1955 in the United States
Events from the year 1955 in the United States.
Incumbents
Governors and lieutenant governors
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Governors
- Governor of Alabama: Gordon Persons (Democratic) (until January 17), Jim Folsom (Democratic) (starting January 17)
- Governor of Arizona: John Howard Pyle (Republican) (until January 3), Ernest McFarland (Democratic) (starting January 3)
- Governor of Arkansas: Francis Cherry (Democratic) (until January 11), Orval Faubus (Democratic) (starting January 11)
- Governor of California: Goodwin Knight (Republican)
- Governor of Colorado: Daniel I.J. Thornton (Republican) (until January 11), Edwin C. Johnson (Democratic) (starting January 11)
- Governor of Connecticut: John Davis Lodge (Republican) (until January 5), Abraham A. Ribicoff (Democratic) (starting January 5)
- Governor of Delaware: J. Caleb Boggs (Republican)
- Governor of Florida: Charley Eugene Johns (Democratic) (until January 4), LeRoy Collins (Democratic) (starting January 4)
- Governor of Georgia: Herman Talmadge (Democratic) (until January 11), Marvin Griffin (Democratic) (starting January 11)
- Governor of Idaho: Leonard B. Jordan (Republican) (until January 3), Robert E. Smylie (Republican) (starting January 3)
- Governor of Illinois: William G. Stratton (Republican)
- Governor of Indiana: George N. Craig (Republican)
- Governor of Iowa: Leo Elthon (Republican) (until January 13), Leo A. Hoegh (Republican) (starting January 13)
- Governor of Kansas: Edward F. Arn (Republican) (until January 10), Fred Hall (Republican) (starting January 10)
- Governor of Kentucky: Lawrence W. Wetherby (Democratic) (until December 13), Happy Chandler (Democratic) (starting December 13)
- Governor of Louisiana: Robert F. Kennon (Democratic)
- Governor of Maine: Burton M. Cross (Republican) (until January 5), Edmund Muskie (Democratic) (starting January 5)
- Governor of Maryland: Theodore R. McKeldin (Republican)
- Governor of Massachusetts: Christian A. Herter (Republican)
- Governor of Michigan: G. Mennen Williams (Democratic)
- Governor of Minnesota: C. Elmer Anderson (Republican) (until January 5), Orville L. Freeman (Democratic) (starting January 5)
- Governor of Mississippi: Hugh L. White (Democratic)
- Governor of Missouri: Phil M. Donnelly (Democratic)
- Governor of Montana: J. Hugo Aronson (Republican)
- Governor of Nebraska: Robert B. Crosby (Republican) (until January 6), Victor E. Anderson (Republican) (starting January 6)
- Governor of Nevada: Charles H. Russell (Republican)
- Governor of New Hampshire: Hugh Gregg (Republican) (until January 6), Lane Dwinell (Republican) (starting January 6)
- Governor of New Jersey: Robert B. Meyner (Democratic)
- Governor of New Mexico: Edwin L. Mechem (Republican) (until January 1), John F. Simms (Democratic) (starting January 1)
- Governor of New York: W. Averell Harriman (Democratic) (starting January 1)
- Governor of North Carolina: Luther H. Hodges (Democratic)
- Governor of North Dakota: Clarence Norman Brunsdale (Republican)
- Governor of Ohio: Frank J. Lausche (Democratic)
- Governor of Oklahoma: Johnston Murray (Democratic) (until January 10), Raymond D. Gary (Democratic) (starting January 10)
- Governor of Oregon: Paul L. Patterson (Republican)
- Governor of Pennsylvania: John S. Fine (Republican) (until January 18), George M. Leader (Democratic) (starting January 18)
- Governor of Rhode Island: Dennis J. Roberts (Democratic)
- Governor of South Carolina: James Francis Byrnes (Democratic) (until January 18), George Bell Timmerman Jr. (Democratic) (starting January 18)
- Governor of South Dakota: Sigurd Anderson (Republican) (until January 4), Joe Foss (Republican) (starting January 4)
- Governor of Tennessee: Frank G. Clement (Democratic)
- Governor of Texas: Allan Shivers (Democratic)
- Governor of Utah: J. Bracken Lee (Republican)
- Governor of Vermont: Lee E. Emerson (Republican) (until January 6), Joseph B. Johnson (Republican) (starting January 6)
- Governor of Virginia: Thomas Bahnson Stanley (Democratic)
- Governor of Washington: Arthur B. Langlie (Republican)
- Governor of West Virginia: William C. Marland (Democratic)
- Governor of Wisconsin: Walter J. Kohler Jr. (Republican)
- Governor of Wyoming: Clifford Joy Rogers (Republican) (until January 3), Milward L. Simpson (Republican) (until January 3)
Lieutenant governors
- Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: James B. Allen (Democratic) (until January 17), William G. Hardwick (Democratic) (starting January 17)
- Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas: Nathan Green Gordon (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of California: Harold J. Powers (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Colorado: Gordon L. Allott (Republican) (until January 11), Stephen L. R. McNichols (Democratic) (starting January 11)
- Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Edward N. Allen (Republican) (until January 5), Charles W. Jewett (Democratic) (starting January 5)
- Lieutenant Governor of Delaware: John W. Rollins (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Georgia: Marvin Griffin (Democratic) (until January 11), S. Ernest Vandiver (Democratic) (starting January 11)
- Lieutenant Governor of Idaho: Edson H. Deal (Republican) (until January 3), J. Berkeley Larsen (Republican) (starting January 3)
- Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: John William Chapman (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: Harold W. Handley (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: Leo Elthon (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Fred Hall (Republican) (until January 10), John McCuish (Republican) (starting January 10)
- Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Emerson Beauchamp (Democratic) (until December 13), Harry Lee Waterfield (Democratic) (starting December 13)
- Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: C. E. "Cap" Barham (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Sumner G. Whittier (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Clarence A. Reid (Republican) (until January 1), Philip A. Hart (Democratic) (starting January 1)
- Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: Donald O. Wright (Republican) (until month and day unknown), Karl Rolvaag (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
- Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi: Carroll Gartin (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: James T. Blair Jr. (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Montana: George M. Gosman (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska: Charles J. Warner (Republican) (until September 24), vacant (starting September 24)
- Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: vacant (until month and day unknown), Rex Bell (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
- Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico: Tibo J. Chavez (Democratic) (until January 1), Joseph Montoya (Democratic) (starting January 1)
- Lieutenant Governor of New York: vacant (until January 1), George DeLuca (Democratic) (starting January 1)
- Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: vacant
- Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: Clarence P. Dahl (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: John William Brown (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma: James E. Berry (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Cowboy Pink Williams (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown)
- Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: Lloyd H. Wood (Republican) (until January 18), Roy E. Furman (Democratic) (starting January 18)
- Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: John S. McKiernan (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: George Bell Timmerman Jr. (Democratic) (until January 18), Ernest Hollings (Democratic) (starting January 18)
- Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota: Rex A. Terry (Republican) (until January 4), L. Roy Houck (Republican) (starting January 4)
- Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: Jared Maddux (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Ben Ramsey (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Joseph B. Johnson (Republican) (until January 6), Consuelo N. Bailey (Republican) (starting January 6)
- Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Allie Edward Stokes Stephens (Democratic)
- Lieutenant Governor of Washington: Emmett T. Anderson (Republican)
- Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: George M. Smith (Republican) (until January 3), Warren P. Knowles (Republican) (starting January 3)
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Events
1955: An African American family with their new Oldsmobile in Washington, D.C.
January
February
March
- March 9 – Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old African-American girl, refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white woman after the driver demands it. She is carried off the bus backwards whilst being kicked and handcuffed and harassed on the way to the police station. She becomes a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle (1956), which rules bus segregation to be unconstitutional.
- March 5 – WBBJ signs on the air in the Jackson, Tennessee as WDXI, to expanded U.S. commercial television in rural areas.
- March 7 – The 1954 Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC (also the first time that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV exactly as performed on stage). The program gains the largest viewership of a TV special up to this time and becomes one of the first great television classics.
- March 12 – African-American jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker dies in New York City at age 34.
- March 19 – KXTV of Stockton, California signs on the air as the 100th commercial television station in the U.S.
- March 20 – The film adaptation of Evan Hunter's Blackboard Jungle premieres, featuring the famous single "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets. Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the song. On July 9 it becomes the first Rock and roll single to reach Number One on the U.S. charts.
- March 26 – Bill Hayes tops the U.S. charts for five weeks with "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" and starts a (fake) coonskin cap craze.
- March 28 – The important income tax case of Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co. is decided in the Supreme Court.
- March 30 – The 27th Academy Awards ceremony is simultaneously held at RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood (hosted by Bob Hope) and at NBC Century Theatre in New York (hosted by Thelma Ritter). Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront wins and receives the most respective awards and nominations with eight and 12, including Best Motion Picture and Kazan's second Best Director win.
April
April 15:
McDonald's
May
June
July
July 17:
Disneyland opens
- July 17
- July 18 – Illinois Governor William Stratton signs the Loyalty Oath Act, that mandates all public employees take a loyalty oath to the State of Illinois and the U.S. or lose their jobs.
- July 18–23 – Geneva Summit between the U.S., Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France.
August
- August 1 – The prototype Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft first flies, in Nevada.
- August 4 – American Airlines Flight 476, a Convair CV-240-0 attempting an emergency landing at Forney Army Airfield, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri following an engine fire, crashes just short of the runway; all 27 passengers and three crew members are killed.
- August 19 – Hurricane Diane hits the northeast, killing 200 and causing over $1 billion in damage.
- August 22 – Eleven schoolchildren are killed when their school bus is hit by a freight train in Spring City, Tennessee.
- August 28 – Black 14-year-old Emmett Till is lynched and shot in the head for allegedly grabbing and threatening a white woman in Money, Mississippi; his white murderers, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, are acquitted by an all-white jury.
September
October
November
December
December 1:
Rosa Parks, with
Martin Luther King Jr. in 1955
December 14:
Tappan Zee Bridge
Unknown date
Ongoing
Births
Steve Jobs and
Bill Gates
January–June
- January 1 – LaMarr Hoyt, baseball player (d. 2021)
- January 2 – Bonnie Arnold, film producer
- January 3
- January 4
- January 9
- January 11 – Max Lucado, writer on Christian themes
- January 12 – Rockne S. O'Bannon, writer and producer
- January 13 – Jay McInerney, novelist
- January 18 – Kevin Costner, film actor, producer and director
- January 21 – Jeff Koons, "kitsch" artist
- January 22 – Neil Bush, businessman and investor
- January 23 – Ruth Haring, chess player (d. 2018)
- January 24 – Lynda Weinman, author
- January 26 – Eddie Van Halen, guitarist and innovator (d. 2020)
- January 27 – John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the U.S. from 2005
- January 28 – Joe Beckwith, baseball player (d. 2021)
- January 29 – Eddie Jordan, basketball player and coach and politician
- January 30
- February 5 – Michael Pollan, author and journalist
- February 8
- February 10
- February 12 – Bill Laswell, bass player and producer
- February 15
- February 18
- February 21 – Kelsey Grammer, TV actor
- February 21 – Kevin Carl Scholz, architect, entrepreneur, professor, artist and business owner
- February 23
- February 24 – Steve Jobs, entrepreneur and inventor (d. 2011)
- February 28 – Gilbert Gottfried, actor and stand-up comedian (d. 2022)
- March 2 – Ken Salazar, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 2005 to 2009
- March 5 – Penn Jillette, magician
- March 17 – Gary Sinise, film & TV actor
- March 19 – Bruce Willis, actor
- March 22 – Pete Sessions, politician
- March 30
- April 1 –
- April 6 – Michael Rooker, actor
- April 7
- April 8
- April 16 – Bruce Bochy, French-born American baseball player and manager
- April 26 – Mike Scott, baseball player
- April 29 – Kate Mulgrew, TV actress
- April 30 – Fred Hiatt, journalist and editor (d. 2021)
- May 2 – Ed Murray, Democratic politician and former mayor of Seattle
- May 6 – Tom Bergeron, TV game show host
- May 7 – Ben Poquette, basketball player
- May 9 – Kevin Reed, theologian and author
- May 10 – Mark David Chapman, murderer
- May 16
- May 17
- May 18 – Brad Raffensperger, politician
- May 26 – Wesley Walker, American football player and educator
- May 29 – John Hinckley Jr., attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan
- May 31
- June 1 – Tony Snow, journalist (d. 2008)
- June 7 – Joey Scarbury, singer-songwriter
- June 14 – Michael D. Duvall, businessman and politician
- June 16 – Laurie Metcalf, TV actress
- June 25 – Patricia Smith, African-American poet, "spoken-word performer", playwright, author and writing teacher
July–December
- July 1 – Lisa Scottoline, writer of legal thrillers
- July 9 – Lindsey Graham, U.S. Senator from South Carolina from 2003
- July 18 – Nancy Garrido, kidnapper
- July 21 – Howie Epstein, bass player, songwriter and producer (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) (d. 2003)
- July 22 – Willem Dafoe, actor
- July 24 – F. Blair Wimbush, retired American railroad executive and lawyer
- August 2
- August 4
- August 13 – Daryl, magician (d. 2017)
- August 24 – Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas
- August 29 – Jack Lew, 76th United States Secretary of the Treasury
- August 30 – Marvin Powell, American football player (d. 2017)
- August 31 – Edwin Moses, track & field athlete
- September 1 – Billy Blanks, martial artist and inventor of Tae Bo exercise program
- September 8 – Terry Tempest Williams, writer, educator and activist
- September 17 – Charles Martinet, actor and voice actor
- September 19
- September 29
- October 15 – Emily Yoffe, journalist and advice columnist
- October 17 – Tyrone Mitchell, murderer (suicide 1984)
- October 20
- October 21 – Tommy Boggs, baseball player (d. 2022)
- October 26 – Michelle Boisseau, poet (d. 2017)
- October 28
- October 30 – Heidi Heitkamp, U.S. Senator from North Dakota from 2013 to 2019
- November 4 – David Julius, physiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- November 5 – Kris Jenner, television personality
- November 6 – Paul Romer, economist, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
- November 13 – Whoopi Goldberg, African-American comic actress
- November 23
- November 27 – Bill Nye, science communicator, television presenter and mechanical engineer
- November 29 – Robert Jeffress, pastor
- November 30
- December 11
- December 16 – Carol Browner, lawyer, environmentalist and businesswoman
- December 19 – Rob Portman, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 2011
- December 21 – Jane Kaczmarek, television actress
- December 26 – Evan Bayh, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1999 to 2011
- December 27 – Barbara Olson, lawyer and TV commentator (d. 2001)
Unknown dates
Deaths
January
Ira Hayes
February
March
Charlie Parker
April
Albert Einstein
May
June
Walter Hampden
July
August
Wallace Stevens
Carmen Miranda
September
James Dean
October
November
Shemp Howard
December
Honus Wagner
See also
References
- ^ 348 U.S. 426 (1955).
- ^ a b c "1955". Houghton Mifflin Guide to Science & Technology.
- ^ "School Bus, Train Wreck Memorial Set For Aug. 21". Chattanoogan.com. 2004-08-18. Archived from the original on 2011-05-22. Retrieved 2010-10-13.
- ^ Editors of Chase's (30 September 2018). Chase's Calendar of Events 2019: The Ultimate Go-to Guide for Special Days, Weeks and Months. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-64143-264-1.
- ^ Hashish, Amira (March 1, 2011). "Introducing the new Janice Dickinson – what America's top model did". London Evening Standard. Archived from the original on May 31, 2016. Yes, I turned 56 on February 16.
- ^ MLS mourns the passing of legendary coach Tim Hankinson
- ^ See, Lisa. "VIAF record". Virtual International Authority File. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
- ^ "Scholz". Kevin Scholz. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
- ^
- ^ Maryland Biographical Dictionary. Native Amer Books. 1999. p. 317. ISBN 9780403098231.
- ^ Remembering trailblazing economist William Spriggs
- ^
- ^ The Washington Post's longtime editorial page editor dies at 66
- ^ Progressive champion Dean Corren dies at 67
- ^ Who's Who Among African Americans, January 1, 2009, Retrieved May 23, 2012.
- ^ Rebecca Blank, former University of Wisconsin chancellor and Northwestern economics professor, dies at 67
- ^ Concordia University Texas Head Baseball Coach Tommy Boggs Passes Away
- ^ "Michelle Boisseau". Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
- ^ Evans, Greg (11 November 2022). "Kevin Conroy Dies: Longtime Voice Of Animated Batman Was 66". Deadline. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
- ^ "Olympedia – Georgina Jones". www.olympedia.org. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
External links