1957

Events from the year 1957 in the United States.
==Incumbents==
===Federal Government===
* President: Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-KS/NY then KS/PA)
* Vice President: Richard Nixon (R-CA)
* Chief Justice: Earl Warren (CA)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D–TX)
* Senate Majority Leader: Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX)
* Congress: 84th (until January 3), 85th (starting January 3)
==Events==
===January===
* January 2 – The San Francisco and Los Angeles stock exchanges merge to form the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.
* January 6 – Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the third and final time. He is only shown from the waist up, even during the gospel segment, singing "Peace In The Valley". Ed Sullivan describes Elvis thus: "This is a real decent, fine boy. We've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you. You're thoroughly alright."
* January 20 – Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon are inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States and Vice President of the United States respectively.
* January 22 – The New York City "Mad Bomber", George Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut, and charged with planting more than 30 bombs.
* January 23 – Ku Klux Klan members force truck driver Willie Edwards to jump off a bridge into the Alabama River; he drowns as a result.
* January 31 – Pacoima aircraft accident: Three students on a junior high school playground in Pacoima, California, are among the 8 persons killed following a mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet, in the skies above the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.
===February===
* February 4 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus (SSN-571), logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
* February 17 – The Warrenton Nursing Home fire in Missouri kills 72 people.
* February 25 – The "Boy In The Box" is discovered along a sidewalk in Philadelphia. The murder victim is described as Caucasian in appearance and 4 to 6 years old; the case was never solved.
===March===
* March 4 – Standard & Poor's first publishes the S&P 500 Index in the United States.
* March 7 – The United States Congress approves the Eisenhower Doctrine on assistance to Communist-threatened foreign regimes.
* March 10 – Floodgates of The Dalles Dam are closed, inundating Celilo Falls and ancient Native American fisheries along the Columbia River in Oregon.
* March 13 – The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests Jimmy Hoffa and charges him with bribery.
* March 22 – The 5.7 Mw San Francisco earthquake shook the Bay Area in California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong), causing $1 million in losses, one death and forty injuries.
* March 25 – Copies of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems (first published November 1, 1956), printed in the UK, are seized by United States Customs Service officials in San Francisco, on the grounds of obscenity. On October 3, in People v. Ferlinghetti, a subsequent prosecution of publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the work is ruled not to be obscene.
* March 26 – 22-year-old Elvis Presley buys Graceland on 3734 Bellevue Boulevard (Highway 51 South) for $100,000. He and his family move from the house on 1034 Audubon Drive.
* March 27 – The 29th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Jerry Lewis and Celeste Holm, is held at RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The ceremony started a trend toward blockbusters and colorful spectaculars, with Michael Anderson's Around the World in 80 Days winning Best Motion Picture chief among them. The film is tied with Walter Lang's The King and I for the most awards with five, while George Stevens' Giant receives the most nominations with ten, including Stevens' second Best Director win.
* March 31 – Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, the team's only musical written especially for television, is telecast live and in color by CBS, starring Julie Andrews in the title role. The production is seen by millions, but this 1957 version is not telecast again for more than 40 years, when a kinescope of it is shown.
===April===
* April 12 – Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl, printed in the United Kingdom, is seized by U.S. customs officials on the grounds of obscenity.
===May===
* May 2
** Iron Liege, at 8–1, wins the Kentucky Derby in one of the most eventful Derbys ever.
** Vincent Gigante fails to assassinate mafioso Frank Costello in Manhattan.
* May 3 – Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, to Los Angeles.
* May 16 – Walt Whitman Bridge opens between Philadelphia and New Jersey.
===June===
* June 1 – Three-year-old thoroughbred Gallant Man wins the Peter Pan Stakes, at Belmont Park.
* June 15 – Oklahoma celebrates its semi-centennial statehood. A brand new 1957 Plymouth Belvedere is buried in a time capsule (to be opened 50 years later on June 15, 2007).
* June 20 – 1957 Fargo Tornado starts at 7:30 pm.
* June 23 – Royal Ice Cream sit-in
* June 25 – The United Church of Christ is formed in Cleveland, Ohio, by the merger of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
* June 27 – Hurricane Audrey demolishes Cameron, Louisiana, killing 400 people.
===July===
* July 9 – Elvis Presley's Loving You opens in movie theaters.
* July 16 – United States Marine Major John Glenn flies an F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds, setting a new transcontinental speed record.
===August===
* August 5 – American Bandstand, a local dance show produced by WFIL-TV in Philadelphia, joins the ABC Television Network.
* August 21 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces a 2-year suspension of nuclear testing.
* August 28 – United States Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) sets the record for the longest filibuster with his 24-hour, 18-minute speech railing against a civil rights bill.
===September===
* September 4
** American Civil Rights Movement – Governor Orville Faubus of Arkansas calls out the National Guard of the United States to prevent the "Little Rock Nine" African American students from enrolling in Little Rock Central High School.
** The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel on what the company proclaims as "E Day".
* September 5 – Viking Press publishes On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
* September 9
** Civil Rights Act of 1957 enacted, setting up the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
** Catholic Memorial High School opens its doors for the first time in Boston, Massachusetts.
* September 23 – The Academy Award-winning movie The Three Faces of Eve is released.
* September 24 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops to Arkansas to provide safe passage into Little Rock Central High School for the Little Rock Nine.
* September 26 – West Side Story, a new musical by Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim opens at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway.
===October===
* October 4 – The sitcom Leave It to Beaver premieres on CBS.
* October 9 – Neil H. McElroy is sworn in as United States Secretary of Defense.
* October 10
** U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after he is refused service in a restaurant in Dover, Delaware.
** Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged is published.
** The Milwaukee Braves defeat the New York Yankees, 4 games to 3, to win their 2nd World Series Title.
* October 11 – The orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket (carrying Sputnik I) is first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer during Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
* October 21 – The U.S. military sustains its first combat fatality in Vietnam, Army Capt. Hank Cramer of the 1st Special Forces Group.
* October 25 – Mafia boss Albert Anastasia is assassinated in a barber shop, at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City.
* October 31 – Toyota begins exporting vehicles to the U.S., beginning with the Toyota Crown and the Toyota Land Cruiser
===November===
* November 1
** The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at the time, opens to traffic connecting Michigan's two peninsulas.
** The first (westbound) tube of the Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel, linking Norfolk and Hampton, Virginia, opens at a cost of $44 million.
* November 6 – Jailhouse Rock opens nationally and Elvis Presley continues to gain more notoriety.
* November 7 – Cold War: In the United States, the Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters.
* November 8 – The film Jailhouse Rock opens across the U.S. to reach #3, and Elvis Presley continues to gain more notoriety.
* November 14 – Apalachin Meeting: American Mafia leaders meet in Apalachin, New York, at the house of Joseph Barbara; the meeting is broken up by a curious patrolman.
* November 16
** Edward Gein murders his last victim, Bernice Worden of Plainfield, Wisconsin.
** Oklahoma celebrates its 50th anniversary of statehood.
** Notre Dame beats the Oklahoma Sooners 7–0 to end the Sooners record 47 straight college football winning streak.
* November 25 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffers a stroke.
===December===
* December 2 – Shippingport Atomic Power Station goes onstream; commercial operation begins on May 26, 1958.
* December 6 – Vanguard TV3, the first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite, fails with the rocket blowing up on the launch pad.
* December 18 – The Bridge on the River Kwai is released in the U.S. It goes on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Additional Oscars go to Alec Guinness (Best Actor) and David Lean (Best Director), among others. This is Lean's first Oscar for directing.
* December 19 – Meredith Willson's classic musical The Music Man, starring Robert Preston, is premièred on Broadway.
* December 20 – The Boeing 707 airliner flies for the first time.
* December 22 – The CBS afternoon anthology series The Seven Lively Arts presents Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker on U.S. television for the first time.
==Memoriam==
* January 1 – James W. Ford, activist and politician (aged 64; NY, USA)
* January 14 – Humphrey Bogart, film actor (aged 57; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* January 16 – Arturo Toscanini, Italian-born orchestral conductor (aged 89; New York City, NY, USA)
* January 26 – Enoch J. Rector, cinema technician, inventor, and film director (aged 93; New York City, NY, USA)
* February 2 – Marian Cruger Coffin, landscape architect (aged 80; New Haven, CT, USA)
* February 10 – Laura Ingalls Wilder, author (aged 90; Mansfield, MO, USA)
* February 16 – William M. Acton, lawyer and politician (aged 80; Danville, IL, USA)
* February 25
** Bugs Moran, gangster (aged 63; Leavenworth, KS, USA)
** B. P. Schulberg, film producer (aged 65; Key Biscayne, FL, USA)
* March 11 – Richard E. Byrd, explorer (aged 68; Boston, MA, USA)
* March 29 – Laura Bowman, actress and singer (aged 75; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* May 2 – Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator from 1947 to 1957 (aged 48; Bethesda, MA, USA)
* May 10 – Annie Turnbo Malone, African American millionaire businesswoman, inventor and philanthropist (aged 79; Chicago, IL, USA)
* May 13 – Robert Alfred Theobald, admiral (aged 69; Boston, MA, USA)
* May 16 – Eliot Ness, Prohibition agent (aged 54; Coudersport, PA, USA)
* June 1 – Russell Hicks, actor (aged 61; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* June 4 – Mary Hay, actress and dancer (aged 55; Inverness, CA, USA)
* June 12 – Jimmy Dorsey, big band leader (aged 53; New York City, NY, USA)
* June 13 – Bruno Albert Forsterer, Marine Sergeant, Medal of Honor recipient (aged 87; Oakland, CA, USA)
* July 8 – Grace Coolidge, First Lady of the United States, Second Lady of the United States, as wife of Calvin Coolidge (aged 78; Northampton, MA, USA)
* July 10 – Julia Boynton Green, poet (aged 96; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* July 15 – James M. Cox, 46th and 48th Governor of Ohio (aged 87; Kettering, OH, USA)
* July 24 – Frank Fenton, actor (aged 51; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* August 7 – Oliver Hardy, comic film actor (aged 65; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* September 2 – Bobby Myers, race car driver (killed in racetrack accident) (aged 30; Darlington, SC, USA)
* September 21
** Margaret Ashmore Sudduth, educator, editor and temperance advocate (aged 98; Los Angeles County, CA, USA)
** Henry E. Warren, inventor (aged 85; Ashland, MA, USA)
* October 13 – Erich Auerbach, German philologist, literary critic and comparative scholar (aged 64; Wallingford, CT, USA)
* October 25 – Albert Anastasia, Italian American gangster (aged 55; New York City, NY, USA)
* October 29 – Louis B. Mayer, Belarusian-born film studio head (aged 73; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* November 1 – Charlie Caldwell, sports player and coach (aged 56; Princeton, NJ, USA)
* November 21 – Francis Burton Harrison, statesman (aged 83; Flemington, NJ, USA)
* November 29 – Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Austrian-born composer (aged 60; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* December 3 – Frank Gannett, publisher (aged 81; Rochester, NY, USA)
* December 10 – Maurice McLoughlin, tennis player (aged 67; Hermosa Beach, CA, USA)
* December 24 – Norma Talmadge, silent film actress (aged 63; Las Vegas, NV, USA)
==External links==
* 1957 in the United States
Category:United States History: Volume 18