istoryworld
All Events
James Bond, agent 007, has a licence to kill in Ian Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale
US microbiologist Jonas Salk announces the discovery of an effective vaccine against polio
Imre Nagy becomes prime minister of Hungary, but is driven out of office two years later by hard-line Communists because of his relative liberalism
Alfred Charles Kinsey completes his study of human sexuality with the publication of Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female
New Zealander Edmund Hillary and the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay stand together on the top of Everest
US author James Baldwin publishes his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, set in Harlem
English composer William Walton writes Orb and Sceptre for the coronation of Elizabeth II
The new queen of the United Kingdom, Elizabeth II, is crowned like all her predecessors since 1066 in Westminster Abbey
US abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning exhibits his series Women nos I-VI, on which he has been working since 1938
William Wyler directs Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, a beguiling comedy about a princess's romance in Rome
Dmitry Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony has its first performance in Leningrad nine months after the death of Stalin
US citizens Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sent to the electric chair as convicted spies
South African author Nadine Gordimer publishes her first novel, The Lying Days
French composer Olivier Messiaen uses birdsong with piano and orchestra in his Waking of the Birds
Anglican vicar Chad Varah, using the crypt of a London church, sets up the first branch of what becomes the Samaritans
French actor Jacques Tati directs and stars in the zany comedy Mr Hulot's Holiday
Swedish economist Dag Hammarskjöld becomes secretary-general of the United Nations
US golfer Ben Hogan wins the US Open, the US Masters and the British Open in a single year
Within the year Marilyn Monroe stars in Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire
The two Rhodesias and Nyasaland are merged in the self-governing Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland
Arthur Miller's play The Crucible uses the Salem witch trials as a metaphor for the contemporary paranoia of McCarthyism
An armistice ends the Korean War, leaving several million dead and a country divided either side of a military zone along the 38th parallel
The first Soviet hydrogen bomb is successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan
The Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh is removed from office in an armed coup sponsored by the CIA and Britain's MI6
Improved methods of testing prove conclusively that Piltdown Man was constructed by Charles Dawson from a human skull and the jaw of an ape
