The American Institute of Architects celebrated its one hundredth
anniversary.
Los Angeles adopted a building code permitting construction of
high-rise buildings.
Popular
movies included
The Bridge on the River Kwai starring
William Holden and Alec Guinness
Twelve Angry Men starring
Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb
Love in the
Afternoon
starring
Gary Cooper, Maurice
Chevalier, and Audrey Hepburn, Sayonara starring Marlon
Brando
The Three Faces of
Eve
starring Joanne Woodward and Lee J. Cobb.
Fiction included James Agee’s A Death in the Family, James
Gould Cozzens’s By Love Possessed, William Faulkner’s The
Town and Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.
Popular music included Pat Boone’s “Don’t Forbid Me” and “April Love,”
Elvis Presley’s “Too Much,” “All Shook Up,” “Let Me Be Your Teddy
Bear,:”
and “Jailhouse Rock,” Sonney James’s “Young Love,” Buddy Knox’s “Party
Doll,”
Debbie Reynolds’s “Tammy,” Johnny Mathis’s “Chances Are,” and Sam
Cooke’s
“You Send Me.”
Killer bees
imported from Africa spread north in the Americas from
Brazil
The Cat in the
Hat by
Dr. Seuss became popular.
The Motown
Corporation was founded by Berry Gordy, jr.
Wham-O
Manufacturing introduced the Frisbee and the Hula Hoop.
January 2: The Immigration and
Naturalization Service announced that 350,000 immigrants entered the
country in one year.
May 21: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner
of San Francisco’s City Lights Books, was arrested for selling lewd
materials (“Howl” by Allen Ginsberg).
September 21: “Perry
Mason” debuted
on CBS
September 26: West Side Story
with music by Leonard Bernstein premiered at the Winter Garden Theater.
October 4: “Leave it to
Beaver” first
appeared on CBS
October 10: Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles and Attorney General Herbert Brownell announced that
fingerprinting would no longer be required for visitors entering the
country for a year
or less.
December 23: The U.S. Census Bureau
announced that the United States had an average of fifty-sevens per
square
mile of land.