January:
- Fulgencio Batista flees Havana as Fidel Castro’s forces, led by Che Guevara, advance into the Cuban capital. The Cuban communists execute 71 Batista supporters
- The Soviet Union launches Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of Earth’s Moon
- Alaska is admitted as the 49th state of the United States
- The International Maritime Organisation is inaugurated
- Charles de Gaulle is inaugurated as the first president of the French Fifth Republic
- Motown Records is founded by Berry Gordy Jr in Detroit
- The European Court of Human Rights is established
- The Boeing 707 airliner begins service
February:
- A Swiss referendum rejects female suffrage
- A chartered plane transporting Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper crashes in foggy conditions near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all on board
- Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba
- The first weather satellite, Vanguard 2, is launched to measure cloud coverage for the US Navy
- Women in Nepal vote for the first time
March:
- Mattel’s Barbie doll is launched in the US
- The Tibetan uprising begins in Lhasa when Chinese officials attempt to arrest Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, who later escapes and granted asylum in India
- Busch Gardens opens in Tampa, Florida
- The Marx Brothers make their last television appearance in The Incredible Jewel Robbery
April:
- NASA announces its selection of seven military pilots to become the first US astronauts, later named the Mercury Seven
- National People’s Congress elects Liu Shaoqi as Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, successor to Mao Zedong
- Icelandic gunboats fire on British trawlers in the first of the “Cod Wars”
May:
- The first Ten Tors event is held on Dartmoor
- Nottingham Forest defeat Luton Town 2-1 at Wembley to claim the FA Cup
- The Triton Fountain is inaugurated in Valletta, Malta
- British Empire Day is renamed Commonwealth Day
- Squirrel monkey, Miss Baker, and rhesus macaque, Miss Able, are launched into space from Cape Canaveral. Their successful recovery makes them the first living beings to return safely to Earth after space flight
June:
- Singapore becomes a self-governing crown colony of Britain with Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister
- Real Madrid defeat Stade Reims 2-0 in Stuttgart to win the European Cup
- The USS Barbero and US Postal Service attempt to deliver mail via Missile Mail
- The USS George Washington is launched as the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles
- Disneyland Monorail System, the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, opens to the public in Anaheim, California
- Seán Lemass becomes the third Taoiseach of Ireland
- Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after nine years in Wakefield prison and allowed to emigrate to East Germany, where he resumes a scientific career
- Corona, believed to be the first operational reconnaissance satellite, is launched as a science mission “Discoverer 4” from Vanderburg Air Force Base
July:
- The 49-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia
- Groups of Kurdish and communist militias rebel in Kirkuk, Iraq against the central government
- The first skull of Australopithecus is discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania
- UK postcodes are introduced for the first time, as an experiment, in Norwich
- The Mental Health Act becomes law, modernising the care of mental disorders and abolishing the difference between psychiatric and other types of hospitals
August:
- Martial Law is declared in Laos
- Explorer 6 sends the first picture of Earth from orbit
- Cyprus gains independence from the UK
- Hawaii is admitted as the 50th US state following President Dwight D Eisenhower signing of the Hawaii Admission Act in March
- The original Mini designed by Sir Alec Issigonis is launched
- House of Fraser wins the bidding war for Harrods in a £37 million deal
- Barclays becomes the first bank to install a computer
September:
- Bonanza, the first regularly scheduled TV program presented in colour, premieres
- Luna 2 becomes the first the first man-made object to crash on the Moon
- USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev and his wife tour the US at the invitation of President Eisenhower
- The Xerox 914, the first plain paper copier, is introduced to the public
- Ceylon’s Prime Minister, SWRD Bandaranaike is assassinated
- Typhoon Vera hits central Honshū, Japan as a 160mph Category 5 storm, killing an estimated 5,098 people, injuring 38,921 and leaving 1,533,000 homeless
- The first large unit action of the Vietnam War takes place when two companies of the ARVN’s 23rd Division are ambushed by a Viet Cong force of several hundred
- Nikita Khrushchev meets Mao Zedong in Beijing
October:
- Rod Serling’s classic anthology series The Twilight Zone premieres
- USSR probe Luna 3 sends the first ever photos of the far side of the Moon
- New York City’s Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens to the public
- Astérix the Gaul appears for the first time in Franco-Belgian comic Pilote
- The UK General election results in a record third successive Conservative victory as they increase their majority to 100 seats. Among the new members of Parliament is Margaret Thatcher, representing Finchley, North London
November:
- In Rwana, Hutu politician Dominique Mbonyumutwa is beaten up by Tutsi forces, leading to a period of violence known as the wind of destruction
- Minister of Transport Ernest Marples opens the first section of the M1, between Watford and Crick, along with spur motorways M45 and M10
- Rogers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music premieres on Broadway
- The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations
- The metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, MOFSET or MOS transistor, is invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs, revolutionising the electronics industry and becoming the fundamental building block of the Digital Revolution. The MOFSET goes on to become the most widely manufactured device in history with 13 sextillion (1.3×1022) produced between 1960 and 2018
- London Transport introduces the production AEC Routemaster double-decker bus into public service
- Prestwick and Renfrew Airports become the first in the UK with duty-free shops
December:
- Twelve countries, including the US and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty that sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, marking the first arms control agreement during the Cold War
- Croatian fascist politician and former dictator Ante Pavelić dies of the wounds sustained in an assassination attempt two years prior
- Health enthusiast Dr Barbara Moore walks from Edinburgh to London
Other:
- Cultivars of plants must be named in a modern language, not in Latin, from this year on
- Nylon tights are first sold on the open market as “Panti-Legs”
- The first known human with HIV dies in the Congo
- The Caspian tiger becomes extinct in Iran
- Car ownership in Britain now exceeds 30% of households
- The first hostile takeover of a public company in the UK occurs, as Tube Investments allied with US firm Reynolds Metals secure control of British Aluminium
- According to the Official Charts Company’s 2011 revised list, the best-selling single in the UK is “Living Doll” by Cliff Richard and The Drifters
- The most expensive film in the world at the time with a budget of $15 million, Ben-Hur, also becomes the highest grossing film of the year, earning $147 million at the box-office
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