World Happenings: 1954
Jan. 14-Joe DiMaggio weds Marilyn Monroe.Jan. 21-The submarine Nautilus, the first ship powered by atomic energy, is launched.
March 1-A hydrogen bomb 600 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima is exploded by the U.S. at its mid-Pacific proving grounds, jarring Kwajalein Island, 176 miles away, and hurling radioactive debris far beyond the safety zone set for the test.
April 1-The Westinghouse Electric Corp. cut the suggested retail price of its 12.5-inch color TV from $1,295 to $1,110.
July 21-France signs armistice agreements with the Viet Minh in Geneva, dividing Vietnam in half, with the Communists controlling the North.
World Happenings: 1955
Feb. 9-The AFL and CIO merge under George Meany's leadership.May 14-The Warsaw Pact, unifying the Eastern-bloc nations militarily, is signed.
July 18-Disneyland opens in Anaheim, CA.
Nov. 26-The U.S.S.R. reports it has exploded its "most powerful" H-bomb.
Dec. 1-Rosa Parks defies Alabama state law by refusing to give up her seat in the front of a bus to a white person, and is jailed.
World Happenings: 1956
Feb. 24-Tension mounts in Montgomery, AL, where the arrests of 115 blacks on charges of boycotting the city's buses have triggered large protests.April 23-The Supreme Court rules that segregation in public transportation is unconstitutional.
June 29-Marilyn Monroe marries for the third time, to playwright Arthur Miller.
Aug. 1-Salk polio vaccine is made available to the public.
Sept. 9-Elvis Presley gyrates his way into millions of American homes, capturing a record TV audience on Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town" show.
Oct. 30-Anti-Soviet protests by hundreds of thousands in Hungary spread across the country from Budapest.
Nov. 6-President Eisenhower wins a second term in a landslide victory over Adlai Stevenson. He's the first Republican to win two successive presidential elections.
World Happenings: 1957
Jan. 23-Israel states that it will hold the Gaza Strip until a series of conditions are met by neighboring countries.March 22-A report by the American Heart Association and other groups for the first time states that scientific evidence "establishes beyond a reasonable doubt" a cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and lung cancer.
March 25-Countries in Western Europe sign a treaty establishing the European Economic Community.
May 6-Pulitzer prizes go to Eugene O'Neill for Long Day's Journey Into Night and JFK's Profiles in Courage.
Sept. 25-Federal troops converge on Little Rock, AR, to enforce integration, following an earlier attempt by the state's governor, Orval Faubus, to use state militia troops to prevent black students from entering a white high school.
Oct. 4-The U.S.S.R. announces that it has successfully launched the first man-made satellite into orbit around the earth.
World Happenings: 1958
May 14-The United States sends troops to the Caribbean after Venezuelan mobs attack Richard Nixon, on tour with his wife, to protest U.S. policies in Latin America. Similar protests are waged in Peru.June 28-The world's longest suspension bridge, part of a five-mile span linking Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas, is dedicated.
June 29-Cuban rebel forces led by Fidel Castro seize 28 U.S. naval personnel near the American naval base at Guantanamo. The previous day, 10 Americans had been kidnapped at a mining site.
Oct. 5-In Tennessee, dynamite wrecks Clinton High School, integrated in 1956 amid violent protests.
Dec.-a major epidemic of severe, deforming birth defects is linked to thalidomide, a drug sold in Europe as a sleeping pill and treatment for morning sickness during pregnancy. About 7,000 babies have been born with flipper-like arms and legs, and other major deformities.
World Happenings: 1959
Jan. 5-A "cosmic rocket" carrying a Lunik satellite has flown past the moon and is on its way to orbit around the sun, the Soviet Union announces.Jan. 16-Cuban revolutionaries have completely supplanted the government of Fulgencio Batista, replacing him with Fidel Castro's choice of Manuel Urrutia as provincial president.
Feb. 3-A small plane carrying Buddy Holly crashes near Mason City, IA, killing all aboard.
April 17-Cuban premier Castro tells a group of newspaper editors in the U.S. that his party is not Communist.
Aug. 21-The eight Hawaiian islands become the 50th state of the union.
Oct. 19-Following testimony in Congress, the public discovers that six quiz shows had committed fraud for years, employing faked emotions, rigged questions and phony games of chance.
Nov. 16-The "Sound of Music" opens on Broadway following advance sales of $2,325,000.
