- Disneyland Opens
- McDonald's Corporation Founded
- West Germany joins NATO
- Warsaw Pact formed by Communist states in Eastern Europe and USSR
- The Velcro fastener is patented
- Nikolai A. Bulganin becomes Soviet premier, replacing Malenkov (Feb. 8)
- Churchill resigns (April 5); Anthony Eden succeeds him (April 6)
- Federal Republic of West Germany becomes a sovereign state (May 5)
- The Soviet Union and seven East European countries sign the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense treaty (May 14)
- Argentina ousts dictator Juan Perón (Sept. 19)
- US starts sending $216 million in aid to Vietnam
- The US, UK, USSR, and France meet at a summit in Geneva

View the Weekly Top Singles list from 1955

U.S. EVENTS
- President Eisenhower suffers coronary thrombosis in Denver (Sept. 24)
- Rosa Parks refuses to sit at the back of the bus, breaking Montgomery, Ala., segregated seating law (Dec. 1). Martin Luther King, Jr., leads 381-day black boycott of Montgomery bus system; desegregated service begins Dec. 21, 1956
- AFL and CIO merge to become the AFL-CIO (Dec. 5)

U.S. Statistics
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
Population: 165,931,202

SPORTS
World Series
Brooklyn Dodgers d. NY Yankees (4-3)
NBA Championship
Syracuse d. Ft. Wayne Pistons (4-3)
Stanley Cup
Detroit d. Montreal (4-3)
Wimbledon
Women: Louise Brough d. B. Fleitz (7-5 8-6)
Men: Tony Trabert d. K. Nielsen (6-3 7-5 6-1)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Swaps
NCAA Basketball Championship
San Francisco d. La Salle (77-63)
NCAA Football Champions
Oklahoma (11-0-0)

ENTERTAINMENT
Events
- On the Waterfront nearly sweeps the 1954 Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Supporting Actress (Eva Maria Saint), and Best Director (Elia Kazan).
- Gunsmoke debuts on CBS, and will go on to be television's longest-running western.
- 70mm film is introduced with Oklahoma!
- James Dean dies in a car accident at age 26.
Movies
- Rebel without a Cause, Marty, East of Eden, Bad Day at Black Rock, Picnic
Books
- James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son - Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pictures of a Gone World - William Gaddis, The Recognitions - Mary McCarthy, A Charmed Life - Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita - Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find - Isaac Bashevis Singer, Satan in Goray

SCIENCE
- Narinder Kapany (England) develops fiber optics.
- Owen Chamberlain and Emilio Segrè discover the antiproton, a form of antimatter.
- The corticosteroid prednisone is developed.
- Severo Ochoa at NYU synthesizes DNA- and RNA-like molecules. Background: genetic engineering

NOTABLE DEATHS in 1955
- Albert Einstein - Alexander Fleming - Thomas Mann - Carmen Miranda - Charlie Parker