1956

1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday in the Gregorian calendar.

• The Summer Olympics were held in Melbourne, Australia.
• The Winter Olympics were held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. This was the first Olympic Games in which the USSR competed.
• February 11 – British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean appear in the Soviet Union after being missing for 5 years
• March 2 – Morocco declares its independence from France
• April 19 – American actress Grace Kelly marries Rainier III, Prince of Monaco
• May 2 – The United Methodist Church in America grants women full ordained clergy status
• June 5 – Elvis Presley performs "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show. His dancing causes a scandal.
• July 25 – The Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria sinks after colliding with the Swedish ship SS Stockholm, killing 51
• August 17 – West Germany bans the Communist Party of Germany
• September 16 – Television broadcasting begins in Australia
• October 26 – Red Army troops invade Hungary
• October 29 – November 7 – Suez Crisis: France, Israel and the United Kingdom in war with Egypt.
• November 30 – Floyd Patterson wins the world heavyweight boxing championship
• December 5 – Rose Heilbron becomes Britain's first female judge

• January 3 – Mel Gibson, American-Australian actor
• January 28 – Dario Chioli, Italian poet
• February 6 - Jerry Marotta, American drummer (Orleans)
• February 16 – Peter Hook, English bass guitarist
• February 26 – Emanuel Radovan, Romanian politician of Albanian nationality.
• February 27 – Csaba Vrabie, Romanian politician of Hungarian nationality from UDMR.
• February 27 – Angela Aames, American actress (d. 1988)
• February 29 – Aileen Wuornos, American serial killer (d. 2002)
• March 12 – Michael Catain, American businessman and convicted criminal
• March 24 – Steve Ballmer, American business person, CEO of Microsoft
• April 5 – Dwight Hicks, American NFL player
• April 12 – Andy García, American actor
• April 19 - Lane Hoppen, American singer-songwriter and musician (Orleans)
• May 7 – Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime minister of the Netherlands
• May 17 – Bob Saget, American actor and comedian
• June 2 – Mani Ratnam, Indian movie director
• June 4 – Martin Adams, English darts player
• June 11 – Joe Montana, American NFL player
• June 11 – Ray Nagin, American politician, mayor of New Orleans
• July 9 – Tom Hanks, American actor
• July 13 – Michael Spinks, American boxer
• July 15 – Joe Satriani, Italian-American guitar virtuoso
• August 4 – Margaret Whitman, American business person, CEO of Ebay
• August 26 – Sally Beamish, English composer
• August 28 - Adrian Schervan Romanian water polo player
• August 31 – Masashi Tashiro, Japanese television performer
• August 31 - Mark Mangini, American sound editor
• September 14 – Maxime Verhagen, Dutch politician
• September 17 – Andreas Starke, German politician, Lord Mayor of Bamberg
• September 27 – Milan Smrčka, Czech musician
• October 1 — Theresa May, British Prime Minister
• October 2 – Mike Scully, American television writer
• October 28 – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 6th President of Iran
• November 11 – Ian Craig Marsh, English musician
• December 4 - Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, 9th President of Mauritania
• December 6 - Peter Buck, American guitarist (R.E.M.)
• December 8 - Warren Cuccurullo, American guitarist (Duran Duran)
• December 9 - Jean-Pierre Thiollet, French author
• Glen Hill (actor), actor
• Hugh Cook, English-born New Zealand writer
• Hans Enoksen, Prime minister of Greenland

• January 18 – Konstantin Päts, 1st President of Estonia (b. 1874)
• January 27 – Erich Kleiber, German conductor (b. 1890)
• February 10 – Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, British marshal of the Royal Air Force (b. 1873)
• February 29 – Elpidio Quirino, 6th President of the Philippines (b. 1890)
• March 8 – Drastamat Kanayan, Armenian military leader and politician (b. 1884))
• March 17 – Irène Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1897)
• April 13 – Emil Nolde, German-Danish painter (b. 1867)
• May 18 – Maurice Tate, English cricketer (b. 1895)
• June 22 – Walter de la Mare, English poet, short story writer, and novelist (b. 1873)
• June 26 – Clifford Brown, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1930)
• July 11 – John T. Raulston, Scopes Monkey Trial judge (b. 1868)
• August 11- Jackson Pollack, American painter
• August 14 – Bertolt Brecht, German playwright (b. 1898)
• August 25 – Alfred Kinsey, American sex researcher (b. 1894)
• September 22 – Frederick Soddy, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1877)
• October 25 – Risto Ryti, 5th President of Finland (b. 1889)
• October 30 – Pio Baroja, Spanish writer (b. 1872)
• November 22 – Theodore Kosloff, Russian-born ballet dancer, choreographer and actor (b. 1882)
• December 14 – Juho Kusti Paasikivi, 7th President of Finland (b. 1870)
• December 16 – Nina Hamnett, Welsh artist (b. 1890)

• Nobel Prize in Physics won by William Shockley, John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain for inventing the point-contact transistor
• Nobel Prize in Chemistry won by Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, English physical chemist, and Nikolay Semyonov, Russian/Soviet physicist and chemist
• Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine won by André Frédéric Cournand, Werner Forssmann, and Dickinson W. Richards for the development of cardiac catheterization
• Nobel Prize in Literature won by Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish poet
• Nobel Peace Prize – Not Awarded

• Around the World in 80 Days winning the Academy Award for Best Picture
• Bus Stop starring Marilyn Monroe and Don Murray
• Giant starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean
• Hollywood or Bust the final Martin and Lewis movie
• The King and I winning Best Actor for Yul Brynner
• The Searchers starring John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter
• The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner
• War and Peace starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda

• Agatha Christie – Dead Man's Folly
• Arthur C. Clarke – The City and the Stars
• Ian Fleming – Diamonds Are Forever
• Fred Gipson – Old Yeller
• Alf Prøysen – Little Old Mrs Pepperpot