For Want of A Sandwich - A Franz Ferdinand Lives Wikibox TL
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What acts of high treason did Heydrich do and what was his tenure as Germany's "shadow dictator" like?
Ban Ki-Moon
Ban Ki-Moon is a Korean diplomat. Educated in Gyeongseong and Harvard, he was the Ambassador to the United States when he was called to become Foreign Minister for the technocratic government of Song Sang-hyun; an able diplomat, he went on to serve under three different Prime Ministers before being compelled to resign after a diplomatic incident with Japan in 2006. He returned to his former office when democracy was returned in Korea, serving under Kim Kwan-yong, resigning in protest of the government’s policies in 2014. Even if he is considered retired, he is considered as a future candidate for Prime Ministership.
They will !
Virtually all countries in America, save for Hispaniola and Peru.
Thank you very much !
Terrorism is still terrible ITTL.
Thanks for noticing !
Heydrich was the puppet master of German politics after the World War, as head of the Kaiserliche Marine and the secret services, he pushed for nuclear retaliation against rebellions and harsh repression at home ; he was a mix of Hoover, Ludendorff and Canaris in that regard. He was dismissed after the electoral victory of Vogel in 1968 and tried to rally the Junkers and ultranationalist officers in a military coup ; the plot was uncovered and he was sent to martial court, only gaining a light sentence.
Considering the pyramids and the Dome of the Rock were blown up, has there been any talk of rebuilding them in recent years or not really?
1956
Winter : Estonian War : the Siege of Reval continues, along with the Finnish airlift. Due to the harsh conditions, Russian troops keep their lines in Karelia.
January-December : Japanese troops make few progress in their repression of the islamist revolt in Aceh, Indonesia.
January : Vietnamese Civil War : the Japanese achieve the pacification of Saigon, with extensive repression conducted by the Kempeitai to research and neutralize nationalist elements.
1 January - The principality of Liechtenstein, an independent state, becomes a member state of the German Empire. Prince Franz Jozef II becomes a full German prince while the position of provincial administrator is replaced by a Prime Minister.
Spain becomes a member of the Reichspakt.
Oil imports from Persia return to their pre-1955 level, confirming that the Persian government has successfully taken over its supply lines since nationalization.
After the establishment of the Italian protectorate in Yemen the year before, the first Italian troops arrive in Yemen.
2 January - Legislative elections in Ireland : the Fine Gael wins an absolute majority. Mícheál Ó Coileáin is reconducted as Taoiseach.
3 January - Former German minister (Foreign Affairs, Finances, Interior) and Minister-President of Baden Joseph Wirth (Zentrum) dies in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden, aged 76.
Russian composer Alexander Tikhonovich Gretchaninov dies in Petrograd, aged 91.
8 January -An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 strikes the Arica and Parinacota Region of Bolivia, resulting in at least one death
12 January - An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 strikes Budapest, Hungary, resulting in two deaths and major damage.
16 January - Egyptian War : the Battle of the Suez Canal ends in British victory. Syndicalist troops begin their retreat to the Nile Delta.
19 January - Fouad Serageddin (Wafd Party) is appointed as Prime Minister of Egypt. Encouraged by British advisors, the new head of government covertly extends a hand to the Muslim Brotherhood.
22 January - Legislative elections in Poland : the National Party becomes the majority party in the Sejm but falls short of an absolute majority. August Zaleski remains Prime Minister, with a minority government.
23 January - Thami El Glaoui, Pasha of Marrakesh, dies aged 76 in Marrakesh, Morocco. The main leader of the Moroccan faction favoring German protectorate, most of his faction is cut off with his death, providing a strong boost for the independence cause.
Hungarian Babelsberg director and producer Sandor Korda (The Private Life of Frederick II, Rembrandt, The Thief of Baghdad) dies in Berlin, aged 62.
26 January - The VIII Winter Olympic Games open in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy ; the city was scheduled to host the games in 1944 but were delayed by the outbreak of the World War.
During the Australia Day celebrations in Sydney, the Duke of Kent is invited to see the brand new equipments of the Australian Army and Navy, signaling the progress of the rearmement program in Australia.
Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia dies in Petrograd, Russia, aged 65.
27 January - German (formerly Danubian) conductor Erich Kleiber, musical director of the Prussian Royal Opera, dies in Berlin, aged 65.
28 January-A general strike happens in Italian Tunisia, drawing dozens of thousands in the streets, demonstrating for independence. The demonstrations and their leadership are throughly repressed by Italian troops.
Elvis and Aaron Presley begin their itinerant preaching in Mississippi.
29 January - American journalist and essayist H. L. Mencken dies in Baltimore, aged 75.
31 January - British author A. A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh) dies in Hartfield, Sussex, aged 74.
February - Due to exceptionally cold temperatures in France, below -20°C, crops are massively depleted, leading to widespread famine throughout the country.
Pro-independence demonstrations and riots rock Italian Tunisia.
3 February - Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, former Chief of the Air Staff, dies in London, aged 83.
American psychologist, ethologist, eugenicist and primatologist Robert Yerkes dies in New Haven, Connecticut, aged 79.
4 February - The Central Bank of Argentina is nationalized, allowing Argentina to pay off its billion-dollar debt to the Bank of America and to begin to reclaim its own interest with Great Britain.
5 February - The VIII Winter Olympic Games conclude in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Russia has won the most medals of the games.
6 February - The French governement proclaims that order has been restored in Algeria.
8 February - American former baseball catcher, manager and team owner Connie Mack (Philadelphia Athletics, now New Orleans Atheltics) dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, aged 93.
9-19 February - The Berlin International Film Festival takes place. Written on the Wind, a melodrama on a decadent Bavarian noble family directed by Hans Sierck, wins Best Picture. Yuliy Briner (Russian) wins Best Acting for his role of Count Pyotr Bezukhov in War and Peace by Sergei Boncharuk
11 February - Arthur, the former Prince of Wales, elopes from Great Britain with his wife Jacqueline Bouvier due to high media pressure. He arrives in Canada a month later.
11-12 February - A referendum on integration with Great Britain is held in Malta. The proposal is rejected by 52,1 % against. The proponents of Malta as a Dominion (the Conservatives) gain the upper hand in the ongoing struggle.
14 February - President of the United States Alfred Driscoll announces he will seek election for a full term this year.
French aviation pioneer Roland Garros dies, aged 67, in Paris, France.
16 February - The official name of the Basque Republic becomes Euskadi. Inspired by the Irish precedent, Basque names become obligatory for individuals.
19 February - General elections in Italy : the Italian Social Movement retains its absolute majority. Duce Italo Balbo is reconducted as President of Council.
20 February - An earthquake of magnitude 6.2 strikes the Doryaleum region in Greece, causing fourteen deaths.
23 February - In the Ottoman Empire, inter-religious and inter-ethnic marriages are forbidden by law.
Norma Jean Mortenson legally changes her name to Mona Monroe.
25 February - In front of an extraordinary session of the Duma in Petrograd, Russian Tsarina Olga adresses the length of the ongoing conflict in Estonia, but her speech quickly devolves in what would be known as the “Three Russias Dogma” : criticizing Germany for having “divided our brotherhood by forging puppet states of so-called Ukraine and White Ruthenia”, firmly installing the notion that Russians, Ukrainians and Ruthenians are the one and same people, the Three Russias. In an unexpected turn, she also addresses her will to provide large but controlled autonomies, with freedom of religion, language and culture for non-Russian peoples within the Empire, “in order for them to become not our subjects, but our equals under the House of Romanov”. Hereby all Russification policies are abandoned throughout Russia. She also announces that due to concerns about the security of Petrograd and in order to draw the dynasty and the political class closer to the Russian heartland, the capital will be relocated to Moscow, a first since the times of Peter the Great.
The “Three Russias Speech” makes the Tsarina the most popular figure throughout Russia, being hailed by all political classes but also by minorities such as the Georgians, Kazakhs, Tatars, Chechens and Azeris, even if Ukrainian and Ruthenian nationalist circles are of course deeply infuriated. It allows Olga to take the upper hand against her Tolstoyite Prime Minister, Georgy Florovsky, who will have to put in order the announced federalization of Russia and conduct the relocation from Petrograd to Moscow.
29 February - President of the Philippines Elpidio Quirino dies of a massive heart attack, aged 65, while preparing a meeting in Manila. He is succeeded by Vice President José Yulo, also from the Liberal Party.
March - Rising prices and massive food shortages lead to heavy riots in Spain, forcing the military to repress.
Anti-Muslim riots erupt throughout Dravida Nadu and Hyderabad, over concerns of Indian ingerency. The riots are violently repressed by local governments with British assistance, killing thousands in major cities.
4 March - During a speech in Tripoli, Libya, Duce of Italy Italo Balbo presents his plans for the Great Libyan River, a huge irrigation project to create a network of pipelines supplying fresh water from the Nubian fossil waters across Libya ; the project could take 15 years to be achieved, undergoing with the creation of a network of oil pipelines throughout the Libyan desert. The project is given a 50 billion lira budget.
Prince Irakli Bagration-Mukhraneli and physicist Alexander Nikuradse, Georgian nationalists who had lived in exile in Germany since 1938, enter Russian territory and launch an nationalist uprising in Tiflis, seizing key buildings in the former Georgian capital.
5 March - During a mass demonstration in Buenos Aires, President Juan Peron proclaims the Justice Era, the foundation of a new Argentine state based on the Justicialist principle, with himself as its “Lider Maximo” (Paramount Leader). This proclamation marks the final installation of Peron’s rule over Argentina and inscribes access to work, housing, education, health care and a minimum wage into the Constitution.
Tifilis Uprising : Prince Irakli Bagration-Mukhraneli proclaims the restoration of the Kingdom of Georgia from the balcony of the Vice-Regal Palace in Tiflis. The proclamation is not heard by many as not only the city is under military law, but the Georgian population, content with the “Three Russias Dogma” and autonomy, doesn’t share the Prince’s wish for a renewed independence.
7 March - Avalanches in Norway’s Nordland and Troms regions cause 21 deaths and heavy damage.
8 March - President of Armenia Drastamat Kanayan dies in Karin, Armenia, aged 71. According to the Constitution, President of the National Council Garo Sassouni takes office as acting President of Armenia.
9 March - Tiflis Uprising : The Russian Army intervenes and destroys the few Georgian nationalists. Alexander Nikuradse is summarily executed for high treason.
Italy and Greece agree to hold in 1957 a new referendum for the Dodecanese on whether or not the archipelago wishes to join Greece or to remain under Italian tutelage.
10 March - Prince Irakli Bagration-Mukhraneli finds refuge in the German consulate in Tiflis and is able to flee to Constantinople later in the month.
12 March - In the Polish Parliament, the National Party proceeds to a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister August Zaleski, winning a majority.
In French Algeria, the French Army begins a counter-guerilla campaign in the most rebellious province, Kabylia. Operations would last until 1965.
15 March - In a dramatic cabinet meeting, Armenian Minister of the Interior Soghomon Tehlirian reads “the last will of President Kanayan”, announcing that the late President had designated him as his legitimate successor. President Tehlirian is confirmed by the cabinet and decides to rule by decree, dissolving the National Council and putting the whole Armenian Republic under martial law. Thousands of opponents are arrested.
In 1969, “Kanayan’s last will” was confirmed by an independent journalistic investigation to be a forgery by Soghomon Tehlirian, in order to justify his own takeover of Armenia.
16 March - The wilaya of Mount Lebanon, in the Hashemite Caliphate, is struck by two earthquakes, of magnitudes respectively of 5.3 and 5.5. 148 people are killed.
Armenian Syndicalist general Missak Manouchian, who had returned from France the year before, is put under house arrest by Armenian police.
17 March - Vietnamese Civil War : the Viet Minh attack Japanese military poisitions in Dien Bien Phu, in northwestern Vietnam.
French Army Lieutenant Jean Le Pen is arrested by military police in Algiers, after reports that he was conspiring with pyrist elements within the French Army to launch a military coup against General de Hautecloque’s provisional government.
A demonstration for unification with Germany, organized by the Dietsche Bond, led by Anton Mussert, gather 6000 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
French (Syndicalist) scientist Irène Joliot-Curie, co-recipient of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physics for her research of new radioactive elements, daughter to Marie and Pierre Curie, dies aged 58 in New Haven, Connecticut.
American comedian Fred Allen dies, aged 61, in New York City.
20 March - Governor of Italian Tunisia, General Massimo Invrea, is assassinated in his office in Tunis by a young Tunisian nationalist Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The assassination throws the colony into chaos.
Tadeusz Bielecki, leader of the National Party, is appointed Prime Minister of Poland.
German (Danubian) politician Wilhelm Miklas (Christian Social Party) dies in Vienna, Austria, aged 83.
20-25 March - Tunis and major cities of Tunisia fall into riots, making vast victims among the Italian community and targeting colonial troops. The rebels however fail to unify under a single banner due to infighting.
21 March - At the 28th Academy Awards, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, directed by Henry King, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Marlon Brando wins Best Actor for his role in The Man with the Golden Arm, while Jennifer Jones wins Best Actress for her role in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.
22 March - Former President of Argentina (1947-1950), General Eduardo Lonardi, dies aged 59 in Buenos Aires.
23 March - Balochistan signs a treaty of cooperation with Persia.
25 March - Italian President of Council and Duce Italo Balbo asks the King for full emergency powers due to the Tunisian situation and obtains them : he proclaims a state of martial law and partial mobilization of the Army and the Navy.
General elections are held in Croatia. As all opposition parties are outlawed, all seats go to the Croatian Social Movement. Ante Vokić is designated again as Prime Minister.
30 March-4 April : Vietnamese Civil War : the battle of Dien Bien Phu rages, with Viet Minh troops trying to encircle Japanese positions.
30 March - Volcano Bezymianny, located in Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, erupts, destroying the summit.
Spring : Estonian War : the Russians launch a double offensive in the Kola Peninsula and in Karelia, while shelling resumes in Reval.
April - Vietnamese Civil War, Battle of Dien Bien Phu : Viet Minh positions are progressively destroyed by Japanese aviation, resulting in a massive defeat for the Viet Minh.
4 April - The French Labor Movement is officially banned by the military regime.
6 April - Forbidden from running for President by the Supreme Court in the November presidential election, Colonel Ramon Barquin leads a military coup in Cuba, overthrowing incumbent President Roberto Agramonte and installing himself as President. The military coup isn’t followed by much violence.
Evangelist Oral Roberts attends a sermon by the Presley Twins in Memphis, Tenneesse.
Filipino independentist and revolutionary leader Pio Valenzuela dies in Polo, Philippines, aged 86.
7 April - In Berlin, Germany, German Chancellor Heinrich von Brentano and Moroccan Prime Minister Ahmed Balafrej sign the final agreement for the end of the German protectorate over Morocco, with independence becoming effective on 7 April 1957, with Morocco becoming a member of the Reichspakt and keeping Germany as its main commercial partner.
8 April - Operation Scipione : the Italian Navy heavily destroys downtown Tunis during a bombing that lasts for six hours, killing most of its civilian population. During the following night, 60,000 Italian troops land in Tunis and begin the military occupation of the country.
The Bohemian National Council elects Prince Karl von Schwarzenberg as King of Bohemia on the first ballot, refusing other candidates. The official passation of powers is scheduled for June.
Grand Vizier Huseyin Nihal Pasha announces the success of the literacy campaign within the Ottoman Empire.
10 April - A referendum in Galicia wins a majority of 77,92 % of voters in favor of unification with Portugal. A 2005 investigation by O Diario revealed that the result had been tricked by both governments of Portugal and Galicia under pressure of Germany and Great Britain to impede any chances for a Spanish reunification.
12 April - In Algiers, a bomb attack against French barracks result in 6 deaths.
13 April - German painter Emil Nolde dies in Seebüll, Prussia, aged 88.
14 April - Siemens-Schuckert succesfully desmonstrates a quadruplex videotape system.
15 April - General elections are held in Greece, the first free since the proclaimation of the Hellenic Empire. The People’s Party wins a majority, resulting in its leader Spyridon Markezinis being appointed Prime Minister.
A tornado strikes the Greater Birmingham area of Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. Twenty-five people are killed and 400 homes damaged.
17 April - Bulgarian Czar Simeon II makes an official visit to the Ottoman Empire, stressing the warming of Ottoman-Bulgarian relations.
21 April - Typhoon Thelma hits the Philippine Islands.
A five-year-old girl in Minamata, Japan exhibits symptoms of an unknown disease of the central nervous system. The Japanese Ministry of Health launches an investigation.
27 April - Fenrir, a monster movie about a giant wolf destroying German cities after suffering from radioactive fallout in Poland, is released in Germany.
28 April - German lawyer, scientific organizer and politician Friedrich Schmidt-Ott dies, aged 95, in Berlin, Prussia.
29 April - Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, of the German and Bavarian Armies, dies in Füssen, Bavaria, aged 79.
30 April - In Mexico, General Agustin Olachea Aviles ousts President Miguel Henriquez Guzman in a military coup; the military takeover takes place in a period of instability that lasted since Obregon’s death and was supported by the United States.
Former US Secretary of State (1937-1941) and Governor and Senator of Kentucky Alben W. Barkley dies in Lexington, Virginia, aged 78.
Birmingham FC defeats West Ham United in the FA Cup Final in Wembley Stadium, London, Great Britain.
May - Italian Tunisia is entirely occupied by Italian troops during Operation Scipione : rebel leaders are tracked down and summarily executed, intellectuals are detained and tortured and the native civilians fall victim to massacres, rapes and looting.
Germany conducts a series of nuclear tests in the Kalahari Desert.
4 May - The Triumphal Arch is inaugurated by Kaiser Louis Ferdinand in Berlin, in Tiergarten, on the north side of the Charlottenburger Chaussee (now Richthofenstrasse), designed by Albert Speer and commemorating the German dead of the World War. One hundred meters high, it is much larger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
5 May - General elections are held in Sarawak : the Royal Party retains its majority. Abang Openg remains as Prime Minister.
7 May : Vietnamese Civil War - The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends with a Japanese victory. 8,000 Vietnamese nationalists are dead, while 2,300 Japanese were killed.
10 May : Estonian War : Finnish troops are able to restore communications with Murmansk, defeating the Russian offensive in the Kola Peninsula.
11 May - In Beni Oudjehane, Algeria, French troops slaughter 79 Algerian civilians.
13 May - General elections are held in Bohemia, the first since independence : the Czech Progressive Party increases its majority. Jan Masaryk is reconducted as Prime Minister, also holding the office of acting Head of State.
In Panama, government forces manage to dismantle the Workers’ Revolutionary Movement, a Syndicalist guerilla group.
15 May - Korean general elections : the Korean National Association wins a majority, defeating the Korean Brotherhood ; as a result, Lee Beom-seok is appointed as Prime Minister, replacing Lyuh Woon-hyung. Riots happen in major cities for two weeks due to the regime shift.
Presidential elections in Salvador : incumbent President Oscar Osorio (Party of Democratic Unification) is re-elected to a second term, defeating Rafael Carranza Anaya (Authentic Constitutional Party) in the first round.
16 May - The Bad Seed, directed by Alfred Hitchock, is released in the United States; It stars Bette Davis and Patty McCormack.
18 May - Lhotse, the world's fourth highest mountain, is successfully climbed for the first time, by Swiss mountaineers Ernst Reiss and Fritz Luchsinger.
Italian-born French poet, author, novelist and adventurer Guillaume Apollinaire (born Wilhelm Kostrowicki) dies in Memel, Prussia, aged 75.
20 May - Prime Minister of Poland Tadeusz Bielecki assumes full executive powers in Poland and begins to rule by decree.
24 May - The first European Singing Grand Prix, organized by the Italian Ministry of Culture, takes place in Lugano, Switzerland : “Refrain”, by Swiss artist Lys Assia, wins the contest.
26-27 May : The French Army conducts a series of arrests and summary executions in Tizi-Ouzou, in Algeria.
27 May - French President of Council Philippe de Hautecloque announces that free elections will be held in France on 8 July, without the participation of the Labor Movement.
30 May - During a visit in Mogadiscio, in Italian Somalia, Duce of Italy Italo Balbo salutes the contributions of the Somali Askaris to the Abyssinian War and promises Somalia that it should obtain its independence under 20 years, “while maintaining a strong link with Italy”.
31 May - Duce of Italy Italo Balbo relinquishes his emergency powers for the Tunisian situation.
June - Harvests are in net increase that year in China, showing the first results of the five-year-plan for agricultural modernisation.
Estonian War : The Finnish are unable to retake Viipuri.
1 June - A Dutch delegation, led by Prime Minister Louis Beel himself, arrives in Berlin to discuss possible integration of the Netherlands within Germany.
6 June - Hiram Bingham III, 32nd Président of the United States (1928-1929), discoverer of the Machu Picchu, former Senator from Connecticut, former Secretary of State (1926-1928), dies aged 80 in Washington D.C.
9 June - Argentina adopts a new Constitution, proclaiming the Justicialist principles of as tantamount to the Nation, inscribing corporatism, protectionism, protection of the workers and separation of the Church and the State within the official text.
13 June - The Dutch government announces that it renounces all negotiations relative to a possible integration of the Netherlands as a member state of the German Empire. The German Foreign Office takes note.
General elections in Spain : the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights wins an absolute majority. José Maria Gil-Robles is reconducted as President of Council.
The MTK Budapest FC defeats A.C. Milano in the Europeans Cup’ finals in Budapest Stadium, 4-2.
A tropical storm makes landfall near Cocodrie, Louisiana (USA), killing 4.
17 June - Bolivian union leader Juan Lechin is killed by soldiers in La Paz, Bolivia. His assassination marks the beginning of a full repression headed by dictator German Busch, claimed to be turned against the “Syndicalist vermin”. The political violence disgusts German and American observers and investors, as opposition leaders Walter Guevara and Victor Paz Estenssoro, fearing for their lives, join the regime.
Presidential election in Argentina : incumbent Juan Peron (Justicialist Party) is elected to a full term as President of Argentina, running as the sole candidate.
18 June - Prince Karl von Schwarzenberg becomes the first king of independent Bohemia, taking the regnal name of Karel IV. Acting President Jan Masaryk becomes Prime Minister.
Egyptian War : all Syndicalists access to the Mediterranean Sea, save for the Alexandria region, are cut by British troops.
19 June - American businessman Thomas J. Watson, CEO of IBM, dies aged 82, in New York City.
21 June - Bohemia officially adopts its Constitution, installing an unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy.
23 June - The Halles Residential Towers, designed by Le Corbusier, end their construction in the center of Paris.
Egyptian War : Cairo is secured by British troops.
24 June - Parliamentary elections in Iceland : the Progressive Party remains the majority party. Hermann Jonasson is reconducted as Prime Minister.
25 June - All English inscriptions and signs are removed in Belize (former British Honduras), by decree of the Guatemalan government.
Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, former US Chief of Naval Operations, dies, aged 77, in Kittery, Maine.
26 June - General Humberto Delgado is appointed Prime Minister of Portugal, replacing General Julio Botelho Moniz.
28 June - In Posen, Prussia, the Polish refugee community, worried by the political changes in Poland, erupt in riots after rumors of deportation have spread. Three days of riots begin in Posen, aimed at German law enforcement and the Jewish community.
The King and I, directed by Walter Lang, is released in the United. it stars Marlon Brando and Dorothy Dandridge.
30 June - The German Army intervenes in Posen, repressing Polish rioters, killing 57 and wounding 400.
Summer : Estonian War : last-ditch attempts by the Russians to enter Reval are repeatedly defeated. The lines don’t change in Karelia.
4 - 8 July - The first edition of the European Nations’ Cup, thought as an opportunity to defrost the relations among European nations, opens in Russia. The first edition, in the form of a tournament between the four best teams in the continent (Germany, Hungary, Russia and Bulgaria), is won by Germany.
4 July - The first flight of the Horten Ho 429 spy plane takes place in Posen Luftwaffe Base, Germany.
7 July - German poet and essayist Gottfried Benn dies, aged 70, in Berlin, Prussia.
8 July -General elections are held in France : no party manages to win a majority, with the Christian Democrats arriving first and National Restoration losing seats ; left-wing candidates still manage to reach second place, as independent candidates.
A Turkish Cypriot delegation arrives in Constantinople, asking the Greek government for autonomy within the new Greek region. All demands are ignored by the Greek government.
Italian essayist and author Giovanni Papini dies, aged 75, in Florence, Italy.
11 July - Antoine Pinay (Christian Democrats) is appointed President of Council of France, after occupying the position from 1954 to 1955.
17-21 July - The Democratic National Convention is held in Dallas, Texas. After a very tense balloting, Senator Happy Chandler of Kentucky is designated as the Democratic presidential candidate ; he selects Governor Joseph P. Kennedy of Massachusetts as his running mate. The Democratic platform includes an official endorsement for the continuation of segregation in Southern States and a rebuttal of any federal law in favor of desegregation. In a protest, various members of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, such as Senators Estes Kefauver and Al Gore of Tennessee, walk out of the Convention.
17 July - Gold Coast is granted autonomy and home rule by Great Britain within the Commonwealth, with first elections being held there : the Progress Party, led by William Ofori Atta, wins a majority, as he becomes the first Prime Minister of Gold Coast.
18 July - Former Prime Minister of Lithuania (1921-1923, 1934-1945) Antanas Smetona (Lithuanian Nationalist Union) dies, aged 81, in Kaunas, Lithuania.
20 July - Vietnamese Civil War : a Japanese assassination attempt on Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh fails.
Marshal of Italy Emilio De Bono dies, aged 90, in Rome, Italy.
24 July - Polish-born German Syndicalist leader Roza Luksemburg dies, aged 85, in Santiago, Chile.
25 July- A road viaduct collapses in Genoa, Italy, after a rainstorm, killing 43. An extensive investigation is launched, pointing massive corruption and poor building methods.
26 July - Egyptian War : Aboukir falls to British troops.
29 July - German philosopher Ludwig Klages dies, aged 83, in Zurich, Switzerland.
30 July - Hawaii and Alaska are admitted as the 49th and 50th states of the United States of America and will be able to vote in the presidential election scheduled later that year.
August-October - Massive protests take place in the Emirate of Qatar, protesting the British protectorate, the autocratic rule of Emir Ali bin Abdullah al-Thani and the lack of redistribution of the riches from oil extraction. The protests are said to be heavily funded by the Hashemite Caliphate.
Civil disobedience is observed in Northern Cyprus, coming from Turkish-populated areas.
7 August - A constitutional amendment in Colombia allows the incumbent President to run for re-election, effective from the 1958 presidential election.
9 August - Former Governor-General of Australia (1952-1956) Archie Cameron dies, aged 61, in Sydney, New South Wales.
12 August - Hurricane Betsy makes landfall in Puerto Rico.
13 August - Vice Admiral Junio Valerio Borghese is appointed Governor of Italian Tunisia :a hardline pyrist, he continues the policy of repression enacted over the country during the spring.
13-17 August : The Progressive National Convention is held in Chicago, Illinois : Senator Claude Pepper of Florida is designated as the Progressive presidential candidate ; he selects Senator Terry Carpenter of Nebraska as his running mate.
14 August - German playwright Bertolet Brecht dies, aged 58, in Berlin, Prussia.
German diplomat Konstantin von Neurath dies in Erzwheihihingen, Württemberg, aged 83.
16 August - Hungarian Babelsberg actor Bela Lugosi dies in Berlin, Prussia, aged 73.
Admiral Lynde D. McCormick, of the United States Navy, dies in Newport, Rhode Island, aged 61.
20-23 August - The Republican national Convention is held in San Francisco, California. Incumbent President Alfred J. Driscoll of New Jersey is nominated as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate ; he selects Secretary of the Treasury Robert B. Anderson as his running mate.
24 August - Under house arrest in Yerevan since March, Armenian Syndicalist general Missak Manouchian is gunned down and killed by Armenian police in front of his wife. Aged 49, the official version was that the returning exile had been resisting arrest to take him to a maximum security prison and produced a gun, forcing officers to respond ; it would be revealed in 1985 that the killing had been an official execution ordered by President Soghomon Tehlirian. Manouchian’s death delivers a death blow to the nascent Armenian syndicalist movement.
Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi (The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums, Sansho the Bailiff, The Crucified Lovers) dies in Kyoto, Japan, aged 58.
25 August - King Umberto II opens the XVI Summer Olympic Games in Rome, Italy, after the 1944 games had to be cancelled by the World War. The all brand new Olympic Stadium and the Olympic flame passage through the old Roman Forum and the Colisseum had been wanted by President of Council Italo Balbo, who wanted to take advantage of the Games to herald the grandeur of Pyrist Italy.
American biologist and sexologist Alfred Kinsey dies, aged 62, in Bloomington, Indiana.
27 August - The lynching of an Italian private in Sanaa marks the beginning of the Yemeni War, directed by popular discontent against the Italians.
September : Germany becomes the main trade partner and investor of the Hashemite Caliphate.
September-December : The Yemen War begins with sporadic but targeted terrorist attacks against Italian soldiers stationed in the country, followed by extended reprisals.
9 September - Elvis and Aaron Presley make their first televised appearence in Oral Roberts’ The Abundant Life TV program and become an overnight sensation.
10 September - Roger Makins has his office renewed as Secretary General of the Commonwealth, during a reunion in Toronto, Canada.
Arthur, the former Prince of Wales, receives the courtesy title of Duke of Clarence.
11 September - The XVI Summer Olympic Games conclude in Rome, Italy, after a grandiose Roman-themed parade throughout the Stadium. Germany has won the most medals.
Typhoon Emma kills 77 in Japan and Korea.
15 September - President Yan Xishan, in a speech in Nanjing, China, announces his resolve to have “the rebellious Tibetan province return into our fold” by the end of the decade. A military buildup begins at the Tibetan-Chinese border, Yan hoping to stimulate his electorate for the general elections.
16 September - General elections in Sweden : the Moderate Party falls short of an absolute majority. Martin Skoglund remains Prime Minister.
23 September - Hurricane Flossy makes landfall in Florida (United States).
28 September - The Chinese legislative elections begin for a three-week-long ballot.
A high class prostitution network, headed by French expatriate Fernande Grudet, is dismantled in the United Kingdom, revealing that top Foreign Office bureaucrats unknowingly shared classified information with prostitutes who in turn sold them to Japanese, Russian and German diplomats and spies. The Madame Claude Scandal (pseudonym of the madam) leads to mass resignations within the Foreign Office.
29 September - Capus M. Waynick, United States Ambassador to Nicaragua, is assassinated during a private ball in Managua, Nicaragua, by Syndicalist poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez. As Nicaragua is the last US-occupied country in Central America, the government fear that a Syndicalist remnant might cause an uprising anytime.
30 September - The Commander-in-Chief of the Socialist Republic of Egypt, General Anwar Sadat, defector of the Royal Egyptian Army, is killed by the British Expeditionary Troops, aged 37.
October - December - Riots for independence rock Sumatra Island in Indonesia. The central government represses the uprisings, as all sources conclude that Japanese intelligence is middling to destabilize Indonesia.
2 October - General elections in Newfoundland : the Liberal retains an absolute majority. Peter John Cashin remains Prime Minister.
8 October - A general strike begins in Qatar, with massive parts of the Emir’s guard defecting to the protesters.
10 October - Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, elected as a Democrat, announces he joins the Progressive Party. Senator Estes Kefauver, also from Tennessee, remains neutral on the issue.
The Brooklyn Dodgers wins the 1956 World Series 4 games to 3 against the New York Yankees.
Giant, directed by George Stevens, is released in the United States. This epic about the Texan oil industry stars Alan Ladd, William Holden and Grace Kelly.
11 October - The Nobel Prizes are awarded.
Chemistry - Arvid Hedvall (Sweden) ;
Literature - Ezra Pound (United States) ;
Medicine - Jonas Salk (United States) ;
Peace - Jan Masaryk (Bohemia) / Taras von Borodajkewycz (Germany)
Physics - Herbert Mataré (Germany) / Heinrich Welker (Germany)
19 October - Chinese legislative elections : the Kuomintang wins a majority, putting the National Assembly at odds with President Yan Xishan.
Estonian War : a Finnish delegation, headed by King Vilppu and Prime Minister Johan Wilhelm Rangell, arrives in Petrograd. A ceasefire is observed in Reval and in Karelia.
Bolivia signs a trade treaty with Japan, angering the United States.
20 October - In a public event in New Delhi with representatives from all religions of India, President Subhas Chandra Bose announces that freedom of cult will be inscribed in the Constitution of India, and that all discrimination based on religion will be punishable by law.
21 October - Italian philosopher and educator Giovanni Gentile dies in Florence, Italy, aged 81.
22 October - The Treaty of Petrograd, signed by Russian Empress Olga, King of Finland Vilppu, Russian Prime Minister Georgi Florovsky and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell, puts an end to the Estonian War (1954-1956). Under its terms, Russia acknowledges the Finnish occupation of Estonia, under conditions of its strict demilitarization, Russia annexing Narva and drawing the border with Livonia to a Dorpat-Pernau line (later called the Mannerheim line). Finland’s integration to the Reichspakt and territorial gains during the Russian Civil War aren’t put into question, yet Vyborg (Finnish Viipuri) is given to Russia, in order to secure the position of Petrograd.
Egyptian War : The Battle of Alexandria begins.
The Thai government announces the end of the building of the new capital city of Phetchabun and of the Buddhist Holy City of Saraburi. Both are to be inaugurated for 16 April 1957, for the 2500th year of the Buddhist Era.
23 October - After months of governmental gridlock, leader of the Arrow Cross Party Ferenc Szalasi, with supports from some parts of the military, instigates a coup in Budapest, Hungary. Szalasi-aligned military takes King Istvan VI hostage and storms the Hungarian Parliament, opening fire in the main Chamber, killing dozens of deputies and the entire Hungarian government, including Prime Minister Ferenc Vali. Chaos falls upon Hungary as a whole, with no news coming from outside and the issue of the coup being inconclusive, drawing international concern.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3, accompanied by a tsunami, strikes Managua, Nicaragua, causing extensive damage.
24 October - Emir of Qatar Ali bin Abdullah al-Thani flees Qatar, boarding a British vessel. Hamad al-Attiya, leader of the Qatari protests, proclaims the Republic of Qatar while acknowleding the British protectorate, resulting in no immediate action from London, even as the new President stresses the need for an “independent Qatar within a greater Arab country”, dropping hints of unification with the Hashemites…
Madame Claude Scandal : British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Selwyn Lloyd resigns. He is replaced by Alan Lennox-Boyd.
25 October - Vyborg Disaster : Returning to Helsinki from the Petrograd peace talks, the Finnish delegation plane crashes above the Karelian Isthmus, killing all aboard. Amongst its passengers were King Villpu, Prime Minister Johan Wilhelm Rangell and Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister Risto Ryti. All bodies are recovered the following week with Russian help.
Crown Prince Fredrik Kaarle becomes, as soon as news of the Petrograd Disaster are made official, King Fredrik Kaarle II of Finland. His first two royal actions are to decree a week of official mourning and to appoint Minister of Finance Urho Kekkonen (Agrarian League) as Prime Minister.
To this day, the Vyborg Disaster is suspected to have been sabotage by Russian secret services, in a last effort to destabilize Finland for good after the costly Estonian War. Russia has always disputed these claims that are reportedly backed by the Finnish government, royal family and Germany. In 2005, a theory claimed that Foreign Minister Risto Ryti had suffered a fatal heart attack while flying, forcing the pilot to try unsuccessfully an emergency landing.
26 October - A heavy reform of the vilayet system is undertaken within the Ottoman Empire, centralizing more the country over Ankara.
27 October - At 19:28:34 GMT, from Peenemünde Army Research Center in Prussia, Germany, the Walküre-1 (Valkyrie-1) rocket is launched into space, becoming the first artificial Earth satellite, getting into low Earth orbit and sending radio signals back on Earth.
Developed by the teams of Wernher von Braun, Walküre-1 becomes an overnight sensation, stressing the cultural and research supremacy of Germany, a long-awaited relief since the events in Poland and Estonia.
Over all, the first man-made object that existed the atmosphere would usher a new era of humanity : the Race to Cosmos.
President of China Yan Xishan refuses to resign and accepts the principle of a cohabitation government with the Kuomintang, hoping to dissolve Parliament after the 1958 presidential election. He appoints as Chairman of the Executive Yuan Sun Fo, a former Minister of Finance and son of Sun Yat-Sen, an independent suitable for the Kuomintang.
In Vienna, the European Community accepts French candidacy, with no veto from Germany.
28 October - In Hungary, Chief of the General Staff Döme Sztójay announces his loyalist forces have been able to free the King and to retake most governmental positions, proclaiming himself as Prime Minister and putting Hungary in full emergency, martial law and curfew. As fighting continues in Budapest and other cities in the country, the issue of the coup remains inconclusive.
29 October - Egyptian War : Alexandria falls to British troops, putting an effective end to the war.
30 October - Spanish writer Pio Baroja dies, aged 83, in Madrid, Spain.
31 October - The Egyptian War ends with the surrender of the Socialist Republic of Egypt.
Operation Neuschwabenland : a Lufwaffe secret mission, commanded by Colonel Rudolf Mayr, manages to land on Queen Maud’s Land in the South Pole, establishing the Drygalski South Pole Research Station.
November-December - A guerilla begins in the Turkish areas of Cyprus, aimed at the Greek government.
1 November - Out of a visit in Calcutta, the car of President Shubhas Chandra Bose is sprayed with bullets by a machine gun ; thanks to the reflexes of Bose’s chauffeur, the President is unharmed along with his suite. The culprits are quickly apprehended and belong a fringe Bengali separatist terrorist group.
In the Cuban presidential election, incumbent President Ramon Barquin wins in the first round as an independent.
Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio, former President of Council of Italy (1926-1935) dies in Grazzano Monferrato, Italy, aged 85.
2 November - Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Hakim (ruler) of Bahrain since 1942 is assassinated in Safra, Bahrain, during a military parade. The assassin is a young Iranian nationalist, prompting the British, who are protectors of Bahrain, to fear that Pan-Iranism is taking root in the small Arabian island. The Hakim is succeeded by his son, Isa bin Salman.
3 November - During a meeting at 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister Rab Butler accepts that British positions in Egypt are now impossible to hold and accepts a transition solution, associating islamist movements with the British-sponsored government.
4 November - As fighting continues in Hungary between factions, Romanian Conducator Corneliu Zelea Codreanu launches a surprise attack over Transylvania, stating his concern over “our Romanian brothers drawn into the Turanian chaos”, sparking the Second Hungarian-Romanian War.
The investigation into a strange epidemic of the central nervous system in Minamata, Japan, results into an official report, immediately deemed classified by the Kempeitai. In the following weeks, sick families disappear.
5 November - The governor of the Shan States in Burma is removed by Thai military, a step that concludes the full military occupation by Thailand of these territories, with full blessing from Japan.
6 November - United States presidential election : President Alfred J. Driscoll (R-NJ) is elected for a full term as President of the United States, with his running mate Robert B. Anderson (R-TX), winning in a landslide , defeating the Progressive ticket of Claude Pepper (P-FL) and Terry Carpenter (P-NE) and the Democratic ticket of Happy Chandler (D-KY) and Joseph P. Kennedy (D-MA). The Republicans keep control of both Houses of Congress.
Great Britain makes its first test of an atomic device, a plutonium implosion device, near Churchill, Manitoba, in Canada. Codenamed “Sycorax”, the test makes Great Britain the fourth nation in the world to possess a nuclear weaponry capacity.
In the Hashemite Caliphate, a law makes Arabic the only official language, for education, academia, print and mass language, administration, judiciary and lawmaking, with emphasis on the Levantine Arabic dialect, hereby putting new restrictions on the uses of Turkish, Hebrew, Kurdish or French within the Caliphate.
7 November - In a move welcomed by President Yan Xishan, Chinese Chairman of the Executive Yuan Sun Fo announces that the Chinese oil sector will be nationalized by the end of the year.
The Prime Minister of Egypt, Fouad Serageddin, is officially received at 10 Downing Street to discuss the future of his country after the British intervention.
8 November - In Hungary, as the Hungarian Army fights the Romanians at Kolozsvar, coup leader Ferenc Szalazi is captured and summarily executed by loyalist forces in Budapest, putting an effective end to the coup and allowing the nation to regroup against the Romanians.
The Ten Commandments, directed by Cecil B. De Mille, is released in the United States. It stars William Boyd, Mel Ferrer, Audrey Hepburn, George Sanders, Anne Bancroft, Pier Angeli, Cornel Wilde, Jayne Meadows and Bette Davis.
11 November-First flight of Messerchmitt Me 303, the first supersonic jet bomber capable of Mach 2 Flight.
12 November - Italian President of Council and Duce Italo Balbo makes a triumphant visit to Tunis, on a heightened security status, in a show of force after the successful reconquest of Italian Tunisia.
Spanish physician Juan Negrin dies in Madrid, Spain, aged 64.
15 November - German Kaiser Louis Ferdinand is invited to the birthday celebrations of Russian Empress Olga in Moscow, signalling warming of German-Russian relations.
18 November - At the World Council, the Russian ambassador engages in a shouting match with his Chinese homologue, protesting the Chinese oil nationalization. Russian-Chinese relations go to an all-time low since the World War, forcing Russia to diversify his sources of oil imports.
21 November - A Finnish submarine patrolling in the Baltic Sea discovers the wreck of the Swedish warship Vasa, that had sunk in 1628.
22 November - Hungarian-Romanian War : Romanian forces are defeated at Kolozsvar and forced to retreat.
Negus of Ethiopia Ahma Selassie shows himself up naked at an official reception in Addis Ababa, with no one daring to address the incident, showing first signs of mental decay.
25 November - Hungarian-Romanian War : Russia, allied to both Hungary and Romania, orders both belligerents to ceasefire in order to avoid a further destabilization of Europe.
Elections are held in Euskadi : the Basque National Party wins a majority, however decreased. Manuel de Irujo is maintained as Prime Minister of Euskadi.
December - Japanese military doctors notice an upsurge in influenza cases in Guizhou Province, in occupied China.
Oman War : By the end of the year, only Muscat is left to the Sultan’s control, with the Imamate effectively controlling the whole Omani territory.
1 December - Hungarian-Romanian War : in an unprecedented step since the conclusion of the Estonian War, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and Italy order both sides to stop all fighting and agree to a ceasefire.
Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer Alexander Rodchenko dies in Moscow, Russia, aged 64.
5 December - Hungarian-Romanian War : under international pressure and facing both the ire of Germany and Russia, Hungary and Romania agree to a ceasefire, putting an end to the Second Hungarian-Romanian War, without ratifying it by a peace treaty, Romanian maintaining its claims. In a month, the conflict took 10,000 lives ; for Hungary, it’s a relief after the utter chaos created by the Szalazi Putsch; for Romania, it’s an embarassment, as Romanian forces were utterly defeated in Transylvania and the dependency of the Legionary regime upon Russia is made crystal clear.
6 December - Prime Minister of India Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (Independent Labour Party, allied to the Indian National Congress) dies in New Delhi, India, aged 55. The first Dalit (untouchable) cabinet member of independent India, he also chaired the dragting committee of the Constitution of India ; he also had converted to Buddhism on 14 October 1956. A popular man, his death is widely mourned in India.
Haitian Chief of the General Staff General Antoine Levelt leads a military coup in Haiti, overthrowing President Daniel Fignolé and installing himself as President.
9 December - The Muslim Brotherhood is invited into the Egyptian civilian government, under suggestion from the British military authorities.
12 December - A customs union, the Kanzei Domei, is created within the Pan Asian Sphere of Co-Prosperity, hereby creating an Asian free trade area with a common external tariff.
President of India Subhas Chandra Bose appoints Minister of Transportation Jayprakash Narayan, a member of the left-wing of the Indian National Congress, as Prime Minister of India.
German Babelsberg film director E. A. Dupont dies, aged 64, in Berlin, Prussia.
13 December - The Bulgarian government sends an official rebuttal to the Constantinople Agreements, asking for the restoration of Free City Status and free passage through Thrace and the Bosphorus Straits ; the Ottoman Empire seconds the Bulgarian protest, that is ignored by Greece.
14 December - Former Prime Minister of Finland (1919-1920, 1920-1921, 1924-1926, 1927-1929) Juho Kusti Paasikivi (National Coalition Party) dies in Helsinki, Finland, aged 86.
Russian Syndicalist military officer and leader Eugène Leviné dies in Mexico City, Mexico, aged 73.
18-19 December: the Bassa in German Kamerun erupt in open revolt against Germany, killing dozens of German colonial administrators. The revolt is swiftly repressed by the German colonial army, destroying Bassa villages and forcing surviving rebels into forced labour.
21 December - Catalan architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch dies in Barcelona, Catalonia, aged 91.
23 December - Hassan al-Hudaybi, General Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, is appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt.
30 December - The New York Giants defeat the Chicago Bears 47-7 in the NFL championship game in Yankee Stadium, New York City, New York.
31 December - The Galician Republic is officially annexed by the Kingdom of Portugal.
Russian Tsarina Olga arrives in Moscow to attend Christmas festivities,, confirming her resolve to have the capital officially relocated as soon as possible.
China officially nationalizes its oil industry.
Chinese military presence at the Tibetan border reach 300,000.
January-December : Japanese troops make few progress in their repression of the islamist revolt in Aceh, Indonesia.
January : Vietnamese Civil War : the Japanese achieve the pacification of Saigon, with extensive repression conducted by the Kempeitai to research and neutralize nationalist elements.
1 January - The principality of Liechtenstein, an independent state, becomes a member state of the German Empire. Prince Franz Jozef II becomes a full German prince while the position of provincial administrator is replaced by a Prime Minister.
Spain becomes a member of the Reichspakt.
Oil imports from Persia return to their pre-1955 level, confirming that the Persian government has successfully taken over its supply lines since nationalization.
After the establishment of the Italian protectorate in Yemen the year before, the first Italian troops arrive in Yemen.
2 January - Legislative elections in Ireland : the Fine Gael wins an absolute majority. Mícheál Ó Coileáin is reconducted as Taoiseach.
3 January - Former German minister (Foreign Affairs, Finances, Interior) and Minister-President of Baden Joseph Wirth (Zentrum) dies in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden, aged 76.
Russian composer Alexander Tikhonovich Gretchaninov dies in Petrograd, aged 91.
8 January -An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 strikes the Arica and Parinacota Region of Bolivia, resulting in at least one death
12 January - An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 strikes Budapest, Hungary, resulting in two deaths and major damage.
16 January - Egyptian War : the Battle of the Suez Canal ends in British victory. Syndicalist troops begin their retreat to the Nile Delta.
19 January - Fouad Serageddin (Wafd Party) is appointed as Prime Minister of Egypt. Encouraged by British advisors, the new head of government covertly extends a hand to the Muslim Brotherhood.
22 January - Legislative elections in Poland : the National Party becomes the majority party in the Sejm but falls short of an absolute majority. August Zaleski remains Prime Minister, with a minority government.
23 January - Thami El Glaoui, Pasha of Marrakesh, dies aged 76 in Marrakesh, Morocco. The main leader of the Moroccan faction favoring German protectorate, most of his faction is cut off with his death, providing a strong boost for the independence cause.
Hungarian Babelsberg director and producer Sandor Korda (The Private Life of Frederick II, Rembrandt, The Thief of Baghdad) dies in Berlin, aged 62.
26 January - The VIII Winter Olympic Games open in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy ; the city was scheduled to host the games in 1944 but were delayed by the outbreak of the World War.
During the Australia Day celebrations in Sydney, the Duke of Kent is invited to see the brand new equipments of the Australian Army and Navy, signaling the progress of the rearmement program in Australia.
Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia dies in Petrograd, Russia, aged 65.
27 January - German (formerly Danubian) conductor Erich Kleiber, musical director of the Prussian Royal Opera, dies in Berlin, aged 65.
28 January-A general strike happens in Italian Tunisia, drawing dozens of thousands in the streets, demonstrating for independence. The demonstrations and their leadership are throughly repressed by Italian troops.
Elvis and Aaron Presley begin their itinerant preaching in Mississippi.
29 January - American journalist and essayist H. L. Mencken dies in Baltimore, aged 75.
31 January - British author A. A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh) dies in Hartfield, Sussex, aged 74.
February - Due to exceptionally cold temperatures in France, below -20°C, crops are massively depleted, leading to widespread famine throughout the country.
Pro-independence demonstrations and riots rock Italian Tunisia.
3 February - Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, former Chief of the Air Staff, dies in London, aged 83.
American psychologist, ethologist, eugenicist and primatologist Robert Yerkes dies in New Haven, Connecticut, aged 79.
4 February - The Central Bank of Argentina is nationalized, allowing Argentina to pay off its billion-dollar debt to the Bank of America and to begin to reclaim its own interest with Great Britain.
5 February - The VIII Winter Olympic Games conclude in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Russia has won the most medals of the games.
6 February - The French governement proclaims that order has been restored in Algeria.
8 February - American former baseball catcher, manager and team owner Connie Mack (Philadelphia Athletics, now New Orleans Atheltics) dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, aged 93.
9-19 February - The Berlin International Film Festival takes place. Written on the Wind, a melodrama on a decadent Bavarian noble family directed by Hans Sierck, wins Best Picture. Yuliy Briner (Russian) wins Best Acting for his role of Count Pyotr Bezukhov in War and Peace by Sergei Boncharuk
11 February - Arthur, the former Prince of Wales, elopes from Great Britain with his wife Jacqueline Bouvier due to high media pressure. He arrives in Canada a month later.
11-12 February - A referendum on integration with Great Britain is held in Malta. The proposal is rejected by 52,1 % against. The proponents of Malta as a Dominion (the Conservatives) gain the upper hand in the ongoing struggle.
14 February - President of the United States Alfred Driscoll announces he will seek election for a full term this year.
French aviation pioneer Roland Garros dies, aged 67, in Paris, France.
16 February - The official name of the Basque Republic becomes Euskadi. Inspired by the Irish precedent, Basque names become obligatory for individuals.
19 February - General elections in Italy : the Italian Social Movement retains its absolute majority. Duce Italo Balbo is reconducted as President of Council.
20 February - An earthquake of magnitude 6.2 strikes the Doryaleum region in Greece, causing fourteen deaths.
23 February - In the Ottoman Empire, inter-religious and inter-ethnic marriages are forbidden by law.
Norma Jean Mortenson legally changes her name to Mona Monroe.
25 February - In front of an extraordinary session of the Duma in Petrograd, Russian Tsarina Olga adresses the length of the ongoing conflict in Estonia, but her speech quickly devolves in what would be known as the “Three Russias Dogma” : criticizing Germany for having “divided our brotherhood by forging puppet states of so-called Ukraine and White Ruthenia”, firmly installing the notion that Russians, Ukrainians and Ruthenians are the one and same people, the Three Russias. In an unexpected turn, she also addresses her will to provide large but controlled autonomies, with freedom of religion, language and culture for non-Russian peoples within the Empire, “in order for them to become not our subjects, but our equals under the House of Romanov”. Hereby all Russification policies are abandoned throughout Russia. She also announces that due to concerns about the security of Petrograd and in order to draw the dynasty and the political class closer to the Russian heartland, the capital will be relocated to Moscow, a first since the times of Peter the Great.
The “Three Russias Speech” makes the Tsarina the most popular figure throughout Russia, being hailed by all political classes but also by minorities such as the Georgians, Kazakhs, Tatars, Chechens and Azeris, even if Ukrainian and Ruthenian nationalist circles are of course deeply infuriated. It allows Olga to take the upper hand against her Tolstoyite Prime Minister, Georgy Florovsky, who will have to put in order the announced federalization of Russia and conduct the relocation from Petrograd to Moscow.
29 February - President of the Philippines Elpidio Quirino dies of a massive heart attack, aged 65, while preparing a meeting in Manila. He is succeeded by Vice President José Yulo, also from the Liberal Party.
March - Rising prices and massive food shortages lead to heavy riots in Spain, forcing the military to repress.
Anti-Muslim riots erupt throughout Dravida Nadu and Hyderabad, over concerns of Indian ingerency. The riots are violently repressed by local governments with British assistance, killing thousands in major cities.
4 March - During a speech in Tripoli, Libya, Duce of Italy Italo Balbo presents his plans for the Great Libyan River, a huge irrigation project to create a network of pipelines supplying fresh water from the Nubian fossil waters across Libya ; the project could take 15 years to be achieved, undergoing with the creation of a network of oil pipelines throughout the Libyan desert. The project is given a 50 billion lira budget.
Prince Irakli Bagration-Mukhraneli and physicist Alexander Nikuradse, Georgian nationalists who had lived in exile in Germany since 1938, enter Russian territory and launch an nationalist uprising in Tiflis, seizing key buildings in the former Georgian capital.
5 March - During a mass demonstration in Buenos Aires, President Juan Peron proclaims the Justice Era, the foundation of a new Argentine state based on the Justicialist principle, with himself as its “Lider Maximo” (Paramount Leader). This proclamation marks the final installation of Peron’s rule over Argentina and inscribes access to work, housing, education, health care and a minimum wage into the Constitution.
Tifilis Uprising : Prince Irakli Bagration-Mukhraneli proclaims the restoration of the Kingdom of Georgia from the balcony of the Vice-Regal Palace in Tiflis. The proclamation is not heard by many as not only the city is under military law, but the Georgian population, content with the “Three Russias Dogma” and autonomy, doesn’t share the Prince’s wish for a renewed independence.
7 March - Avalanches in Norway’s Nordland and Troms regions cause 21 deaths and heavy damage.
8 March - President of Armenia Drastamat Kanayan dies in Karin, Armenia, aged 71. According to the Constitution, President of the National Council Garo Sassouni takes office as acting President of Armenia.
9 March - Tiflis Uprising : The Russian Army intervenes and destroys the few Georgian nationalists. Alexander Nikuradse is summarily executed for high treason.
Italy and Greece agree to hold in 1957 a new referendum for the Dodecanese on whether or not the archipelago wishes to join Greece or to remain under Italian tutelage.
10 March - Prince Irakli Bagration-Mukhraneli finds refuge in the German consulate in Tiflis and is able to flee to Constantinople later in the month.
12 March - In the Polish Parliament, the National Party proceeds to a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister August Zaleski, winning a majority.
In French Algeria, the French Army begins a counter-guerilla campaign in the most rebellious province, Kabylia. Operations would last until 1965.
15 March - In a dramatic cabinet meeting, Armenian Minister of the Interior Soghomon Tehlirian reads “the last will of President Kanayan”, announcing that the late President had designated him as his legitimate successor. President Tehlirian is confirmed by the cabinet and decides to rule by decree, dissolving the National Council and putting the whole Armenian Republic under martial law. Thousands of opponents are arrested.
In 1969, “Kanayan’s last will” was confirmed by an independent journalistic investigation to be a forgery by Soghomon Tehlirian, in order to justify his own takeover of Armenia.
16 March - The wilaya of Mount Lebanon, in the Hashemite Caliphate, is struck by two earthquakes, of magnitudes respectively of 5.3 and 5.5. 148 people are killed.
Armenian Syndicalist general Missak Manouchian, who had returned from France the year before, is put under house arrest by Armenian police.
17 March - Vietnamese Civil War : the Viet Minh attack Japanese military poisitions in Dien Bien Phu, in northwestern Vietnam.
French Army Lieutenant Jean Le Pen is arrested by military police in Algiers, after reports that he was conspiring with pyrist elements within the French Army to launch a military coup against General de Hautecloque’s provisional government.
A demonstration for unification with Germany, organized by the Dietsche Bond, led by Anton Mussert, gather 6000 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
French (Syndicalist) scientist Irène Joliot-Curie, co-recipient of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physics for her research of new radioactive elements, daughter to Marie and Pierre Curie, dies aged 58 in New Haven, Connecticut.
American comedian Fred Allen dies, aged 61, in New York City.
20 March - Governor of Italian Tunisia, General Massimo Invrea, is assassinated in his office in Tunis by a young Tunisian nationalist Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The assassination throws the colony into chaos.
Tadeusz Bielecki, leader of the National Party, is appointed Prime Minister of Poland.
German (Danubian) politician Wilhelm Miklas (Christian Social Party) dies in Vienna, Austria, aged 83.
20-25 March - Tunis and major cities of Tunisia fall into riots, making vast victims among the Italian community and targeting colonial troops. The rebels however fail to unify under a single banner due to infighting.
21 March - At the 28th Academy Awards, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, directed by Henry King, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Marlon Brando wins Best Actor for his role in The Man with the Golden Arm, while Jennifer Jones wins Best Actress for her role in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.
22 March - Former President of Argentina (1947-1950), General Eduardo Lonardi, dies aged 59 in Buenos Aires.
23 March - Balochistan signs a treaty of cooperation with Persia.
25 March - Italian President of Council and Duce Italo Balbo asks the King for full emergency powers due to the Tunisian situation and obtains them : he proclaims a state of martial law and partial mobilization of the Army and the Navy.
General elections are held in Croatia. As all opposition parties are outlawed, all seats go to the Croatian Social Movement. Ante Vokić is designated again as Prime Minister.
30 March-4 April : Vietnamese Civil War : the battle of Dien Bien Phu rages, with Viet Minh troops trying to encircle Japanese positions.
30 March - Volcano Bezymianny, located in Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, erupts, destroying the summit.
Spring : Estonian War : the Russians launch a double offensive in the Kola Peninsula and in Karelia, while shelling resumes in Reval.
April - Vietnamese Civil War, Battle of Dien Bien Phu : Viet Minh positions are progressively destroyed by Japanese aviation, resulting in a massive defeat for the Viet Minh.
4 April - The French Labor Movement is officially banned by the military regime.
6 April - Forbidden from running for President by the Supreme Court in the November presidential election, Colonel Ramon Barquin leads a military coup in Cuba, overthrowing incumbent President Roberto Agramonte and installing himself as President. The military coup isn’t followed by much violence.
Evangelist Oral Roberts attends a sermon by the Presley Twins in Memphis, Tenneesse.
Filipino independentist and revolutionary leader Pio Valenzuela dies in Polo, Philippines, aged 86.
7 April - In Berlin, Germany, German Chancellor Heinrich von Brentano and Moroccan Prime Minister Ahmed Balafrej sign the final agreement for the end of the German protectorate over Morocco, with independence becoming effective on 7 April 1957, with Morocco becoming a member of the Reichspakt and keeping Germany as its main commercial partner.
8 April - Operation Scipione : the Italian Navy heavily destroys downtown Tunis during a bombing that lasts for six hours, killing most of its civilian population. During the following night, 60,000 Italian troops land in Tunis and begin the military occupation of the country.
The Bohemian National Council elects Prince Karl von Schwarzenberg as King of Bohemia on the first ballot, refusing other candidates. The official passation of powers is scheduled for June.
Grand Vizier Huseyin Nihal Pasha announces the success of the literacy campaign within the Ottoman Empire.
10 April - A referendum in Galicia wins a majority of 77,92 % of voters in favor of unification with Portugal. A 2005 investigation by O Diario revealed that the result had been tricked by both governments of Portugal and Galicia under pressure of Germany and Great Britain to impede any chances for a Spanish reunification.
12 April - In Algiers, a bomb attack against French barracks result in 6 deaths.
13 April - German painter Emil Nolde dies in Seebüll, Prussia, aged 88.
14 April - Siemens-Schuckert succesfully desmonstrates a quadruplex videotape system.
15 April - General elections are held in Greece, the first free since the proclaimation of the Hellenic Empire. The People’s Party wins a majority, resulting in its leader Spyridon Markezinis being appointed Prime Minister.
A tornado strikes the Greater Birmingham area of Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. Twenty-five people are killed and 400 homes damaged.
17 April - Bulgarian Czar Simeon II makes an official visit to the Ottoman Empire, stressing the warming of Ottoman-Bulgarian relations.
21 April - Typhoon Thelma hits the Philippine Islands.
A five-year-old girl in Minamata, Japan exhibits symptoms of an unknown disease of the central nervous system. The Japanese Ministry of Health launches an investigation.
27 April - Fenrir, a monster movie about a giant wolf destroying German cities after suffering from radioactive fallout in Poland, is released in Germany.
28 April - German lawyer, scientific organizer and politician Friedrich Schmidt-Ott dies, aged 95, in Berlin, Prussia.
29 April - Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, of the German and Bavarian Armies, dies in Füssen, Bavaria, aged 79.
30 April - In Mexico, General Agustin Olachea Aviles ousts President Miguel Henriquez Guzman in a military coup; the military takeover takes place in a period of instability that lasted since Obregon’s death and was supported by the United States.
Former US Secretary of State (1937-1941) and Governor and Senator of Kentucky Alben W. Barkley dies in Lexington, Virginia, aged 78.
Birmingham FC defeats West Ham United in the FA Cup Final in Wembley Stadium, London, Great Britain.
May - Italian Tunisia is entirely occupied by Italian troops during Operation Scipione : rebel leaders are tracked down and summarily executed, intellectuals are detained and tortured and the native civilians fall victim to massacres, rapes and looting.
Germany conducts a series of nuclear tests in the Kalahari Desert.
4 May - The Triumphal Arch is inaugurated by Kaiser Louis Ferdinand in Berlin, in Tiergarten, on the north side of the Charlottenburger Chaussee (now Richthofenstrasse), designed by Albert Speer and commemorating the German dead of the World War. One hundred meters high, it is much larger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
5 May - General elections are held in Sarawak : the Royal Party retains its majority. Abang Openg remains as Prime Minister.
7 May : Vietnamese Civil War - The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends with a Japanese victory. 8,000 Vietnamese nationalists are dead, while 2,300 Japanese were killed.
10 May : Estonian War : Finnish troops are able to restore communications with Murmansk, defeating the Russian offensive in the Kola Peninsula.
11 May - In Beni Oudjehane, Algeria, French troops slaughter 79 Algerian civilians.
13 May - General elections are held in Bohemia, the first since independence : the Czech Progressive Party increases its majority. Jan Masaryk is reconducted as Prime Minister, also holding the office of acting Head of State.
In Panama, government forces manage to dismantle the Workers’ Revolutionary Movement, a Syndicalist guerilla group.
15 May - Korean general elections : the Korean National Association wins a majority, defeating the Korean Brotherhood ; as a result, Lee Beom-seok is appointed as Prime Minister, replacing Lyuh Woon-hyung. Riots happen in major cities for two weeks due to the regime shift.
Presidential elections in Salvador : incumbent President Oscar Osorio (Party of Democratic Unification) is re-elected to a second term, defeating Rafael Carranza Anaya (Authentic Constitutional Party) in the first round.
16 May - The Bad Seed, directed by Alfred Hitchock, is released in the United States; It stars Bette Davis and Patty McCormack.
18 May - Lhotse, the world's fourth highest mountain, is successfully climbed for the first time, by Swiss mountaineers Ernst Reiss and Fritz Luchsinger.
Italian-born French poet, author, novelist and adventurer Guillaume Apollinaire (born Wilhelm Kostrowicki) dies in Memel, Prussia, aged 75.
20 May - Prime Minister of Poland Tadeusz Bielecki assumes full executive powers in Poland and begins to rule by decree.
24 May - The first European Singing Grand Prix, organized by the Italian Ministry of Culture, takes place in Lugano, Switzerland : “Refrain”, by Swiss artist Lys Assia, wins the contest.
26-27 May : The French Army conducts a series of arrests and summary executions in Tizi-Ouzou, in Algeria.
27 May - French President of Council Philippe de Hautecloque announces that free elections will be held in France on 8 July, without the participation of the Labor Movement.
30 May - During a visit in Mogadiscio, in Italian Somalia, Duce of Italy Italo Balbo salutes the contributions of the Somali Askaris to the Abyssinian War and promises Somalia that it should obtain its independence under 20 years, “while maintaining a strong link with Italy”.
31 May - Duce of Italy Italo Balbo relinquishes his emergency powers for the Tunisian situation.
June - Harvests are in net increase that year in China, showing the first results of the five-year-plan for agricultural modernisation.
Estonian War : The Finnish are unable to retake Viipuri.
1 June - A Dutch delegation, led by Prime Minister Louis Beel himself, arrives in Berlin to discuss possible integration of the Netherlands within Germany.
6 June - Hiram Bingham III, 32nd Président of the United States (1928-1929), discoverer of the Machu Picchu, former Senator from Connecticut, former Secretary of State (1926-1928), dies aged 80 in Washington D.C.
9 June - Argentina adopts a new Constitution, proclaiming the Justicialist principles of as tantamount to the Nation, inscribing corporatism, protectionism, protection of the workers and separation of the Church and the State within the official text.
13 June - The Dutch government announces that it renounces all negotiations relative to a possible integration of the Netherlands as a member state of the German Empire. The German Foreign Office takes note.
General elections in Spain : the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights wins an absolute majority. José Maria Gil-Robles is reconducted as President of Council.
The MTK Budapest FC defeats A.C. Milano in the Europeans Cup’ finals in Budapest Stadium, 4-2.
A tropical storm makes landfall near Cocodrie, Louisiana (USA), killing 4.
17 June - Bolivian union leader Juan Lechin is killed by soldiers in La Paz, Bolivia. His assassination marks the beginning of a full repression headed by dictator German Busch, claimed to be turned against the “Syndicalist vermin”. The political violence disgusts German and American observers and investors, as opposition leaders Walter Guevara and Victor Paz Estenssoro, fearing for their lives, join the regime.
Presidential election in Argentina : incumbent Juan Peron (Justicialist Party) is elected to a full term as President of Argentina, running as the sole candidate.
18 June - Prince Karl von Schwarzenberg becomes the first king of independent Bohemia, taking the regnal name of Karel IV. Acting President Jan Masaryk becomes Prime Minister.
Egyptian War : all Syndicalists access to the Mediterranean Sea, save for the Alexandria region, are cut by British troops.
19 June - American businessman Thomas J. Watson, CEO of IBM, dies aged 82, in New York City.
21 June - Bohemia officially adopts its Constitution, installing an unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy.
23 June - The Halles Residential Towers, designed by Le Corbusier, end their construction in the center of Paris.
Egyptian War : Cairo is secured by British troops.
24 June - Parliamentary elections in Iceland : the Progressive Party remains the majority party. Hermann Jonasson is reconducted as Prime Minister.
25 June - All English inscriptions and signs are removed in Belize (former British Honduras), by decree of the Guatemalan government.
Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, former US Chief of Naval Operations, dies, aged 77, in Kittery, Maine.
26 June - General Humberto Delgado is appointed Prime Minister of Portugal, replacing General Julio Botelho Moniz.
28 June - In Posen, Prussia, the Polish refugee community, worried by the political changes in Poland, erupt in riots after rumors of deportation have spread. Three days of riots begin in Posen, aimed at German law enforcement and the Jewish community.
The King and I, directed by Walter Lang, is released in the United. it stars Marlon Brando and Dorothy Dandridge.
30 June - The German Army intervenes in Posen, repressing Polish rioters, killing 57 and wounding 400.
Summer : Estonian War : last-ditch attempts by the Russians to enter Reval are repeatedly defeated. The lines don’t change in Karelia.
4 - 8 July - The first edition of the European Nations’ Cup, thought as an opportunity to defrost the relations among European nations, opens in Russia. The first edition, in the form of a tournament between the four best teams in the continent (Germany, Hungary, Russia and Bulgaria), is won by Germany.
4 July - The first flight of the Horten Ho 429 spy plane takes place in Posen Luftwaffe Base, Germany.
7 July - German poet and essayist Gottfried Benn dies, aged 70, in Berlin, Prussia.
8 July -General elections are held in France : no party manages to win a majority, with the Christian Democrats arriving first and National Restoration losing seats ; left-wing candidates still manage to reach second place, as independent candidates.
A Turkish Cypriot delegation arrives in Constantinople, asking the Greek government for autonomy within the new Greek region. All demands are ignored by the Greek government.
Italian essayist and author Giovanni Papini dies, aged 75, in Florence, Italy.
11 July - Antoine Pinay (Christian Democrats) is appointed President of Council of France, after occupying the position from 1954 to 1955.
17-21 July - The Democratic National Convention is held in Dallas, Texas. After a very tense balloting, Senator Happy Chandler of Kentucky is designated as the Democratic presidential candidate ; he selects Governor Joseph P. Kennedy of Massachusetts as his running mate. The Democratic platform includes an official endorsement for the continuation of segregation in Southern States and a rebuttal of any federal law in favor of desegregation. In a protest, various members of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, such as Senators Estes Kefauver and Al Gore of Tennessee, walk out of the Convention.
17 July - Gold Coast is granted autonomy and home rule by Great Britain within the Commonwealth, with first elections being held there : the Progress Party, led by William Ofori Atta, wins a majority, as he becomes the first Prime Minister of Gold Coast.
18 July - Former Prime Minister of Lithuania (1921-1923, 1934-1945) Antanas Smetona (Lithuanian Nationalist Union) dies, aged 81, in Kaunas, Lithuania.
20 July - Vietnamese Civil War : a Japanese assassination attempt on Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh fails.
Marshal of Italy Emilio De Bono dies, aged 90, in Rome, Italy.
24 July - Polish-born German Syndicalist leader Roza Luksemburg dies, aged 85, in Santiago, Chile.
25 July- A road viaduct collapses in Genoa, Italy, after a rainstorm, killing 43. An extensive investigation is launched, pointing massive corruption and poor building methods.
26 July - Egyptian War : Aboukir falls to British troops.
29 July - German philosopher Ludwig Klages dies, aged 83, in Zurich, Switzerland.
30 July - Hawaii and Alaska are admitted as the 49th and 50th states of the United States of America and will be able to vote in the presidential election scheduled later that year.
August-October - Massive protests take place in the Emirate of Qatar, protesting the British protectorate, the autocratic rule of Emir Ali bin Abdullah al-Thani and the lack of redistribution of the riches from oil extraction. The protests are said to be heavily funded by the Hashemite Caliphate.
Civil disobedience is observed in Northern Cyprus, coming from Turkish-populated areas.
7 August - A constitutional amendment in Colombia allows the incumbent President to run for re-election, effective from the 1958 presidential election.
9 August - Former Governor-General of Australia (1952-1956) Archie Cameron dies, aged 61, in Sydney, New South Wales.
12 August - Hurricane Betsy makes landfall in Puerto Rico.
13 August - Vice Admiral Junio Valerio Borghese is appointed Governor of Italian Tunisia :a hardline pyrist, he continues the policy of repression enacted over the country during the spring.
13-17 August : The Progressive National Convention is held in Chicago, Illinois : Senator Claude Pepper of Florida is designated as the Progressive presidential candidate ; he selects Senator Terry Carpenter of Nebraska as his running mate.
14 August - German playwright Bertolet Brecht dies, aged 58, in Berlin, Prussia.
German diplomat Konstantin von Neurath dies in Erzwheihihingen, Württemberg, aged 83.
16 August - Hungarian Babelsberg actor Bela Lugosi dies in Berlin, Prussia, aged 73.
Admiral Lynde D. McCormick, of the United States Navy, dies in Newport, Rhode Island, aged 61.
20-23 August - The Republican national Convention is held in San Francisco, California. Incumbent President Alfred J. Driscoll of New Jersey is nominated as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate ; he selects Secretary of the Treasury Robert B. Anderson as his running mate.
24 August - Under house arrest in Yerevan since March, Armenian Syndicalist general Missak Manouchian is gunned down and killed by Armenian police in front of his wife. Aged 49, the official version was that the returning exile had been resisting arrest to take him to a maximum security prison and produced a gun, forcing officers to respond ; it would be revealed in 1985 that the killing had been an official execution ordered by President Soghomon Tehlirian. Manouchian’s death delivers a death blow to the nascent Armenian syndicalist movement.
Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi (The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums, Sansho the Bailiff, The Crucified Lovers) dies in Kyoto, Japan, aged 58.
25 August - King Umberto II opens the XVI Summer Olympic Games in Rome, Italy, after the 1944 games had to be cancelled by the World War. The all brand new Olympic Stadium and the Olympic flame passage through the old Roman Forum and the Colisseum had been wanted by President of Council Italo Balbo, who wanted to take advantage of the Games to herald the grandeur of Pyrist Italy.
American biologist and sexologist Alfred Kinsey dies, aged 62, in Bloomington, Indiana.
27 August - The lynching of an Italian private in Sanaa marks the beginning of the Yemeni War, directed by popular discontent against the Italians.
September : Germany becomes the main trade partner and investor of the Hashemite Caliphate.
September-December : The Yemen War begins with sporadic but targeted terrorist attacks against Italian soldiers stationed in the country, followed by extended reprisals.
9 September - Elvis and Aaron Presley make their first televised appearence in Oral Roberts’ The Abundant Life TV program and become an overnight sensation.
10 September - Roger Makins has his office renewed as Secretary General of the Commonwealth, during a reunion in Toronto, Canada.
Arthur, the former Prince of Wales, receives the courtesy title of Duke of Clarence.
11 September - The XVI Summer Olympic Games conclude in Rome, Italy, after a grandiose Roman-themed parade throughout the Stadium. Germany has won the most medals.
Typhoon Emma kills 77 in Japan and Korea.
15 September - President Yan Xishan, in a speech in Nanjing, China, announces his resolve to have “the rebellious Tibetan province return into our fold” by the end of the decade. A military buildup begins at the Tibetan-Chinese border, Yan hoping to stimulate his electorate for the general elections.
16 September - General elections in Sweden : the Moderate Party falls short of an absolute majority. Martin Skoglund remains Prime Minister.
23 September - Hurricane Flossy makes landfall in Florida (United States).
28 September - The Chinese legislative elections begin for a three-week-long ballot.
A high class prostitution network, headed by French expatriate Fernande Grudet, is dismantled in the United Kingdom, revealing that top Foreign Office bureaucrats unknowingly shared classified information with prostitutes who in turn sold them to Japanese, Russian and German diplomats and spies. The Madame Claude Scandal (pseudonym of the madam) leads to mass resignations within the Foreign Office.
29 September - Capus M. Waynick, United States Ambassador to Nicaragua, is assassinated during a private ball in Managua, Nicaragua, by Syndicalist poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez. As Nicaragua is the last US-occupied country in Central America, the government fear that a Syndicalist remnant might cause an uprising anytime.
30 September - The Commander-in-Chief of the Socialist Republic of Egypt, General Anwar Sadat, defector of the Royal Egyptian Army, is killed by the British Expeditionary Troops, aged 37.
October - December - Riots for independence rock Sumatra Island in Indonesia. The central government represses the uprisings, as all sources conclude that Japanese intelligence is middling to destabilize Indonesia.
2 October - General elections in Newfoundland : the Liberal retains an absolute majority. Peter John Cashin remains Prime Minister.
8 October - A general strike begins in Qatar, with massive parts of the Emir’s guard defecting to the protesters.
10 October - Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, elected as a Democrat, announces he joins the Progressive Party. Senator Estes Kefauver, also from Tennessee, remains neutral on the issue.
The Brooklyn Dodgers wins the 1956 World Series 4 games to 3 against the New York Yankees.
Giant, directed by George Stevens, is released in the United States. This epic about the Texan oil industry stars Alan Ladd, William Holden and Grace Kelly.
11 October - The Nobel Prizes are awarded.
Chemistry - Arvid Hedvall (Sweden) ;
Literature - Ezra Pound (United States) ;
Medicine - Jonas Salk (United States) ;
Peace - Jan Masaryk (Bohemia) / Taras von Borodajkewycz (Germany)
Physics - Herbert Mataré (Germany) / Heinrich Welker (Germany)
19 October - Chinese legislative elections : the Kuomintang wins a majority, putting the National Assembly at odds with President Yan Xishan.
Estonian War : a Finnish delegation, headed by King Vilppu and Prime Minister Johan Wilhelm Rangell, arrives in Petrograd. A ceasefire is observed in Reval and in Karelia.
Bolivia signs a trade treaty with Japan, angering the United States.
20 October - In a public event in New Delhi with representatives from all religions of India, President Subhas Chandra Bose announces that freedom of cult will be inscribed in the Constitution of India, and that all discrimination based on religion will be punishable by law.
21 October - Italian philosopher and educator Giovanni Gentile dies in Florence, Italy, aged 81.
22 October - The Treaty of Petrograd, signed by Russian Empress Olga, King of Finland Vilppu, Russian Prime Minister Georgi Florovsky and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell, puts an end to the Estonian War (1954-1956). Under its terms, Russia acknowledges the Finnish occupation of Estonia, under conditions of its strict demilitarization, Russia annexing Narva and drawing the border with Livonia to a Dorpat-Pernau line (later called the Mannerheim line). Finland’s integration to the Reichspakt and territorial gains during the Russian Civil War aren’t put into question, yet Vyborg (Finnish Viipuri) is given to Russia, in order to secure the position of Petrograd.
Egyptian War : The Battle of Alexandria begins.
The Thai government announces the end of the building of the new capital city of Phetchabun and of the Buddhist Holy City of Saraburi. Both are to be inaugurated for 16 April 1957, for the 2500th year of the Buddhist Era.
23 October - After months of governmental gridlock, leader of the Arrow Cross Party Ferenc Szalasi, with supports from some parts of the military, instigates a coup in Budapest, Hungary. Szalasi-aligned military takes King Istvan VI hostage and storms the Hungarian Parliament, opening fire in the main Chamber, killing dozens of deputies and the entire Hungarian government, including Prime Minister Ferenc Vali. Chaos falls upon Hungary as a whole, with no news coming from outside and the issue of the coup being inconclusive, drawing international concern.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3, accompanied by a tsunami, strikes Managua, Nicaragua, causing extensive damage.
24 October - Emir of Qatar Ali bin Abdullah al-Thani flees Qatar, boarding a British vessel. Hamad al-Attiya, leader of the Qatari protests, proclaims the Republic of Qatar while acknowleding the British protectorate, resulting in no immediate action from London, even as the new President stresses the need for an “independent Qatar within a greater Arab country”, dropping hints of unification with the Hashemites…
Madame Claude Scandal : British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Selwyn Lloyd resigns. He is replaced by Alan Lennox-Boyd.
25 October - Vyborg Disaster : Returning to Helsinki from the Petrograd peace talks, the Finnish delegation plane crashes above the Karelian Isthmus, killing all aboard. Amongst its passengers were King Villpu, Prime Minister Johan Wilhelm Rangell and Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister Risto Ryti. All bodies are recovered the following week with Russian help.
Crown Prince Fredrik Kaarle becomes, as soon as news of the Petrograd Disaster are made official, King Fredrik Kaarle II of Finland. His first two royal actions are to decree a week of official mourning and to appoint Minister of Finance Urho Kekkonen (Agrarian League) as Prime Minister.
To this day, the Vyborg Disaster is suspected to have been sabotage by Russian secret services, in a last effort to destabilize Finland for good after the costly Estonian War. Russia has always disputed these claims that are reportedly backed by the Finnish government, royal family and Germany. In 2005, a theory claimed that Foreign Minister Risto Ryti had suffered a fatal heart attack while flying, forcing the pilot to try unsuccessfully an emergency landing.
26 October - A heavy reform of the vilayet system is undertaken within the Ottoman Empire, centralizing more the country over Ankara.
27 October - At 19:28:34 GMT, from Peenemünde Army Research Center in Prussia, Germany, the Walküre-1 (Valkyrie-1) rocket is launched into space, becoming the first artificial Earth satellite, getting into low Earth orbit and sending radio signals back on Earth.
Developed by the teams of Wernher von Braun, Walküre-1 becomes an overnight sensation, stressing the cultural and research supremacy of Germany, a long-awaited relief since the events in Poland and Estonia.
Over all, the first man-made object that existed the atmosphere would usher a new era of humanity : the Race to Cosmos.
President of China Yan Xishan refuses to resign and accepts the principle of a cohabitation government with the Kuomintang, hoping to dissolve Parliament after the 1958 presidential election. He appoints as Chairman of the Executive Yuan Sun Fo, a former Minister of Finance and son of Sun Yat-Sen, an independent suitable for the Kuomintang.
In Vienna, the European Community accepts French candidacy, with no veto from Germany.
28 October - In Hungary, Chief of the General Staff Döme Sztójay announces his loyalist forces have been able to free the King and to retake most governmental positions, proclaiming himself as Prime Minister and putting Hungary in full emergency, martial law and curfew. As fighting continues in Budapest and other cities in the country, the issue of the coup remains inconclusive.
29 October - Egyptian War : Alexandria falls to British troops, putting an effective end to the war.
30 October - Spanish writer Pio Baroja dies, aged 83, in Madrid, Spain.
31 October - The Egyptian War ends with the surrender of the Socialist Republic of Egypt.
Operation Neuschwabenland : a Lufwaffe secret mission, commanded by Colonel Rudolf Mayr, manages to land on Queen Maud’s Land in the South Pole, establishing the Drygalski South Pole Research Station.
November-December - A guerilla begins in the Turkish areas of Cyprus, aimed at the Greek government.
1 November - Out of a visit in Calcutta, the car of President Shubhas Chandra Bose is sprayed with bullets by a machine gun ; thanks to the reflexes of Bose’s chauffeur, the President is unharmed along with his suite. The culprits are quickly apprehended and belong a fringe Bengali separatist terrorist group.
In the Cuban presidential election, incumbent President Ramon Barquin wins in the first round as an independent.
Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio, former President of Council of Italy (1926-1935) dies in Grazzano Monferrato, Italy, aged 85.
2 November - Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Hakim (ruler) of Bahrain since 1942 is assassinated in Safra, Bahrain, during a military parade. The assassin is a young Iranian nationalist, prompting the British, who are protectors of Bahrain, to fear that Pan-Iranism is taking root in the small Arabian island. The Hakim is succeeded by his son, Isa bin Salman.
3 November - During a meeting at 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister Rab Butler accepts that British positions in Egypt are now impossible to hold and accepts a transition solution, associating islamist movements with the British-sponsored government.
4 November - As fighting continues in Hungary between factions, Romanian Conducator Corneliu Zelea Codreanu launches a surprise attack over Transylvania, stating his concern over “our Romanian brothers drawn into the Turanian chaos”, sparking the Second Hungarian-Romanian War.
The investigation into a strange epidemic of the central nervous system in Minamata, Japan, results into an official report, immediately deemed classified by the Kempeitai. In the following weeks, sick families disappear.
5 November - The governor of the Shan States in Burma is removed by Thai military, a step that concludes the full military occupation by Thailand of these territories, with full blessing from Japan.
6 November - United States presidential election : President Alfred J. Driscoll (R-NJ) is elected for a full term as President of the United States, with his running mate Robert B. Anderson (R-TX), winning in a landslide , defeating the Progressive ticket of Claude Pepper (P-FL) and Terry Carpenter (P-NE) and the Democratic ticket of Happy Chandler (D-KY) and Joseph P. Kennedy (D-MA). The Republicans keep control of both Houses of Congress.
Great Britain makes its first test of an atomic device, a plutonium implosion device, near Churchill, Manitoba, in Canada. Codenamed “Sycorax”, the test makes Great Britain the fourth nation in the world to possess a nuclear weaponry capacity.
In the Hashemite Caliphate, a law makes Arabic the only official language, for education, academia, print and mass language, administration, judiciary and lawmaking, with emphasis on the Levantine Arabic dialect, hereby putting new restrictions on the uses of Turkish, Hebrew, Kurdish or French within the Caliphate.
7 November - In a move welcomed by President Yan Xishan, Chinese Chairman of the Executive Yuan Sun Fo announces that the Chinese oil sector will be nationalized by the end of the year.
The Prime Minister of Egypt, Fouad Serageddin, is officially received at 10 Downing Street to discuss the future of his country after the British intervention.
8 November - In Hungary, as the Hungarian Army fights the Romanians at Kolozsvar, coup leader Ferenc Szalazi is captured and summarily executed by loyalist forces in Budapest, putting an effective end to the coup and allowing the nation to regroup against the Romanians.
The Ten Commandments, directed by Cecil B. De Mille, is released in the United States. It stars William Boyd, Mel Ferrer, Audrey Hepburn, George Sanders, Anne Bancroft, Pier Angeli, Cornel Wilde, Jayne Meadows and Bette Davis.
11 November-First flight of Messerchmitt Me 303, the first supersonic jet bomber capable of Mach 2 Flight.
12 November - Italian President of Council and Duce Italo Balbo makes a triumphant visit to Tunis, on a heightened security status, in a show of force after the successful reconquest of Italian Tunisia.
Spanish physician Juan Negrin dies in Madrid, Spain, aged 64.
15 November - German Kaiser Louis Ferdinand is invited to the birthday celebrations of Russian Empress Olga in Moscow, signalling warming of German-Russian relations.
18 November - At the World Council, the Russian ambassador engages in a shouting match with his Chinese homologue, protesting the Chinese oil nationalization. Russian-Chinese relations go to an all-time low since the World War, forcing Russia to diversify his sources of oil imports.
21 November - A Finnish submarine patrolling in the Baltic Sea discovers the wreck of the Swedish warship Vasa, that had sunk in 1628.
22 November - Hungarian-Romanian War : Romanian forces are defeated at Kolozsvar and forced to retreat.
Negus of Ethiopia Ahma Selassie shows himself up naked at an official reception in Addis Ababa, with no one daring to address the incident, showing first signs of mental decay.
25 November - Hungarian-Romanian War : Russia, allied to both Hungary and Romania, orders both belligerents to ceasefire in order to avoid a further destabilization of Europe.
Elections are held in Euskadi : the Basque National Party wins a majority, however decreased. Manuel de Irujo is maintained as Prime Minister of Euskadi.
December - Japanese military doctors notice an upsurge in influenza cases in Guizhou Province, in occupied China.
Oman War : By the end of the year, only Muscat is left to the Sultan’s control, with the Imamate effectively controlling the whole Omani territory.
1 December - Hungarian-Romanian War : in an unprecedented step since the conclusion of the Estonian War, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and Italy order both sides to stop all fighting and agree to a ceasefire.
Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer Alexander Rodchenko dies in Moscow, Russia, aged 64.
5 December - Hungarian-Romanian War : under international pressure and facing both the ire of Germany and Russia, Hungary and Romania agree to a ceasefire, putting an end to the Second Hungarian-Romanian War, without ratifying it by a peace treaty, Romanian maintaining its claims. In a month, the conflict took 10,000 lives ; for Hungary, it’s a relief after the utter chaos created by the Szalazi Putsch; for Romania, it’s an embarassment, as Romanian forces were utterly defeated in Transylvania and the dependency of the Legionary regime upon Russia is made crystal clear.
6 December - Prime Minister of India Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (Independent Labour Party, allied to the Indian National Congress) dies in New Delhi, India, aged 55. The first Dalit (untouchable) cabinet member of independent India, he also chaired the dragting committee of the Constitution of India ; he also had converted to Buddhism on 14 October 1956. A popular man, his death is widely mourned in India.
Haitian Chief of the General Staff General Antoine Levelt leads a military coup in Haiti, overthrowing President Daniel Fignolé and installing himself as President.
9 December - The Muslim Brotherhood is invited into the Egyptian civilian government, under suggestion from the British military authorities.
12 December - A customs union, the Kanzei Domei, is created within the Pan Asian Sphere of Co-Prosperity, hereby creating an Asian free trade area with a common external tariff.
President of India Subhas Chandra Bose appoints Minister of Transportation Jayprakash Narayan, a member of the left-wing of the Indian National Congress, as Prime Minister of India.
German Babelsberg film director E. A. Dupont dies, aged 64, in Berlin, Prussia.
13 December - The Bulgarian government sends an official rebuttal to the Constantinople Agreements, asking for the restoration of Free City Status and free passage through Thrace and the Bosphorus Straits ; the Ottoman Empire seconds the Bulgarian protest, that is ignored by Greece.
14 December - Former Prime Minister of Finland (1919-1920, 1920-1921, 1924-1926, 1927-1929) Juho Kusti Paasikivi (National Coalition Party) dies in Helsinki, Finland, aged 86.
Russian Syndicalist military officer and leader Eugène Leviné dies in Mexico City, Mexico, aged 73.
18-19 December: the Bassa in German Kamerun erupt in open revolt against Germany, killing dozens of German colonial administrators. The revolt is swiftly repressed by the German colonial army, destroying Bassa villages and forcing surviving rebels into forced labour.
21 December - Catalan architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch dies in Barcelona, Catalonia, aged 91.
23 December - Hassan al-Hudaybi, General Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, is appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt.
30 December - The New York Giants defeat the Chicago Bears 47-7 in the NFL championship game in Yankee Stadium, New York City, New York.
31 December - The Galician Republic is officially annexed by the Kingdom of Portugal.
Russian Tsarina Olga arrives in Moscow to attend Christmas festivities,, confirming her resolve to have the capital officially relocated as soon as possible.
China officially nationalizes its oil industry.
Chinese military presence at the Tibetan border reach 300,000.
He was a simple officer in the Hashemite Air Force ; I don't think he got much promotion, as the Alawis are regarded are weird heretics by the Damascus government.
The Pyramids were rebuilt in an international effort that even got the Peace Nobel Prize ; as of the Dome of the Rock, it became a shrine on its own.
What political party does Yan Xishan represent (or, if he's an independent, what parties are considered his main allies in the legislature) if the KMT winning big in the legislature means the National Assembly is at odds with him?
Did the reconstruction of the Pyramids involve restoring it to the state prior to it being blown up or did they go "all out" and restore it to the state it would have looked the day after Khufu/Cheops and his heirs were entombed in their respective pyramids, smooth white limestone and all that?
Bonus points if they basically turn back time by demolishing Cairo to recover the original building materials 😂
And yet restored these pyramids which were gone already before islamists blow existing ones.
Honestly, a scenario involving a portal between OTL and this TL opening up would also be nice as well to discuss as well, especially with the political and cultural impact of such a scenario on OTL and vice-versa.
Yan Xishan formed his own party of power, formed by conservatives and nationalists ; here, the Kuomintang remained a left-wing party.
They restored it to the time of their splendour, there are some critics to point out that this is far-fetched and a romanticization of history.
Wow, I don't have time for that ! But sure, it would be interesting as hell !
Well, you could set up a separate discussion thread similar to this: