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Top Song(s)
• Fats Domino - Blueberry Hill
• Elvis Presley - Don't Be Cruel
• Dean Martin - Memories Are Made of This
• The Platters - The Great Pretender
• Gene Vincent - Be Bop a Lula
Top Film(s)
• The Searchers
• The Killing
• A Man Escaped
• Night and Fog
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Best Selling Book(s)
• The Last Battle - C.S. Lewis
• Long Day’s Journey into Night - Eugene O'Neill
• My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell
• Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin
• Dead Man's Folly - Agatha Christie
Famous Deaths
• January 31 – A. A. Milne, English author (Winnie The Pooh)
• February 29 – Elpidio Quirino, 6th president of the Philippines
• March 22 - Eduardo Lonardi, 30th president of Argentina
• April 30 – Alben W. Barkley, 35th Vice President of the United States
• May 30 – George Murray Levick, British Antarctic explorer and naval surgeon
• June 6 - Hiram Bingham III, American explorer, discoverer of Machu Picchu
• September 11 - Billy Bishop, Canadian World War I flying ace
• October 6 – Charles E. Merrill, American banker, co-founder of Merrill Lynch
• November 1 - Pietro Badoglio, Italian field marshal and 28th prime minister of Italy
• December 14 – Juho Kusti Paasikivi, twice Prime Minister of Finland and 7th president of Finland
Medical/Science/Technology
• Denham Harman proposes the free-radical theory of aging.
• Second part of the publication of Dorothy Hodgkin's description of the structure of Vitamin B12.
• Gilbert Plass publishes his seminal article "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change".
• The hard disk drive is invented by an IBM team led by Reynold B. Johnson.
• TX-0 transistorized computer completed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the United States.
• Humphry Osmond first proposes use of the word psychedelic to describe the effect of certain drugs.
• Minamata disease epidemic is identified in Japan by Hajime Hosokawa.
• The classic definition of obesity hypoventilation syndrome is published.
• Asian flu pandemic originates in China.
• Use of penicillamine in treatment of Wilson's disease first described.
Political
• February 14 – Dwight D. Eisenhower's doctors say that he is healthy enough to seek another term at the White House.
• February 25 – Nikita Khrushchev attacks the veneration of Joseph Stalin, in a speech.
• February 29 – Dwight D. Eisenhower announces he will seek re-election as President.
• March 12 – 96 U.S. Congressmen sign the Southern Manifesto, a protest against a 1954 Supreme Court ruling.
• June 4 – Montgomery bus boycott: Browder v. Gayle is decided by the United States District Court.
• June 14 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the phrase "under God" to be added to the Pledge of Allegiance.
• June 29 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Federal Aid Highway Act, creating the Interstate Highway System.
• July 30 – A Resolution of Congress is signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing "In God We Trust" as the national motto.
• November 6 – Republican incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democratic challenger Adlai E. Stevenson for president.
• November 13 – Browder v. Gayle: The United States Supreme Court declares Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal.
National
• January 8 – Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact.
• January 22 – Redondo Junction train wreck in Los Angeles kills thirty people.
• April 2 – The first episodes of As the World Turns and The Edge of Night are broadcast on CBS television.
• May 2 – The Methodist Church in the U.S. decides, to grant women full ordained clergy status.
• June 8 – General Electric/Telechron introduces model 7H241 "The Snooz Alarm", 1st snooze alarm clock.
• June 14 - The Flag of the United States Army is formally dedicated.
• July 29 – McKee refinery fire kills 19 in Texas.
• September 9 – Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.
• October 31 – A U.S. Navy team becomes the third group to reach the South Pole.
• December 2 – A pipe bomb planted by George Metesky explodes in Brooklyn, New York, injuring 6 people.
Worldwide
• January 26 – The 1956 Winter Olympics open in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
• March 20 – Tunisia gains independence from France.
• April 18 – Maria Desylla-Kapodistria is elected mayor of Corfu, becoming the first female mayor in Greece.
• June 13 - The International Criminal Police Organization adopts Interpol as its official name.
• July 4 – A U.S. Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft makes its first flight over the Soviet Union.
• July 10 – The British House of Lords defeats the abolition of the death penalty.
• August 8 – 262 miners die in a fire at the Bois du Cazier coal mine, in Marcinelle, Belgium.
• September 25 – The submarine transatlantic telephone cable opens.
• October 15 – The British Royal Air Force retires its last Avro Lancaster bomber.
• November 1 - The States Reorganisation Act of India reforms the boundaries and names of Indian states.