BRITAIN AND THE WORLD SINCE 1953
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| Jan26 | The import and export of heroin is banned in the U.K. |
| The last Soviet troops leave Finland after Finnish troops reoccupy the Porkkala area and its military base | |
| Feb11 | Two members of the so-called Cambridge Spy Ring reappeared in the Soviet Union following their mysterious dissappearance on this day in 1956. Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean issued a statement announcing they were living in the USSR to "work for the aim of better understanding between the Soviet Union and the West". Three further members of the group, who all knew each other from Trinity College in Cambridge, were later unmasked, including Anthony Blunt, who was stripped of his knighthood in 1979. |
| Feb 15 | Urho Kekkonen is elected President of Finland an office he retained until he retired on medical grounds in 1981 |
| Feb21 | A grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama indicts 115 in a Negro bus boycott. |
| Feb25 | Khrushchev denounces Stalin at twentieth Soviet Party Conference for promoting the "cult of the individual." On March 29 the first critical articles appear in "Pravda" - funny how they wait until Stalin had died! |
| Feb26 | Writers Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes meet at a party in Cambridge |
| Mar2 | Morocco gained independence from France. |
| Apr14 | Ampex Corp demonstrates first commercial VCR |
| Apr17 | Premium Bonds are introduced in Great Britain by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold MacMillan |
| Apr19 | US actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier 111 of Monaco in the cliff-top cathedral St Nicholas Monaco |
| Apr25 | Rocky Marciano retires as undefeated Heavyweight Champion of The World |
| May8 | The constitutional union between Indonesia and the Netherlands is dissolved |
| May9 | A Play by John Osborne "Look Back In Anger" debuts at the Royal Court Theatre |
| May21 | USA detonate an H-Bomb over Nauru Atoll |
| Jun3 | Third class coaches abolished on British Railways |
| Jun13 | Real Madrid beat Stade de Reims 4-3 to win the first European Cup |
| Jun18 | Last of foreign troops leaves Egypt - Egypt siezes the Suez Canal 26th July after Britain and France refuse to give Eygpt a loan for the Aswan Dam |
| Jun29 | Marilym Monroe marries the playwright Arthur Miller |
| Jul2 | Two airliners collide and crash into the Grand Canyon |
| Jul27 | In the Fourth Test at Old Trafford Jim Laker the Surrey off-spinner gets figures of 9-37 and 10-53 to rout the Australians and obtain the best bowling figures ever recorded in aTest match |
| Jul30 | The phrase "In God We Trust" was adopted as the national motto of USA |
| Aug8 | Fire and explosion kill 263 miners at Marcinelle in Belgium |
| Sep25 | One century after the first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid, the first transatlantic telephone cable began operation. Consisting of 4,500 miles (7,242 km) of coaxial cable, laid in waters up to 2.5 miles (4 km) deep, the system provided 35 high-quality telephone circuits from London to the US and Canada. |
| Oct15 | The RAF retires its last Lancaster bomber |
| Oct17 | Britain's first large scale Atomic power station opens |
| Oct26 | Troops from the Warsaw Pact invade Hungary to supress the uprising. It was estimated that 20,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion. the fighting did not end until Nov14 |
| Oct31 | Britain and France invade Suez, two days after israeli troops invade the Sinai Peninsular. The war would go on until Nov7 when the USA demanded that the two European should cease hostilities |
| Nov6 | Dwight Eisenhower is re-elected President for a second term after defeating Adlai E Stevenson |
| Nov10 | Sixteenth Olympic games of the modern era opened in Melbourne Australia |
| Nov16 | Suez canal blocked (till 5 Jun 1975) |
| Nov23 | Petrol was rationed in Great Britain as the Suez Crisis worsens |
| Dec5 | Rose Heilbron became Britain's first female judge |
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Last Updated 21/02/07 09:14