Top News Stories from 1957
World Events
World Statistics
Population: 4.378 billion
population by decade Nobel Peace Prize: Lester B. Pearson (Canada)
More World Statistics... - Anthony Eden resigns (Jan. 9); MacMillan becomes British Prime Minister.
- The USSR tests its first successful ICBM.
- Russia launches Sputnik I, first earth-orbiting satellite—the Space Age begins (Oct. 4).
U.S. Events
U.S. Statistics
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
Population: 171,984,130
Life expectancy: 69.5 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 4.5
More U.S. Statistics... - Eisenhower Doctrine calls for aid to Mideast countries that resist armed aggression from Communist-controlled nations (Jan. 5).
- The "Little Rock Nine" integrate Arkansas high school. Eisenhower sends troops to quell mob and protect the students after Gov. Orval Faubus defies federal order (Sept. 24).
Economics
US GDP (1998 dollars): $461 billion
Federal spending: $76.58 billion
Federal debt $272.3 billion
Consumer Price Index: $28.1
Unemployment: 4.1%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.03
Sports
World Series
Milwaukee Braves d. NY YankeesNBA Championship
Boston d. St. Louis HawksStanley Cup
Montreal d. BostonWimbledon
Women: Althea Gibson d. D. Hard (6-3 6-2)Men: Lew Hoad d. A. Cooper (6-2 6-1 6-2)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Iron LiegeNCAA Basketball Championship
North Carolina d. KansasNCAA Football Champions
Auburn (AP) (10-0-0) & Ohio St. (UP, FW, INS) (9-1-0)Entertainment
Entertainment Awards
Pulitzer Prizes Fiction: No award
Music: Meditations on Ecclesiastes, Norman Dello Joio
Drama: Long Day's Journey Into Night, Eugene O'Neill
Academy Award, Best Picture: Around the World in 80 Days, Michael Todd, producer (United Artists)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Albert Camus (France)
Miss America: Marian McKnight (SC)
More Entertainment Awards... Events
- Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story debuts on Broadway and brings violence to the stage.
- Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey Into Night is produced posthumously and wins both the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize.
- Columbia University professor Charles Van Doren becomes a media sensation by winning $129,000 on the quiz show Twenty One.
- Leave It to Beaver premieres on CBS, ushering in an era of television shows that depict the ideal American.
Movies
- The Bridge on the River Kwai, Twelve Angry Men, Sayonara, Peyton Place, Witness for the Prosecution
Books
- James Agee, A Death in the Family
- John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle
- Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures
- Lawrence Durrell, Justine
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road
- Denise Levertov, Here and Now
- Bernard Malamud, The Assistant
- Robert Penn Warren, Promises: Poems 1954—56
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Sir Alexander Todd (UK), for research with chemical compounds that are factors in heredity
Physics: Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang (China), for disproving principle of conservation of parity
Physiology or Medicine: Daniel Bovet (Italy), for development of drugs to relieve allergies and relax muscles during surgery
More Nobel Prizes in 1998... - Temporary artificial heart invented by Willem Kolff.
- Interferon invented by Alick Isaacs and Jean Lindemann (England and Switzerland).
- Clarence W. Lillehie and Earl Bakk (US) invent the internal pacemaker. Background: Health & Nutrition
- Bardeen, Cooper, and Scheiffer (US) propose a theory of superconductivity.
- First round-the-world nonstop jet plane flight. Maj. Gen. Archie J. Old, Jr. (USAF) led a flight of three Boeing B-52 bombers around the world in 45 hours, 19 minutes (completed Jan. 18). Background: Famous Firsts in Aviation
