1956 Fun Facts, History and Trivia

Quick Facts from 1956:

• World Changing Event: Elvis Presley appeared on The Ed Sullivan Sullivan Show on September 9. 82.6% of American households watched.
• The Top Song was Don’t Be Cruel/ Hound Dog by Elvis Presley
• Influential Songs include: Tutti Frutti by Little Richard and Don’t Be Cruel/ Hound Dog by Elvis Presley
• The Happy Earworm: The Happy Whistler by Don Robertson
• The Movies to Watch include The Ten Commandments, Giant, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Love Me Tender, Carousel, Bus Stop, Forbidden Planet, High Society, Seven Wonders of the World and The King and I
• The Most Famous Person in America was probably William Holden
• Soap Operas As the World Turns and Edge of Night premiered on TV
• Notable books include: Peyton Place by Grace Metalious and Eloise by Kay Thompson
• Price of 6 oz Nestles Chocolate Chip Morsels in 1956: 19 cents
  Basketball, official size: $2.89
  Hockey Stick: 79 cents
  Hockey Puck: 25 cents
• The Funny TV Guy was: Ernie Kovacs
  The Funny Late Show Host: Steve Allen
  The Funny TV Lady: Lucille Ball
• The Bald Guy was: Yul Brynner
• Tween and Teen Dancing: ‘Sock Hops’- 50s school dances, were named after the fact that you had to take off your shoes to protect the varnished cafeteria and gymnasium floors.
• The Conversation: Was Elvis Presley dancing with too much sex appeal on TV?

“The Quotes of 1956:”
“That’ll be the day”
– John Wayne, in The Searchers

“You’re in good hands with Allstate”
-Allstate

“We will bury you.”
– Nikita Khrushchev

“Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse”
– James Dean

“Takes a licking and keeps on ticking”
-Times (watches)

“Away go troubles down the drain”
– Roto-Rooter

The Scandals:
Charles Van Doren and Herb Stempel, the leading competitors on TV’s quiz show, Twenty-One, admitted to being coached by producers of the show.

At the 1956 Olympics, Barry Larkin, a veterinary science student at Sydney University’s St. Johns College, successfully impersonated an Olympic torchbearer, handing the mayor of Sydney a painted chair leg topped with a pair of burning underwear in front of a crowd of thousands.

Dick Clark took over hosting duties on Bob Horn’s Bandstand after Bob allegedly twiddled with female teenage dancers who appeared on his show. They changed the name to American Bandstand.

Firsts:
Dodge produced the first car specifically marketed to women. The La Femme had a pink exterior and came with a pink umbrella and a lipstick holder.

On July 9, 1956, Dick Clark began hosting American Bandstand.

The first backup camera in a car was in the 1956 Buick Centurion concept car.

The first shipping container was invented and patented (Patent #2853968A) in 1956 by Malcolm Mc Lean, which reduced his shipping cost from $5.86 to .16 cents, paving the way for globalization and mass intercontinental shipping.

As the World Turns was first broadcast on CBS.

NBC introduced its multicolored peacock logo in 1956 to entice people to buy color TVs manufactured by RCA, which owned the network.

Neutrinos were discovered. #science

Abigail Van Buren’s (aka Pauline Phillips) “Dear Abby” advice column first appeared in newspapers.

Jimmy Woo, Federal Agent in Antman and The Wasp and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent in comics books, first appeared in 1956’s Yellow Claw #1 from Atlas Comics (later Marvel Comics).

Batwoman (aka Kathy Kane) first appeared in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956).

“In God We Trust” wasn’t the official U.S. motto until 1956.

Tater Tots went on sale.

Pop Culture Facts:
Monkee Mike Nesmith’s mother, Bette Nesmith Graham invented “Mistake Out,” later renamed Liquid Paper.

October 8, Game 5 of the World Series, NY Yankee right-hander Don Larson pitched a ‘perfect game.’

The record for the most Olympic medals ever won by a female is held by Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina. Competing in three Olympics, between 1956 and 1964, she won 18 medals.

The hovercraft was invented by Christopher Cockerell.

Completed in1954, the Capitol Records Building in Los Angeles has a light on top of that spells out the word ‘Hollywood’ in Morse code. It started blinking Hollywood in 1956 and has only stopped to celebrate Capitol Records 50th Anniversary where it blinked “Capitol 50”.

On CBS, The Wizard of Oz became the first major Hollywood film running more than ninety minutes to be televised uncut in one evening.

In 1956, the US passed the Refrigerator Safety Act, which made it mandatory for all fridges to be magnetically sealed.

The world record for “Greatest One-Minute Rainfall” is 31.2 mm (1.23 inches) in Unionville, Maryland on July 4, 1956

25 people were hospitalized after a melee at a Bill Haley concert in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Killer bees (Africanized bees) were created in Brazil in 1956 by crossbreeding African and Brazilian honeybees in an attempt to increase honey production.

In 1956 the IBM 350 hard disk drive had 3.75 MB of storage, weighed over 2000 lbs.

The phrase “I cried all the way to the bank” reputedly came from Liberace in 1956, after a newspaper crudely accused him of homosexuality and he sued and won.
A. The phrase was used before he said it.
B. He was a (closeted) homosexual.

Alfred Hitchcock remade his own movie, 1934’s The Man Who Knew Too Much as The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956.

Thomas W. Attridge Jr, a test pilot, shot the Grumman F-11 Tiger plane he was flying by catching up to the fired 20 mm bullets and caused his own crash landing.

RIP:
Alcohol-Related Artist Death: Jackson Pollock died in a car accident. His 1948 work, No. 5 sold to David Geffen for $140,000,000.

Albert Woolson (February 11, 1850 – August 2, 1956), the last Civil War veteran and Union Soldier, died in 1956.

There was a fourth network on American broadcast television in the 1940s and 1950s called The DuMont Television Network. The network folded in 1956, and today it has been all but forgotten because most of its archives were destroyed.

1956 Billboard Number One Songs:
November 26, 1955 – January 13, 1956:
Sixteen Tons – Tennessee Ernie Ford

January 14 – February 17:
Memories Are Made Of This – Dean Martin

February 18 – March 2:
Great Pretender – The Platters

March 3 – March 23:
Rock And Roll Waltz – Kay Starr

March 24 – May 2:
Poor People Of Paris – Les Baxter

May 3 – June 15:
Heartbreak Hotel – Elvis Presley

June 16 – August 3:
Wayward Wind – Gogi Grant

August 4 – August 17:
I Almost Lost My Mind – Pat Boone

August 18 – September 14:
My Prayer – The Platters

September 15 – November 2:
Don’t Be Cruel/Hound Dog – Elvis Presley

November 3 – November 16:
Green Door – Jim Lowe

November 17 – December 7:
Love Me Tender – Elvis Presley

December 8 – December 21:
Singing The Blues – Guy Mitchell

December 22 – December 28:
Love Me Tender – Elvis Presley

December 29, 1956 – February 8, 1957:
Singing The Blues – Guy Mitchell