((March 2)) Claudette Colvin (a fifteen year old african
american girl) Refuses to give up her seat to a white wonam after
the bus driver demands it. She was carried off the bus backwords,
whilst being kicked and handcuffed. She was harrased on the way to
the police station while the officers tried to guess her bra
size.
March 5 – WBBJ-TV signs on
the air in the Jackson,
Tennessee, with WDXI as its initial call-letters, to expanded
American commercial television in mostly-rural areas.
March 7 – The Broadway musical version of
Peter Pan, which had been
created in 1954, starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the
first time by NBC-TV. It is also the first time
that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV exactly as
it was performed on stage. This program gains the largest
viewership of a TV special up to this time, and it becomes one of
the first great TV children's classics.
March 20 – Evan Hunter's movie
adaptation of the novel Blackboard
Jungle premieres in the United States, featuring the
famous single, Rock Around the
Clock, by Bill Haley and his
"Comets". Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the
song.
Two
ferries on the Inland
Sea of Japan sink, killing 168 children, which
foreshadows the construction of the Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge, begun in 1986 but not completed until
1998.
April 12 – The Salkpolio vaccine, having passed
large-scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full
approval by the FDA.
April 16 – The
Burma-Japanese peace treaty, signed in Rangoon on November 5, 1954, comes into effect, formally ending a state of war
between the two countries that had not existed for a long
time.
May 5 – West Germany becomes a soverign country that is recognized by
important Western foreign countries, such as France, the United
Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
May 15 – The Austrian State Treaty, which restores
Austria's national sovereignty, is concluded between the four
occupying powers following World War II (the United Kingdom, the
United States, the Soviet Union, and France) and Austria, setting
up Austria as a neutral country.
The
first nuclear-generated electrical power is sold commercially,
partially powering the town of Arco, Idaho.
The Illinois Governor, William
Stratton, signs the "Loyalty Oath Act", passed by the State
Legislature, which mandates all public employees take a loyalty
oath to Illinois and the United States, or lose their jobs.
The first Geneva Summit meeting between the United States, the
Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France begins. It ends on
July 23rd.
September 30 –
The actor James Dean is killed when his
automobile collides with another car at a highway junction near
Cholame,
California. Dean is just 24 years old.