istoryworld
Events relating to north america
US clergyman Norman Vincent Peale has a best-seller in The Power of Positive Thinking
US composer John Cage's 4'33" consists of precisely that number of minutes and seconds of silence
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower wins the US presidential election with Richard Nixon as his vice-president
The Modern Jazz Quartet, led by pianist John Lewis, plays in the sophisticated style that becomes known as 'cool jazz'
Saul Bellow publishes The Adventures of Augie March, a novel about the experiences of a young Chicago Jew
Elia Kazan directs Marlon Brando in the film On the Waterfront
Fred Zinneman directs Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr and Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity
US architect Louis Kahn makes his reputation with the Yale Art Gallery in New Haven
Black American Malcolm Little, who has joined the Nation of Islam while in prison, adopts the surname X to symbolize his rejection of his slave name
US microbiologist Jonas Salk announces the discovery of an effective vaccine against polio
Alfred Charles Kinsey completes his study of human sexuality with the publication of Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female
US author James Baldwin publishes his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, set in Harlem
US abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning exhibits his series Women nos I-VI, on which he has been working since 1938
William Wyler directs Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, a beguiling comedy about a princess's romance in Rome
US citizens Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sent to the electric chair as convicted spies
US golfer Ben Hogan wins the US Open, the US Masters and the British Open in a single year
Within the year Marilyn Monroe stars in Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire
Arthur Miller's play The Crucible uses the Salem witch trials as a metaphor for the contemporary paranoia of McCarthyism
Merce Cunningham forms his own company of dancers, initially at Black Mountain College in North Carolina
Baseball star Joe Dimaggio marries Marilyn Monroe, but the marriage lasts only a year
Senator McCarthy's Communist witch-hunt is broadcast live for several weeks on US television
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb', is investigated for Communist sympathies and his security clearance is withdrawn
The term Domino Theory is coined to reflect President Eisenhower's view of how states might fall to Communism
Bill Haley & His Comets record Rock Around the Clock, providing an early classic of US rock and roll
The US Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in US schools is illegal
