player
- March 28 – Reba McEntire, country music singer, actress
- March 29 – Earl Campbell, American football star
- March 31 – Angus Young, musician (AC/DC)
- April 1 – Ronnie Burk, surrealist and AIDS activist
- April 3 – Eddie Murphy, American actor and comedian
- April 6 – Michael Rooker, actor
- April 11 – Kevin Brady, American politician
- April 15 – Dodi Al-Fayed, Egyptian businessman (d. 1997)
- April 16 – Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg
- April 23 – Tony Miles, English chess player
- April 29 – Kate Mulgrew, actress
- April 29 - Richard Epcar, actor
- May 8 - Meles Zenawi, President of Ethiopia, and ex-Prime Minister of Ethiopia, (d. 2012)
- May 29 - Mike Porcaro, American bass guitarist (Toto) (d. 2015)
- August 3 – Corey Burton, American actor
- August 9 - Charlie Morgan, English drummer (Orleans)
- October 15 – Tanya Roberts, American actress
- October 28 – Bill Gates co-founder of Microsoft
- November 29- Howie Mandel, host of Deal or No Deal
- December 5- Dumitru Găleșanu, Romanian writer, poet-philosopher, illustrator and jurist.

## Deaths

- January 15 – Yves Tanguy, French painter (b. 1900)
- January 21 – Archie Hahn, American athlete (b. 1880)
- March 11 – Sir Alexander Fleming, British medical researcher (b. 1881)
- March 12 – Charlie Parker, American jazz saxophonist (b. 1920)
- April 7 – Theda Bara, American movie actress (b. 1885)
- April 18 – Albert Einstein, German physicist (b. 1879)
- May 4 – Georges Enescu, Romanian composer (b. 1881)
- May 10 – Tommy Burns, American boxer (b. 1881)
- May 11 – Gilbert Jessop, English cricketer (b. 1874)
- May 16 – James Agee, American writer (b. 1909)
- May 26 – Alberto Ascari, Italian race car driver (b. 1918)
- August 2 – Wallace Stevens, American poet (b. 1879)
- August 5 – Carmen Miranda, Portuguese singer and actress (b. 1909)
- August 12 – Thomas Mann, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1875)
- August 12 – James B. Sumner, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)
- September 30 – James Dean, American actor (b. 1931)
- October 1 – Charles Christie, American movie studio owner (b. 1880)
- October 9 – Theodor Cardinal Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna
- November 4 – Cy Young, baseball player (b. 1867)
- November 5 – Maurice Utrillo, French artist (b. 1882)
- November 12 – Alfréd Hajós, Hungarian swimmer (b. 1878)
- November 27 – Arthur Honegger, French-born Swiss composer (b. 1982)
- December 6 – Honus Wagner, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1874)

## Television

- October 1 – _The Honeymooners_ debuts on CBS with stars Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows, and Joyce Randolph

## Movies released

- _Alexander The Great_
- _Blackboard Jungle_
- _Marty_
- _All That Heaven Allows_
- _The Ladykillers (1955 movie)_
- _To Catch a Thief_
- _The Desperate Hours_
- _Godzilla Raids Again_
- Crashout

## Hit Songs

- _Maybellene_- Chuck Berry
- _Bo Diddley_/_I'm A Man_- Bo Diddley
- _Diddley Daddy_- Bo Diddley
- _Rock Around The Clock_- Bill Haley

## New Books

- _The Acceptance World_ – Anthony Powell
- _Andersonville_ – MacKinlay Kantor
- _Auntie Mame_ – Patrick Dennis
- _Bath Tangle_ – Georgette Heyer
- _Birdman of Alcatraz_ – Thomas E. Gaddis
- _Bonjour Tristesse_ – Françoise Sagan
- _The Chrysalids_ – John Wyndham
- _The Dragon in the Sea_ – Frank Herbert
- _The End of Eternity_ – Isaac Asimov
- _The Genius and the Goddess_ – Aldous Huxley
- _The Ginger Man_ – J. P. Donleavy
- _A Good Man is Hard to Find_ – Flannery O'Connor
- _Lolita_ – Vladimir Nabokov
- _The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne_ – Brian Moore
- _The Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King_ – J. R. R. Tolkien
- _The Magician's Nephew_ – C.S. Lewis
- _The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit_ – Sloan Wilson
- _Marjorie Morningstar_ – Herman Wouk
- _Moonraker_ – Ian Fleming
- _No Time for Sergeants_ – Mac Hyman
- _Not As a Stranger_ – Morton Thompson
- _Notes of a Native Son_ – James Baldwin
- _The October Country_ – Ray Bradbury
- _Pedro Paramo_ – Juan Rulfo
- _The Quiet American_ – Graham Greene
- _Satan in Goray_ – Isaac Bashevis Singer
- _Scuffy the Tugboat_ – Gertrude Crampton
- _Something of Value_ – Robert Ruark
- _That Uncertain Feeling_ – Kingsley Amis
- _The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor (Relato de un náufrago)_ – Gabriel García Márquez
- _The Talented Mr. Ripley_ – Patricia Highsmith
- _Ten North Frederick_ – John O'Hara
- _The Tontine_ – Thomas B. Costain
- _The Tree of Man_ – Patrick White
- _Tunnel in the Sky_ – Robert A. Heinlein