istoryworld
All Events
The British queen, Elizabeth II, moves the traditional royal Christmas address from radio to TV
Anthony Eden resigns as UK prime minister after the fiasco of the Suez Crisis, and is succeeded by Harold Macmillan
Danish architect Jørn Utzon wins the competition to design Sydney Opera House
With his Hundred Flowers Campaign ('Let a hundred flowers bloom'), Mao Zedong invites criticism and then locks up the critics
French critic Roland Barthes develops in Mythologies the theory of semiotics, relating to signs and symbols
De Valera takes stringent measures against the IRA and Sinn Fein, detaining activists in an internment camp
Kwame Nkrumah leads the Gold Coast into independence under a name of historic resonance, Ghana
US novelist John Cheever publishes The Wapshot Chronicle, depicting a wealthy and eccentric family in Massachusetts
Fred Hoyle, William Fowler, and Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge explain stellar nucleosynthesis
US novelist Mary McCarthy describes the religious pressures she grew up with in Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
Australian artist Arthur Boyd begins his series of paintings about an aboriginal stockman, Love, Marriage and Death of a Half-Caste
The Hawk in the Rain is English author Ted Hughes' first volume of poems
Six founding nations (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, West Germany) establish the European Economic Community (EEC)
The FNLA is established, with US support, as a guerrilla group to fight for a non-communist independent Angola
Jack Kerouac publishes a largely autobiographical novel, On the Road, describing his experiences travelling through the US and Mexico
Arnold Schoenberg's opera Moses and Aaron, incomplete at his death, has its premiere in Zurich
Nikita Khrushchev's position in the Soviet Communist party is secure after the failure of a plot to remove him
In Voss Australian author Patrick White creates an epic novel about a disastrous attempt to cross the continent
Polish-born British composer Andrzej Panufnik wins an international reputation with his Sinfonia elegiaco
The publication of the novel Justine launches Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet
Spanish-born Paris designer Cristóbal Balenciaga produces an ostensibly shapeless garment, the 'sack', that greatly excites the world of fashion
In Syntactic Structures Noam Chomsky proposes the revolutionary theory that humans inherit an innate universal grammar
John Diefenbaker heads a minority government in Canada, ending twenty-two years of Liberal rule
Barbadian cricketer Garfield Sobers, playing in Kingston, Jamaica, against Pakistan, makes a record Test score of 365 not out
David Lean directs William Holden, Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins in The Bridge on the River Kwai
