1957

1957 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1957; MCMLVII
Ab urbe condita	2710
Armenian calendar	1406; ԹՎ ՌՆԶ
Assyrian calendar	6707
Baháʼí calendar	113–114
Balinese saka calendar	1878–1879
Bengali calendar	1364
Berber calendar	2907
British Regnal year	5 Eliz. 2 – 6 Eliz. 2
Buddhist calendar	2501
Burmese calendar	1319
Byzantine calendar	7465–7466
Chinese calendar	丙申年 (Fire Monkey); 4654 or 4447; — to —; 丁酉年 (Fire Rooster); 4655 or 4448
Coptic calendar	1673–1674
Discordian calendar	3123
Ethiopian calendar	1949–1950
Hebrew calendar	5717–5718
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2013–2014
- Shaka Samvat	1878–1879
- Kali Yuga	5057–5058
Holocene calendar	11957
Igbo calendar	957–958
Iranian calendar	1335–1336
Islamic calendar	1376–1377
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 32; (昭和３２年)
Javanese calendar	1888–1889
Juche calendar	46
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4290
Minguo calendar	ROC 46; 民國46年
Nanakshahi calendar	489
Thai solar calendar	2500
Tibetan calendar	阳火猴年; (male Fire-Monkey); 2083 or 1702 or 930; — to —; 阴火鸡年; (female Fire-Rooster); 2084 or 1703 or 931

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century; 20th century ; 21st century;
Decades:	1930s; 1940s; 1950s ; 1960s; 1970s;
Years:	1954; 1955; 1956; 1957 ; 1958; 1959; 1960;

1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year of the 1950s decade.

Events

January

January 1
- The Saarland joins West Germany.
- An Irish Republican Army attack, on the Brookeborough police barracks in Northern Ireland, leads to the deaths of Seán South and Fergal O'Hanlon.
- Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini suffers the stroke that leads to his death, a little over two weeks later, in the United States.
- Lèse majesté in Thailand was strengthened to include "insult" and changed to a crime against national security, after Thai criminal code of 1956 went into effect.^[1]^: 6, 18
January 2 – The San Francisco and Los Angeles stock exchanges merge, to form the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.
January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
January 4 – After 69 years, the last issue of Collier's Weekly magazine is published in the United States.
January 5 – Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be dismissed for having handled the ball, in Test cricket.
January 6 – Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the 3rd and final time. He is shown only 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 all right."
January 9 – British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigns.
January 10 – Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
January 11 – The African Convention is founded in Dakar.
January 13 – Wham-O Company produces the first Frisbee.
January 14
- Kripalu Maharaj is named fifth Jagadguru (world teacher), after giving seven days of speeches before 500 Hindu scholars.
- American screen actor Humphrey Bogart dies aged 57 in California, after a long battle with cancer.
January 15 – The film Throne of Blood, Akira Kurosawa's reworking of Macbeth, is released in Japan.
January 16 – The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool, as a jazz club.
January 20
- Dwight D. Eisenhower is privately sworn in for a second term, as President of the United States.
- Israel withdraws from the Sinai Peninsula (captured from Egypt on October 29, 1956).
- The New York City "Mad Bomber", George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut, and charged with planting more than 30 bombs.
January 21 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower is publicly sworn in.
January 23 – Ku Klux Klan members force African-American truck driver Willie Edwards to jump off a bridge, into the Alabama River; he drowns as a result.
January 26 – The Ibirapuera Planetarium (the first in the Southern Hemisphere) is inaugurated in the city of São Paulo, Brazil.
January 31 – 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, U.S.A.

February

February – 1957–58 influenza pandemic (also called "Asian flu"): Influenza A virus subtype H2N2, first identified in Guizhou province of China, spreads to Singapore. It reaches Hong Kong by April and the United States by June, killing at least 1 million people worldwide.
February 2 – President Iskander Mirza of Pakistan lays the foundation-stone of the Guddu Barrage across the Indus River, near Sukkur.
February 4
- France prohibits U.N. involvement in Algeria.
- The first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It is decommissioned on March 3, 1980.
- A coal gas explosion at the giant Bishop Coal Mine in Bishop, Virginia, kills 37 men.
February 6 – The Soviet Union announces that Swedish envoy Raoul Wallenberg had died in a Soviet prison ("possibly of a heart attack"), on July 17, 1947.
February 10 – The Confederation of African Football is founded, at a meeting in Khartoum.
February 15 – Andrei Gromyko becomes foreign minister of the Soviet Union.
February 16
- The "Toddlers' Truce", a controversial television closedown between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., is abolished in the United Kingdom.
- Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal opens at cinemas in Sweden.
February 17 – A fire at a home for the elderly in Warrenton, Missouri, kills 72 people.
February 18
- Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is executed by the British colonial government.
- The last person to be executed in New Zealand, Walter James Bolton, is hanged at Mount Eden Prison for poisoning his wife.
February 23 – The founding congress of the Senegalese Popular Bloc opens in Dakar.
February 25 – The Boy In The Box is discovered along a sidewalk in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The murder victim is described as Caucasian in appearance and 4 to 6 years old; the case is never solved.
February 28 – Gaston, a French comic strip, is introduced.

March

March 1
- U Nu becomes Prime Minister of Burma.
- Arturo Lezama becomes President of the National Council of Government of Uruguay.
- Sud Aviation forms, from a merger between SNCASE (Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Est) and SNCASO (Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Ouest).
- Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat is published in the United States.
March 3 – Net als toen, sung by Corry Brokken (music by Guus Jansen, lyrics by Willy van Hemert), wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1957 (held at Frankfurt), for the Netherlands.
March 4 – Standard & Poor's first publishes the S&P 500 Index in the United States.
March 6
- United Kingdom colonies Gold Coast and British Togoland become the independent nation of Ghana.
- Zodi Ikhia founds the Nigerien Democratic Front (FDN) in Niger.
March 7 – The United States Congress approves the Eisenhower Doctrine, on assistance to Communist-threatened foreign regimes.
March 8 – Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal.
March 10 – Floodgates of The Dalles Dam are closed, inundating Celilo Falls and ancient Indian fisheries along the Columbia River in Oregon.
March 12 – Dr. Seuss publishes The Cat in the Hat, one of the best-selling children's books of all time.
March 13
- The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa, and charges him with bribery.
- The Anglo-Jordanian Treaty of 1948 expires.
March 14 – President Sukarno declares martial law in Indonesia.
March 17 – 1957 Cebu Douglas C-47 crash: Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others are killed in a plane crash.
March 20 – The French news magazine L'Express reveals that the French army tortures Algerian prisoners.
March 25
- The Treaty of Rome (Patto di Roma) establishes the European Economic Community (EEC; predecessor of the European Union) between Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
- Copies of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems (first published November 1, 1956), printed in England, are seized by United States Customs Service officials in San Francisco, on the grounds of obscenity.^[2] On October 3, in People v. Ferlinghetti, a subsequent prosecution of publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the work is ruled not to be obscene.^[3]
March 26 – Elvis Presley buys Graceland, on 3734 Bellevue Boulevard (Highway 51 South), for $US100,000. He and his family move from the house on 1034 Audubon Drive.
March 27 – The 29th Academy Awards Ceremony is held in Hollywood. Around the World in 80 Days wins Best Picture.
March 29 – The New York, Ontario and Western Railway is ordered liquidated by a US bankruptcy judge.
March 31 – Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, the team's only musical written especially for television, is telecast live and in color by CBS in the United States, starring Julie Andrews in the title role. The production is seen by millions, but this 1957 version is not to be telecast again for more than 40 years, when a kinescope of it is shown.

April

April – IBM sells the first compiler for the Fortran scientific programming language.
April 1 – The first new conscripts join the Bundeswehr.
April 5 – The Communist Party of India wins the elections in Kerala, making E. M. S. Namboodiripad its first chief minister.
April 9 – Egypt reopens the Suez Canal to all shipping.
April 12 – The United Kingdom announces that Singapore will gain self-rule on January 1, 1958.
April 15
- The Distant Early Warning Line is handed over by contractors to the U.S. and Canadian military.
- White Rock secedes from Surrey, British Columbia, following a referendum.
April 17 – Suspected English serial killer Dr. John Bodkin Adams is found not guilty of murder, at the Old Bailey.
April 24 – The BBC Television astronomy series The Sky at Night is first broadcast in the United Kingdom, presented by Patrick Moore (will present it until his death in December 2012).
April 24 – 25 – The 1957 Fethiye earthquakes occur, on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
April 30 – An annular solar eclipse was a non-central annular solar eclipse, that does NOT have a northern path limit. This was the last of 57 umbral solar eclipses of Solar Saros 118.

May

May 2
- Vincent Gigante fails to assassinate mafioso Frank Costello in Manhattan.
- "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika", written by Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven, becomes the South African national anthem, replacing "God Save the Queen", which is retained as a royal anthem.
May 3 – Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles.
May 15.
- Operation Grapple: At Malden Island in the Pacific, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb, which fails to detonate properly.
- Stanley Matthews plays his final international game, ending an English record international career of almost 23 years.
May 16 – Paul-Henri Spaak becomes the new Secretary General of NATO.
May 22 – A 42,000-pound Mark 17 hydrogen bomb accidentally falls from a United States bomber, near Albuquerque.^[4]
May 24 – May 24 incident: Anti-American riots erupt in Taipei, Taiwan.^[5]
May 30 – Real Madrid beats Fiorentina 2–0 at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid, to win the 1956–57 European Cup (football).

June

June 1 – Three-year-old thoroughbred Gallant Man wins the Peter Pan Stakes, at Belmont Park.
June 9 – Broad Peak, on the China-Pakistan border, is first ascended.
June 15 – Oklahoma celebrates its semi-centennial statehood. A brand new 1957 Plymouth Belvedere, named Miss Belvedere, is buried in a time capsule (to be opened 50 years later on June 15, 2007).
June 15 – Gallant Man wins the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park, in record time.
June 20 – Toru Takemitsu's Requiem for Strings is first performed, by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.^[6]
June 21 – John Diefenbaker becomes the 13th Prime Minister of Canada.
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, U.S., killing 400 people.

July

July 1
- The International Geophysical Year begins.
- The University of Waterloo is founded in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
- Hugh Everett III publishes the first scientifically founded many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
- Production of the Citroën Traction Avant automobile, begun in 1934, ceases.
July 6 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney first meet as teenagers at a garden fete at St. Peter's Church, Woolton, Liverpool, England, at which Lennon's skiffle group, The Quarrymen, is playing, 3 years before forming The Beatles.
July 9 – Elvis Presley's film Loving You opens in theaters.
July 11 – His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV becomes the 49th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims at age 20. His grandfather Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan III appoints Prince Karim in his will.
July 14 – Rawya Ateya takes her seat in the National Assembly of Egypt, thereby becoming the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
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.
July 25 – Tunisia becomes a republic, with Habib Bourguiba as its first president.
July 28
- The 6th World Festival of Youth and Students, a high point of the Khrushchev Thaw, kicks off in Moscow.
- The Association football club Persiraja Banda Aceh is founded in Indonesia.
- Heavy rains and mudslides at Isahaya, western Kyūshū, Japan, kill 992.
- A strong earthquake shakes Mexico City, and Mexican port city Acapulco.
July 29 – The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.

August

August 4 – Juan Manuel Fangio, driving for Maserati, wins the Formula One German Grand Prix, clinching (with 4 wins this season) his record 5th world drivers championship, including his 4th consecutive championship (also a record); these 2 records endure for nearly half a century.
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.
August 31 – The Federation of Malaya gains independence from the United Kingdom, subsequently celebrated as Malaysia's National Day. Abdul Rahman of Negeri Sembilan, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan, becomes the first Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaya. The country's new Constitution had come into force on August 27. The Alliance Party and its successor are the ruling coalition until 2018.

September

September 1 – 175 die in Jamaica's worst railway disaster.
September 3 – The Wolfenden report on homosexuality is published in the United Kingdom.
September 4
- Civil rights movement: Little Rock Crisis – Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas calls out the National Guard of the United States, to prevent 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 – The first edition of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road goes on sale in the United States.
September 7 – NBC introduces an animated version of its famous "living color" peacock logo.
September 9
- The Civil Rights Act of 1957 is enacted, establishing the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
- Catholic Memorial School opens its doors for the first time in Boston, Massachusetts.
September 14 – Have Gun – Will Travel premieres on CBS.
September 21
- Olav V becomes King of Norway, on the death of his father Haakon VII.
- The sailing ship Pamir sinks off the Azores, in a hurricane.
- Perry Mason premiers on CBS.
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".
- Camp Nou, home-stadium of FC Barcelona, officially opens in Barcelona, Spain.^[7]
September 26 – Leonard Bernstein's musical West Side Story makes its first appearance on Broadway, and runs for 732 performances.
September 29 – The Kyshtym disaster occurs, at the Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in Russia.

October

October 1
- Which? magazine is first published by The Consumers' Association in the United Kingdom.
- The Africanized bee is accidentally released in Brazil.
October 2 – David Lean's film The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in the U.K.
October 4
- Space Age – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth.
- The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow delta wing interceptor aircraft is unveiled.
- The sitcom Leave It to Beaver premieres on CBS in the United States.
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 Gbedemah, after he is refused service in a Dover, Delaware, restaurant.
- Windscale fire: Fire at the Windscale nuclear reactor on the north-west coast of England releases radioactive material into the surrounding environment, including iodine-131.
- Ayn Rand's fourth, last and longest novel, Atlas Shrugged, is published in the United States.
October 11
- The Jodrell Bank radio telescope opens in Cheshire, England.
- The orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket (carrying Sputnik I) is first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer at the MIT Computation Center as part of Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
October 16 – Antônio Vilas Boas, a Brazilian farmer, claims to have been abducted by extraterrestrials; the first famous alien abduction case.
October 21
- Two trains collide at Yarımburgaz in Turkey; 95 die.
- The U.S. military sustains its first combat fatality in Vietnam, Army Capt. Harry Cramer of the 1st Special Forces Group.
October 23 – Morocco begins its invasion of Ifni.
October 25 – Mafia boss Albert Anastasia is assassinated in a barber shop, at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City.
October 27 – Celâl Bayar is re-elected president of Turkey.
October 31 – Toyota begins exporting vehicles to the United States, 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 this time, opens in the United States, to connect 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 3 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, with the first animal to orbit the Earth (a dog named Laika) on board; there is no technology available to return it to Earth.
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 13
- Gordon Gould invents the laser.
- Flooding in the Po Valley of Italy leads to flooding also in Venice.
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 15
- 1957 Aquila Airways Solent crash: A flying boat crash on the Isle of Wight leaves 45 dead.
- Yugoslavia announces the end of an economic boycott of Francoist Spain (although it does not reinstitute diplomatic relations).
November 16
- Serial killer Edward Gein murders his last victim, Bernice Worden of Plainfield, Wisconsin, U.S.
- U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower has a stroke.
- Adnan Menderes of the Democrat Party forms the new government of Turkey (23rd government, last government formed by DP and Menderes).
November 30 – Indonesian president Sukarno survives a grenade attack at the Cikini School in Jakarta, but six children are killed.

December

December 1 – In Indonesia, Sukarno announces the nationalization of 246 Dutch businesses.
December 4 – The Lewisham rail crash in London leaves 92 dead.
December 5 – All 326,000 Dutch nationals are expelled from Indonesia.
December 6 – The first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite fails, when the Vanguard rocket blows up on the launch pad.
December 10 – Canadian diplomat Lester B. Pearson receives the Nobel Peace Prize, for his peacekeeping efforts in the United Nations.
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, debuts 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, although heavily abridged.

Date unknown

Mao Zedong admits that 800,000 "class enemies" had been summarily liquidated in China, between 1949 and 1954.
Expected date for Operation Dropshot, an all-out U.S. war with the Soviet Union, triggered by a Soviet takeover of Western Europe, the Near East and parts of Eastern Asia, which does not materialize, as prepared for by the United States Department of Defense in 1949.
Gruppe SPUR, an artistic collaboration, is founded in Germany.
The so-called 'mound of Midas', the Great Tumulus near Gordium, is excavated.
Three new neo-grotesque sans-serif typefaces are released: Folio (designed by Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum), Neue Haas Grotesk (designed by Max Miedinger) and Univers (designed by Adrian Frutiger); all will be influential in the International Typographic Style of graphic design.

Births

Births
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