While large parts of the US are racked by racial strife in housing, the workplace, public transportation and education, Henkels & McCoy remains an equal opportunity employer, long before it was "fashionable" and for far longer than it was the law of the land.

May 21
First aerial detonation of the hydrogen bomb.

May
The 340 feet high, 1,400 feet wide Folsom Dam (left) is completed by US Army Corps of Engineers, 20 miles northeast of Sacramento, California. The entire project took eight years to accomplish. A power plant went online the previous year. The dam already had worked wonders, some four months before the grand opening, by keeping the American River at bay when Christmas rains flooded the Feather River and killed more than 30 people in Yuba City, California.

 

July 24
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform live together for the last time.

July 25
Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria sinks off Nantucket Island following collision with another ship.

July 26
The Suez Canal is nationalized by Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser.

July 30
"In God We Trust" authorized as national motto of US.

September 25
Transatlantic telephone cable is inaugurated. Telephone service links the US and Canada with the UK. The new technology also enables the rest of Europe to communicate with America by telephone. Telegraph links between the UK and America had been in existence from the middle of the previous century, and 1927 saw the first commercial radiotelephone service between the UK and America.

October 8
New York Yankee Don Larsen becomes the first to pitch a perfect game in the World series.

November 4
Thousands are killed and over a quarter of a million people leave Hungary as Soviet troops invade to crush revolt.

November 5
Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) established. The committee is made up of representatives of Britain's aircraft and engine manufacturers, as well as government officials and personnel to study the possibility of building a supersonic airliner. By 1962 Britain and France will sign an agreement to become equal partners in the venture. In 1963, French President makes use of the name "Concorde" during a speech.

November 6
Dwight D. Eisenhower is reelected for second term as US president in a landslide victory over Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, who also ran against Ike in '52.

Also in 1956:
IBM team invents FORTRAN, the first computer programming language.
The movie version of The Ten Commandments released.
Adoption of Federal Highway Act signals the true development of the interstate highway system.

plus:
A young US Senator, John F. Kennedy, (D) of Massachusetts sees his ambitions for the Vice Presidential nomination thwarted at that party's National Convention. Adlai Stevenson goes up against Ike and Richard Nixon accompanied by US Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.

What's on TV?
A Chicago TV station becomes the first in US to broadcast all its programming in color.....First use of videotape for network television...Black and white portable TVs are available for the first time.... Reach for the sky. Gunsmoke premiers on CBS... Lucy claws her way back to the top, with The Ed Sullivan Show at Number Two... "Say the secret woid and win $100." Groucho Marx' lighthearted quiz show hit, You Bet Your Life is still going after six years on the air. Although Groucho says "I really must be going" at the end of the 57-58 season, the show will live on in syndication and the master of the wisecrack continues to tickle funny bones long after his departure.

Births
Actor Tom Hanks
Basketball Hall of Famer Larry Bird

Deaths
A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh author
Connie Mack, legendary baseball manager and executive