1956

**1956** (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday in the Gregorian calendar.

## Events

- The Summer Olympics were held in Melbourne, Australia.
- The Winter Olympics were held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. This was the first Olympic Games in which the USSR competed.
- February 11 – British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean appear in the Soviet Union after being missing for 5 years
- March 2 – Morocco declares its independence from France
- April 19 – American actress Grace Kelly marries Rainier III, Prince of Monaco
- May 2 – The United Methodist Church in America grants women full ordained clergy status
- June 5 – Elvis Presley performs "Hound Dog", on _The Milton Berle Show_. His dancing causes a scandal.
- July 25 – The Italian ocean liner SS _Andrea Doria_ sinks after colliding with the Swedish ship SS _Stockholm_, killing 51
- August 17 – West Germany bans the Communist Party of Germany
- September 16 – Television broadcasting begins in Australia
- October 26 – Red Army troops invade Hungary
- October 29 – November 7 – Suez Crisis: France, Israel and the United Kingdom in war with Egypt.
- November 30 – Floyd Patterson wins the world heavyweight boxing championship
- December 5 – Rose Heilbron becomes Britain's first female judge

## Births

- January 3 – Mel Gibson, American-Australian actor
- January 28 – Dario Chioli, Italian poet
- February 6 - Jerry Marotta, American drummer (Orleans)
- February 16 – Peter Hook, English bass guitarist
- February 26 – Emanuel Radovan, Romanian politician of Albanian nationality.
- February 27 – Csaba Vrabie, Romanian politician of Hungarian nationality from UDMR.
- February 27 – Angela Aames, American actress (d. 1988)
- February 29 – Aileen Wuornos, American serial killer (d. 2002)
- March 12  Michael Catain, American businessman and convicted criminal
- March 24 – Steve Ballmer, American business person, CEO of Microsoft
- April 5 – Dwight Hicks, American NFL player
- April 12 – Andy García, American actor
- April 19 - Lane Hoppen, American singer-songwriter and musician (Orleans)
- May 7 – Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime minister of the Netherlands
- May 17 – Bob Saget, American actor and comedian
- June 2 – Mani Ratnam, Indian movie director
- June 4 – Martin Adams, English darts player
- June 11 – Joe Montana, American NFL player
- June 11 – Ray Nagin, American politician, mayor of New Orleans
- July 9 – Tom Hanks, American actor
- July 13 – Michael Spinks, American boxer
- July 15 – Joe Satriani, Italian-American guitar virtuoso
- August 4 – Margaret Whitman, American business person, CEO of Ebay
- August 26 – Sally Beamish, English composer
- August 28 - Adrian Schervan Romanian water polo player
- August 31 – Masashi Tashiro, Japanese television performer
- August 31 - Mark Mangini, American sound editor
- September 14 – Maxime Verhagen, Dutch politician
- September 17 – Andreas Starke, German politician, Lord Mayor of Bamberg
- September 27 – Milan Smrčka, Czech musician
- October 1 — Theresa May, British Prime Minister
- October 2 – Mike Scully, American television writer
- October 28 – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 6th President of Iran
- November 11 – Ian Craig Marsh, English musician
- December 4 - Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, 9th President of Mauritania
- December 6 - Peter Buck, American guitarist (R.E.M.)
- December 8 - Warren Cuccurullo, American guitarist (Duran Duran)
- December 9 - Jean-Pierre Thiollet, French author
- Glen Hill (actor), actor
- Hugh Cook, English-born New Zealand writer
- Hans Enoksen, Prime minister of Greenland

## Deaths

- January 18 – Konstantin Päts, 1st President of Estonia (b. 1874)
- January 27 – Erich Kleiber, German conductor (b. 1890)
- February 10 – Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, British marshal of the Royal Air Force (b. 1873)
- February 29 – Elpidio Quirino, 6th President of the Philippines (b. 1890)
- March 8 – Drastamat Kanayan, Armenian military leader and politician (b. 1884))
- March 17 – Irène Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1897)
- April 13 – Emil Nolde, German-Danish painter (b. 1867)
- May 18 – Maurice Tate, English cricketer (b. 1895)
- June 22 – Walter de la Mare, English poet, short story writer, and novelist (b. 1873)
- June 26 – Clifford Brown, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1930)
- July 11 – John T. Raulston, Scopes Monkey Trial judge (b. 1868)
- August 11- Jackson Pollack, American painter
- August 14 – Bertolt Brecht, German playwright (b. 1898)
- August 25 – Alfred Kinsey, American sex researcher (b. 1894)
- September 22 – Frederick Soddy, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1877)
- October 25 – Risto Ryti, 5th President of Finland (b. 1889)
- October 30 – Pio Baroja, Spanish writer (b. 1872)
- November 22 – Theodore Kosloff, Russian-born ballet dancer, choreographer and actor (b. 1882)
- December 14 – Juho Kusti Paasikivi, 7th President of Finland (b. 1870)
- December 16 – Nina Hamnett, Welsh artist (b. 1890)

## Nobel Prizes

- Nobel Prize in Physics won by William Shockley, John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain for inventing the point-contact transistor
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry won by Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, English physical chemist, and Nikolay Semyonov, Russian/Soviet physicist and chemist
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine won by André Frédéric Cournand, Werner Forssmann, and Dickinson W. Richards for the development of cardiac catheterization
- Nobel Prize in Literature won by Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish poet
- Nobel Peace Prize – Not Awarded

## Movies released

- _Around the World in 80 Days_ winning the Academy Award for Best Picture
- _Bus Stop_ starring Marilyn Monroe and Don Murray
- _Giant_ starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean
- _Hollywood or Bust_ the final Martin and Lewis movie
- _The King and I_ winning Best Actor for Yul Brynner
- _The Searchers_ starring John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter
- _The Ten Commandments_ starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner
- _War and Peace_ starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda

## New books

- Agatha Christie – _Dead Man's Folly_
- Arthur C. Clarke – _The City and the Stars_
- Ian Fleming – _Diamonds Are Forever_
- Fred Gipson – _Old Yeller_
- Alf Prøysen – _Little Old Mrs Pepperpot_