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MAJOR WORLD EVENTS:

• Nikita Khrushchev wins power struggle in Soviet Union after the death of Josef Stalin.
• Soviet Union detonates its first hydrogen bomb Joseph Stalin dies (March 5).
• East Berliners rise against Communist rule quelled by tanks (June 17).
• Korean armistice signed (July 27).
• Moscow announces explosion of hydrogen bomb (Aug. 20).
• Josip Broz Tito becomes president of Yugoslavia
• Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes premier of Egypt

US PROFILE/EVENTS:

• President: Dwight D. Eisenhower; Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
• Population: 163,025,854
• Life Expectancy: 69.6 years
• Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted nationally televised inquiries into the communist infiltration of show business and the armed forces. His activities eventually inspired a backlash and a condemnation by the Senate. An Edward R. Murrow interview in which Senator Joseph McCarthy was caught in several lies helped end McCarthy's witch-hunt for Communists. The Senate report on the notorious Republican "Commie hunter," said much of "McCarthyism" was promoted and motivated by his self-interests. The Senate voted in Dec. to condemn Sen. McCarthy for his tactics and behavior.
• Convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed in Sing Sing prison (June 19)
• Alleged Communist Charlie Chaplin leaves U.S. permanently.  Justice Dept. warns him any attempt to reenter the country will be challenged.
• CIA intervenes in Guatemala, helping to overthrow government
• Radical Puerto Rican nationalists attack House of Representatives
• Physicist and nuclear pioneer J. Robert Oppenheimer dismissed from government projects due to his political beliefs.
• The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled to ban racial segregation in public schools.
• Congress and the Pentagon authorized creation of the U.S. Air Force Academy.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

• New York Stock Exchange prices reach their highest level since 1929.
• President Eisenhower ends all wage, salary and price controls.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:

• The U.S.'s first hydrogen bomb detonation took place at Eniwetok Atoll
• U.S. Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager sets speed record in X-1 rocket plane
• The USS Nautilus, the first atomic submarine, was commissioned at Groton, Connecticut.
• Boeing tested the 707, the first jet-powered transport plane.
• An expedition led by Sir Edmund Hillary is the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
• Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (This is considered a mystery by most males)
• Dr. Jonas Salk discovered an anti-polio vaccine - 400,000 school children are given vaccine.
• Heart Surgery was performed on all 4 valves.
• Scabies fades out
• First clear evidence was presented linking lung cancer to cigarette smoking.
• First successful kidney transplant was performed