. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music opened on Broadway, New York.
16/10/1959, George Marshall, US soldier and politician who formulated the Marshall Plan to aid post-War Europe, died in Washington DC.
9/6/1959. The USA launched its first ballistic missile submarine, the George Washington.
24/5/1959, John Foster Dulles (born 1888), US Secretary of State until his resignation due to ill-health in April 1959, died from cancer. He was chief spokesperson for US President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. He believed in a robust ‘brinkmanship’ approach to Soviet threats, reinforcing NATO and creating SEATO. He did not get on with UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden, disagreeing in particular with the UK’s policy over Suez. He opposed the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt in late 1956, and sometimes failed to anticipate Arab nationalist reactions to external intervention.
4/11/1958, In the USA, Democrats won the mid-term elections, gaining 62 seats in the Senate (Republicans 34 seats). The Democrats gained 281 seats in the House of Representatives (Republicans 153 seats).
31/5/1958, The Kremlin and Washington agreed to hold talks on a ban on atmospheric atom bomb tests.
3/5/1958, President Eisenhower proposed a demilitarised Antarctic.
24/3/1958. Elvis Presley was sworn in as a US private. He was paid $78 as a regular. He had been given a 60-day deferment to make the film ‘King Creole’.
18/10/1957, Queen Elizabeth II met US President Eisenhower; the first visit by a British monarch to the White House.
30/8/1957, US senator Strom Thurmond spoke for 24hrs 27m against civil rights.
31/5/1957, American playwright Arthur Miller was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to name other writers as communists. Miller confessed his own communist sympathies but said his conscience would not let him finger others; the judge praised his motives but he could still face a year in jail.
7/5/1957 Eliot Ness, the FBI agent who headed the investigation of Al Capone in Chicago, died.
2/5/1957. Senator Joe McCarthy, Republican, died of liver disease. He was most remembered for his ‘witch-hunts’ against suspected Communists. See 2/12/1954.
7/3/1957, The United States Congress approved the Eisenhower Doctrine.
5/1/1957, In the USA, President Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower Doctrine; that the US will protect the independence of Middle Eastern States, fearing that the USSR was behind Arab nationalist movements.
1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act, to create a US-wide network of freeways.
25/9/1956, Transatlantic telephone cable between the UK and the USA became operational.
3/8/1956, The name of Bedloe’s Island, site of the Statue of Liberty, was changed to Liberty Island, on the approval of President Eisenhower.
14/8/1955, The US schooner Levin J. Marvel capsized and sank in Chesapeake Bay with the loss of 12 of the 24 people on board.
3/3/1955, Katharine Drexel, US philanthropist, teacher and Roman Catholic saint, died aged 96.
24/1/1955, Because of increasing tensions between China and Formosa (Taiwan), US President Eisenhower asked Congress for authority to protect Formosa; it was granted within four days by 409 votes to 3 in the House of Representatives.
2/12/1954, The US Senate voted to condemn McCarthy for abuse of proceedings, see 25/2/1954 and 2/5/1957.
12/11/1954, The immigration centre at Ellis Island, New York, closed. 15 million migrants into the US had been processed through here since 1892.
25/10/1954, In the US, meetings of the Cabinet were televised for the first time.
20/7/1954. The Geneva Agreement ended hostilities between North and South Korea.
12/7/1954, US Vice President Richard Nixon announced the construction of a network of Interstate Highways which would enable drivers to cross the USA without encountering a single crossroads or traffic light. They would also be useful as part of a defensive network, and to provide rapid exits from cities in the event of war.
10/7/1954, US President Eisenhower signed Public Law 480, the Agricultural Trade Development and Ass