News
Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union continue testing atomic bombs following WWll. The U.S. develops Hydrogen Bombs 450 times more powerful than the bomb dropped at Hiroshima. The US tests bombs in the Marshall Islands including the Bikini Atoll.
1956 Context: News, Entertainment, Lifestyle
News
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation on buses is illegal. This follows a year long Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott led by Martin Luther King and sparked by the 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks.
News:
Southdale Center, the first shopping mall in the U.S. opens in Edina, Minnesota a suburb of Minneapolis.
Advertising
Detail from a 1956 Dodge advertisement showing car tail lights and "fins" demonstrating the influence of the "space age" on automobile design.
Lifestyle
Televisions become widely available in American homes and replace radio as the primary source of information and entertainment.
Movies
Drive-In movies are popular. Cecil B. DeMille's film The Ten Commandments is the most expensive movie ever made at the time and becomes the top film of 1956. Starring Charlton Heston, the movie is nominated for seven Academy Awards.
Movies
Lobby card detail showing Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean in the 1956 film Giant.
Movies
Low budget science fiction movies are popular, especially with teens, reflecting both the fascination and fear associated with the growing importance of science, technology and the Cold War.
Movies
Grace Kelly stars in the film High Society with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. It is Kelly's final Hollywood role as she leaves acting to marry Monaco's Prince Rainier.
News
Monaco's Prince Rainier marries Hollywood movie star Grace Kelly in April 1956. The couple had met the previous year at the Cannes Film Festival.
Lifestyle
Teen girls at a 1956 Chicago Debutante Ball.
Lifestyle
Boys at Chicago Debutante Ball.
Lifestyle
The lobby of the new GM Technical Center showing "Mid-Century" modern architectural design.
Lifestyle
Office scene showing a secretary hard at work in New York City.
News
The increase in the birth rate following World War ll (the Baby Boom) drives suburban expansion and the need for new schools in the 1950's. This 1956 classroom scene is from a new elementary school in suburban Long Island, New York.
Advertising
1956 Coca Cola advertisement with idealized depiction of American teen culture.
Fashion
Detail from a 1956 Penney's catalog showing summer casual women's fashion.
Fashion
Detail from a 1956 advertisement for Arrow shirts.
Lifestyle
Family picnic in a Los Angeles park 1956.
Lifestyle
Car hop taking an order from a family at Bob's Big Boy Drive-In in suburban Los Angeles.
News
The 1956 US presidential election pits Republican incumbent President Dwight Eisenhower against Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson, Governor of Illinois. Eisenhower wins his second term in a landslide.
News
The Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria collides with the Swedish ship Stockholm off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. 1,660 passengers are rescued, but 46 lives are lost as the Andrea Doria sinks.
News
Israel, backed by the US and UK, invades Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal after the canal is nationalized by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser backed by the Soviet Union. The Suez Crisis is resolved in 1957 with a negotiated settlement and withdrawal of troops.
News
Nationwide protests against the Soviet controlled Hungarian People's Republic results in the collapse of the government. By the end of the year Soviet forces invade and install a new government, killing over 2500 Hungarian citizens in the process.