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Top Song(s)
• Doris Day - Secret Love
• The Chordettes Mister Sandman
• The Crew-Cuts - Sh-Boom (Life Could Be a Dream)
• Kitty Kallen - Little Things Mean a Lot
• Rosemary Clooney - Hey There
Top Film(s)
• Rear Window
• Seven Samurai
• On the Waterfront
• Dial M for Murder
• Sansho the Bailiff
Best Selling Book(s)
• The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien
• Lord of the Flies - William Golding
• The Horse and His Boy - C.S. Lewis
• Katherine - Anya Seton
• Live and Let Die - Ian Fleming
Famous Deaths
• February 19 – Axel Pehrsson-Bramstorp, 24th Prime Minister of Sweden
• March 12 – Marianne Weber, German sociologist and suffragist
• April 3 – Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese diplomat and humanitarian
• May 26 – Omer Nishani, Albanian medical doctor and political figure
• June 7 – Alan Turing, British mathematician, cryptanalyst, and pioneer computer scientist
• July 14 – Jacinto Benavente, Spanish dramatist, Nobel Prize laureate
• August 14 – Hugo Eckener, German president of the Zeppelin Dirigible Company
• September 21 – Kokichi Mikimoto, Japanese pearl farm pioneer
• October 22 – Jibanananda Das, Indian poet, writer, novelist and essayist in Bengali
• November 20 – Clyde Cessna, American aviator and aircraft designer and manufacturer
Medical/Science/Technology
• Last confirmed specimen of a Caspian tiger is killed, in the valley of the Sumbar River.
• Heinz Sielmann makes the pioneering nature documentary about woodpeckers.
• Eduard Paul Tratz and Heinz Heck propose the species name bonobo the pygmy chimpanzee.
• The first organ transplants are done in Boston and Paris.
• Strychnine total synthesis is first achieved in the laboratory by Robert Burns Woodward's team at Harvard.
• The TRADIC Phase One computer is completed at Bell Labs in the United States.
• The first specimens of the mineral benstonite are collected by Orlando J. Benston.
• The first mass vaccination of children against polio begins, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• Joseph Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston carries out the first successful kidney transplant.
• The first of the anti-psychotic phenothiazine drugs, Chlorpromazine, starts being sold under the trade names Thorazine.
Political
• February 10 – U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.
• March 1 - U.S. officials announce that a hydrogen bomb test has been conducted on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
• March 16 – The Army–McCarthy hearings are convened.
• April 1 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
• April 7 – Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference.
• April 22 – Senator Joseph McCarthy begins hearings investigating the United States Army for being "soft" on Communism.
• April 28 – U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles accuses Communist China of sending combat troops to Indo-China.
• June 14 – The words "under God" are added to the United States Pledge of Allegiance.
• November 10 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.
• December 2 - Red Scare: The U.S. Senate votes 67–22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct violations.
National
• January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system.
• January 20 - The U.S.-based National Negro Network is established with 40 charter member radio stations.
• January 21 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut.
• February 23 – The first mass vaccination of children against polio begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• March 28 – Puerto Rico's first television station, WKAQ-TV, goes on the air.
• May 14 – The Boeing 707 is released after about two years of development.
• May 16 – National Educational Television is launched on cable TV. It will become PBS on October 5, 1970.
• August 16 – The first issue of Sports Illustrated magazine is published.
• September 11 – The Miss America Pageant is broadcast on television for the first time.
• October 18 – Texas Instruments announces the development of the first transistor radio.
Worldwide
• February 25 – Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes premier of Egypt.
• March 12 – Finland and Germany officially end their state of war.
• March 25 - The Soviet Union recognizes the sovereignty of East Germany. Soviet troops remain in the country.
• March 30 – The first operational subway line in Canada opens in Toronto.
• April 1 - South Point School in India is founded, and becomes the largest school in the world by 1992.
• April 22 - The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees comes into force.
• May 1 – The Unification Church is founded in South Korea.
• June 27 - The world's first atomic power station opens at Obninsk, near Moscow.
• September 6 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) treaty is signed in Manila, Philippines.
• November 3 – The first Godzilla film premieres in Tokyo.