1955 in the United States

Federal Government

• President: Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-Kansas/New York)
• Vice President: Richard Nixon (R-California)
• Chief Justice: Earl Warren (California)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Joseph William Martin, Jr. (R-Massachusetts) (until January 3), Sam Rayburn (D-Texas) (starting January 3)
• Senate Majority Leader: William F. Knowland (R-California) (until January 3), Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas) (starting January 3)
• Congress: 83rd (until January 3), 84th (starting January 3)

January

• January 7 – Marian Anderson is the first African-American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
• January 22 – The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) armed with nuclear weapons.
• January 28 – The United States Congress authorizes President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use force to protect Formosa from the People's Republic of China.

February

• February 1 – Major tornadoes in Mississippi.
• February 10 – The Seventh Fleet of the United States Navy helps the Republic of China evacuate Chinese Nationalist army and residents from the Tachen Islands to Taiwan.
• February 12 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends the first U.S. advisors to South Vietnam.
• February 22 – In Chicago's Democratic primary, Mayor Martin H. Kennelly loses to the head of the Cook County Democratic Party, Richard J. Daley, 364,839 to 264,77.

March

• March 2 – Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old African-American girl, refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white woman after the driver demands it. She is carried off the bus backwards whilst being kicked and handcuffed and harassed on the way to the police station. She becomes a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle (1956) which rules bus segregation to be unconstitutional.
• March 5 – WBBJ signs on the air in the Jackson, Tennessee as WDXI, to expanded U.S. commercial television in rural areas.
• March 7 – The 1954 Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC (also the first time that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV exactly as performed on stage). The program gains the largest viewership of a TV special up to this time and becomes one of the first great television classics.
• March 12 – African-American jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker dies in New York City at age 34.
• March 19 – KXTV of Stockton, California signs on the air as the 100th commercial television station in the U.S.
• March 20 – The film adaptation of Evan Hunter's Blackboard Jungle premieres, featuring the famous single "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets. Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the song. On July 9 it becomes the first Rock and roll single to reach Number One on the U.S. charts.
• March 26 – Bill Hayes tops the U.S. charts for five weeks with "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" and starts a (fake) coonskin cap craze.
• March 28 – The important income tax case of Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co. is decided in the Supreme Court.^[1]

April 15: McDonald's

April

• April – Theresa Meikle becomes presiding judge of San Francisco County Superior Court, the first woman elected to such a position in any major U.S. city.
• April 5 – Richard J. Daley defeats Robert Merrian to become mayor of Chicago by a vote of 708,222 to 581,555.
• April 12 – Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the U.S., receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
• April 15 – Ray Kroc opens his first McDonald's in Des Plaines, Illinois.

May

• May 21 – Chuck Berry records his first single, "Maybellene", for Chess Records in Chicago.

June

• June 7 – The $64,000 Question premieres on CBS television, with Hal March as the host.
• June 16 – Lady and the Tramp, Walt Disney's 15th animated film, premieres in Chicago.

July 18: Disneyland opens

July

• July 17
  • The Disneyland theme park opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
• July 18
  • The first atomic-generated electrical power is sold commercially, powering Arco, Idaho.
  • Illinois's Governor William Stratton signs the Loyalty Oath Act, that mandates all public employees take a loyalty oath or lose their jobs.
  • The Geneva Summit between the U.S., Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France begins.
• July 23 – The Geneva Summit ends.

August

• August 19 – Hurricane Diane hits the northeast, killing 200 and causing over $1 billion in damage.
• August 22 – Eleven schoolchildren are killed when their school bus is hit by a freight train in Spring City, Tennessee.^[2]
• August 28 – Emmett Till is killed in Money, Mississippi.

September

• September 10 – Gunsmoke debuts on the CBS television network.
• September 24 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffers a coronary thrombosis while on vacation in Denver.
• September 26 – "America's Sweethearts", singers Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, marry.
• September 30 – Actor James Dean, aged 24, is killed when his Porsche 550 Spyder collides with another automobile at a highway junction near Cholame, California.

October

• October – First meeting of the lesbian group that becomes the Daughters of Bilitis.
• October 3 – The Mickey Mouse Club airs on the ABC television network.
• October 4 – The Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 2–0 in Game 7 of the 1955 Fall Classic.
• October 11 – 70-mm film is introduced with the theatrical release of Rodgers and Hammerstein's masterpiece Oklahoma!.
• October 20 – Disc jockey Bill Randle of WERE (Cleveland) is the key presenter of a concert at Brooklyn High School (Ohio), featuring Pat Boone and Bill Haley & His Comets and opening with Elvis Presley, not only Elvis's first performance north of the Mason–Dixon line, but also his first filmed performance, for a documentary on Randle titled The Pied Piper of Cleveland.

December 1: Rosa Parks, with Martin Luther King in 1955

November

• November 1 – A time bomb explodes in the cargo hold of United Airlines Flight 629, a Douglas DC-6B airliner flying above Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and 5 crew members on board.
• November 5 – Racial segregation is forbidden on trains and buses in U.S. interstate commerce.
• November 12 – The Bugs Bunny cartoon Roman-Legion Hare debuts.
• November 20 – Bo Diddley makes his television debut on Ed Sullivan's Toast Of The Town show for the CBS network.
• November 27 – Fred Phelps establishes the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.

December 14: Tappan Zee Bridge

December

• December 1 – Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to surrender her seat on a bus to a white person.
• December 5
  • The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge to become the AFL-CIO.
  • The Montgomery Improvement Association is formed in Montgomery, Alabama by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other Black ministers to coordinate a Black boycott of city buses.
• December 14 – Tappan Zee Bridge in New York opens to traffic.
• December 15 – Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues", recorded on July 30, is released by Sun Records.
• December 22 – Cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes.
• December 31
  • General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make over USD 1 billion in a year.
  • Michigan J. Frog, a Warner Bros. cartoon character, makes his debut in One Froggy Evening.

Ongoing

• Cold War (1945–1991)
• Second Red Scare (1947–1957)

January–June

• January 11 – Max Lucado, writer on Christian themes
• January 12 – Rockne S. O'Bannon, writer and producer
• January 13 – Jay McInerney, novelist
• January 18 – Kevin Costner, film actor, producer and director
• January 21 – Jeff Koons, "kitsch" artist
• January 27 – John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the U.S. from 2005
• January 29 – Eddie Jordan, basketball player and coach and politician
• February 8 – John Grisham, writer of legal thrillers
• February 12 – Bill Laswell, bass player and producer (Massacre, Material, Tabla Beat Science, Painkiller and Praxis)
• February 21 – Kelsey Grammer, TV actor
• February 24 – Steve Jobs, entrepreneur and inventor (d. 2011)
• March 2 – Ken Salazar, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 2005 to 2009
• March 5 – Penn Jillette, magician
• March 17 – Gary Sinise, film & TV actor
• March 19 – Bruce Willis, actor
• April 6 – Michael Rooker, actor
• April 7
  • Grace Hightower, philanthropist, actress and singer
  • Gregg Jarrett, lawyer-journalist
• April 8
  • Ron Johnson, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin from 2011
  • Barbara Kingsolver, novelist, essayist and poet
• April 26 – Mike Scott, baseball player
• April 29 – Kate Mulgrew, TV actress
• May 6 – Tom Bergeron, TV game-show host
• May 9 – Kevin Reed, theologian and author
• May 10 – Mark David Chapman, murderer
• May 16 – Debra Winger, film actress
• May 17 – Bill Paxton, film actor (d. 2017)
• May 29 – John Hinckley Jr., attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan
• June 7 – Joey Scarbury, singer-songwriter
• June 16 – Laurie Metcalf, TV actress
• June 25 – Patricia Smith, African-American poet, "spoken-word performer", playwright, author and writing teacher

July–December

• July 1
  • Lisa Scottoline, writer of legal thrillers
  • Keith Whitley, country music singer (d. 1989)
• July 8 – Lindsey Graham, U.S. Senator from South Carolina from 2003
• July 18 – Nancy Garrido, kidnapper
• July 21 – Howie Epstein, bass player, songwriter and producer (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) (d. 2003)
• July 22 – Willem Dafoe, actor
• August 2 – Caleb Carr, writer
• August 4
  • Billy Bob Thornton, film actor, director, screenwriter, producer and singer-songwriter
  • Alberto Gonzales, 80th United States Attorney General
• August 13 – Daryl, magician (d. 2017)
• August 24 – Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas
• August 29 – Jack Lew, 76th United States Secretary of the Treasury
• August 31 – Edwin Moses, track & field athlete
• September 17 – Charles Martinet, actor and voice actor
• September 29 – Joe Donnelly, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 2013
• October 17 – Tyrone Mitchell, murderer (suicide 1984)
• October 20 – Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island from 2007
• October 28 – Bill Gates, software designer and entrepreneur
• October 30 – Heidi Heitkamp, U.S. Senator from North Dakota from 2013
• November 5 – Kris Jenner, TV personality
• November 7 – Paul Romer, economist, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
• November 13 – Whoopi Goldberg, African American comic actress
• November 23 – Mary Landrieu, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1997 to 2015
• November 27 – Bill Nye, science communicator, television presenter and mechanical engineer
• November 30
  • Richard Burr, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 2005
  • Kevin Conroy, stage, screen and voice actor
• December 11
  • Gene Grossman, economist and academic
  • Stu Jackson, basketball player, coach and manager
• December 19 – Rob Portman, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 2011
• December 21 – Jane Kaczmarek, TV actress
• December 26 – Evan Bayh, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1999 to 2011

January–June

January 24: Ira Hayes found dead

• January 1 – Arthur C. Parker, part-Seneca archeologist and ethnographer of Native Americans (born 1881)
• January 20 – Robert P. Tristram Coffin, poet, essayist and novelist (born 1892)
• January 21 – Archie Hahn, sprinter (b. 1880)
• January 24 – Ira Hayes, Native American U.S. Marine flag raiser on Iwo Jima (b. 1923)
• January 31 – John Mott, YMCA leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1865)
• February 11 – Ona Munson, actress (b. 1903)
• February 12 – Thomas J. Moore, Irish-American film actor (b. 1883)
• February 20 – Oswald Avery, physician and medical researcher (b. 1877)
• February 27 – Trixie Friganza, actress (b. 1870)
• March 3 – Katharine Drexel, Roman Catholic saint (b. 1858)
• March 8 – William C. deMille, screenwriter and director (b. 1878)
• March 9 – Matthew Henson, African-American explorer (b. 1866)
• March 12 – Charlie Parker, African-American jazz saxophonist (b. 1920)
• April 7 – Theda Bara, silent film actress (b. 1885)
• April 14 – Cleveland L. Abbott, African-American football player and coach (born 1892)
• April 18 – Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist who developed the general theory of relativity (born 1879)

March 9: Matthew Henson dies

• May 2 – Truman Abbe, surgeon who received awards for his research on radium in medicine (born 1873)
• May 10 – Tommy Burns, boxer (b. 1881)
• May 11 – Bradley Walker Tomlin, painter (b. 1899)
• May 14 – Charles Pelot Summerall, general (b. 1867)
• May 16 – James Agee, writer (b. 1909)
• May 18 – Mary McLeod Bethune, educator (b. 1875)
• May 22 – Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, actor (b. 1891)
• May 30 – Bill Vukovich, race-car driver (b. 1918)
• June 5 – Pattillo Higgins, oil pioneer and businessman (b. 1863)
• June 10 – Margaret Abbott, golfer, first American woman to take first place in the Olympics (born 1876)
• June 11 – Walter Hampden, film actor (b. 1879)
• June 17 – Carlyle Blackwell, actor (b. 1884)

July–December

• July 13 – Stanley Price, film and television actor (b. 1892)
• July 23 – Cordell Hull, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1871)
• July 31 – Robert Francis, actor (b. 1930)
• August 2 – Wallace Stevens, poet (b. 1879)
• August 8 – Grace Hartman, actress (b. 1907)
• August 11 – Robert W. Wood, optical physicist (born 1868)
• August 12 – James B. Sumner, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)
• August 14 – Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress (born 1861)
• August 22 – Olin Downes, music critic (b. 1886)
• August 28 – Emmett Till, murder victim (b. 1941)
• September 1 – Philip Loeb, actor (b. 1891)
• September 20 – Robert Riskin, screenwriter (b. 1897)
• September 23 – Martha Norelius, Olympic swimmer (b. 1808)
• September 27 – Leslie Garland Bolling, African-American sculptor (b. 1898)

September 30: James Dean killed in auto accident

• September 30
  • James Dean, film actor (b. 1931)
  • Louis Leon Thurstone, pioneer of psychometrics and psychophysics (born 1887)
• October 1 – Charles Christie, film studio owner (b. 1880)
• October 8 – Iry LeJeune, Cajun musician (b. 1928)
• October 9 – Alice Joyce, actress (b. 1890)
• October 19 – John Hodiak, film actor (b. 1914)
• October 31 – William Woodward, Jr., banker and horse breeder, shot in mariticide (b. 1920)
• November 1 – Dale Carnegie, writer and lecturer (b. 1888)
• November 4 – Cy Young, baseball player (Cleveland Spiders), member of MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1867)
• November 7 – Tom Powers, actor (b. 1890)
• November 11 – Jerry Ross, lyricist and composer (b. 1926)
• November 14 – Robert E. Sherwood, playwright (b. 1896)
• November 15 – Lloyd Bacon, actor and film director (b. 1889)
• November 22 – Shemp Howard, film actor and comedian (The Three Stooges) (b. 1895)
• November 29 – Rene Paul Chambellan, sculptor (b. 1893)
• December 1 – Chief Thundercloud, character actor (b. 1899)
• December 6
  • George Platt Lynes, photographer (b. 1907)
  • Honus Wagner, baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates), member of MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1874)
• December 22 – Otto Eppers, cartoonist (b. 1893)
• December 25
  • Thomas J. Preston, Jr., professor of archeology at Princeton University; second husband of Frances Cleveland (widow of President Grover Cleveland) (b. 1862)
  • Elizabeth Harrison Walker, daughter of President Benjamin Harrison and Mary Dimmick Harrison (b. 1897)