1956 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1956 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

*Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
*Prime Minister - Anthony Eden Conservative Party

Events

* 26 January–5 February - Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, but do not win any medals.
* 11 February - Two of the "Cambridge spies", Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean — at that time still diplomats, appear in Moscow after vanishing in mysterious circumstances in 1951, [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/11/newsid_2721000/2721413.stm|title="'Cambridge spies' surface in Moscow" BBC On This Day|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 12 February - double yellow lines to prohibit parking introduced in Slough.cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=0-141-02715-0|year=2006]
* 17 April - Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan introduces Premium Bonds.cite book |last=Palmer |first=Alan & Veronica |year=1992 |title= The Chronology of British History|publisher= Century Ltd|location=London|pages= 410-411|isbn= 0-7126-5616-2]
* 3 May - Granada Television launched.
* 7 May - Minister of Health, RH Turton, rejects a call for the government to lead an anti-smoking campaign arguing that no ill-effects had yet been proven. [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/7/newsid_2518000/2518245.stm|title="Minister rejects anti-smoking lobby" BBC On This Day|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 8 May - First performance of John Osborne's play "Look Back in Anger" by the newly formed "English Stage Company" at the Royal Court Theatre. [cite book |title= The Hutchinson Factfinder |publisher= Helicon |year= 1999 |isbn= 1-85986-000-1 ]
* 9 May - Anthony Eden makes a statement refusing to reveal any details surrounding the mystery of the disappearance of the frogman Lionel Crabb, who vanished after diving near the Soviet cruiser "Ordzhonikidze" during a state visit by Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin. [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/9/newsid_4741000/4741060.stm|title="Mystery of missing frogman deepens" BBC On This Day|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 26 July - Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser announces the nationalisation of the Suez Canal triggering the Suez Crisis. [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/26/newsid_2701000/2701603.stm|title="Egypt seizes Suez Canal" BBC On This Day|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 10 September - Guy Mollet visits London and proposes a merger of France and the United Kingdom. However the idea was rejected by Anthony Eden.cite web|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1990795,00.html|title="France and UK considered 1950s 'merger'" "The Guardian"|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 25 September - The TAT-1 transatlantic telephone cable between the UK and North America inaugurated.
* 28 September - Eden considers allowing France to join the Commonwealth of Nations, but this idea is also rejected.
* 15 October - The RAF retires its last Lancaster bomber.
* 17 October - The Queen opens the world's first commercial nuclear power station at Calder Hall. [cite web|url=http://www.sellafieldsites.com/page/sellafield-site-operations/site-history|title=Sellafield Sites, Site history|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 5 November - Long running television programme "What the Papers Say" aired for the first time.
* 6 November - British and French forces seize control of two Egyptian ports before declaring a ceasefire. [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/6/newsid_3115000/3115888.stm|title="Allied forces take control of Suez" BBC On This Day|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 22 November–8 December - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and win 6 gold, 7 silver and 11 bronze medals.
* 29 November - petrol rationing introduced because of petrol blockades from the Middle East due to the Suez Crisis. [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/29/newsid_3247000/3247805.stm|title="Motorists panic as petrol rations loom" BBC On This Day|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 10 December - Cyril Norman Hinshelwood wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Nikolay Semyonov "for their researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions". [cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1956/|title=The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1956|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 19 December - Six people have died and several more have been injured in car crashes caused by heavy fog in northern England. [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/19/newsid_3280000/3280473.stm|title="Thick fog causes death on roads" BBC On This Day|accessdate=2007-12-04]
* 23 December - British and French troops withdraw from Suez under United Nations and United States pressure. [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/23/newsid_3294000/3294305.stm|title="Jubilation as allied troops leave Suez" BBC On This Day|accessdate=2007-12-04]

Undated

* The Gower peninsula becomes the first area in the British Isles to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
* Opening of the first Welsh-medium secondary school in Wales - Ysgol Glan Clwyd, Rhyl.
* Parliament passes the Clean Air Act 1956 in response to the Great Smog of 1952."The London Encyclopaedia", Ben Weinreb & Christopher Hibbert, Macmillan, 1995, ISBN 0-333-57688-8]

Publications

* Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel "Dead Man's Folly".
* Gerald Durrell's memoir "My Family and Other Animals".
* Ian Fleming's James Bond novel "Diamonds Are Forever".
* William Golding's novel "Pincher Martin".
* C. S. Lewis' novel "The Last Battle".
* Rose Macaulay's novel "The Towers of Trebizond".
* Dodie Smith's children's novel "The Hundred and One Dalmatians".
* Angus Wilson's novel "Anglo-Saxon Attitudes".

Births

* 4 January - Bernard Sumner, guitarist (Joy Division and New Order)
* 6 January - Angus Deayton, actor and television presenter
* 9 January - Imelda Staunton, actress
* 17 January - Paul Young, musician
* 31 January - Johnny Rotten, singer (Sex Pistols)
* 13 February - Peter Hook, bassist (Joy Division and New Order)
* 25 February - Davie Cooper, Scottish footballer (died 1995)
* 12 March - Steve Harris, bass player, founding member of Iron Maiden
* 20 March - Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, politician
* 19 April - Sue Barker, tennis player and television presenter
* 26 April - Koo Stark, actress
* 14 May - Hazel Blears, politician
* 15 May - Kjartan Poskitt, author
* 15 July - Ian Curtis, musician (Joy Division) (died 1980)
* 14 September - Ray Wilkins, footballer and coach
* 29 September - Sebastian Coe, athlete, co-ordinator of London 2012 Olympic Games
* 27 October - Hazell Dean, singer
* 30 October - Juliet Stevenson, actress
* 28 November - Lucy Gutteridge, actress
* 23 December - Dave Murray, guitarist
* 28 December - Nigel Kennedy, violinist

Deaths

* 31 January - A. A. Milne, author (born 1882)
* 25 March - Robert Newton, film actor (born 1905)
* 30 March - Edmund Clerihew Bentley, inventor (born 1875)
* 17 May - Austin Osman Spare, magician (born 1886)
* 18 May - Maurice Tate, cricketer (born 1895)
* 20 May - Max Beerbohm, theatre critic (born 1872)
* 22 June - Walter de la Mare, poet, short story writer and novelist (born 1873)
* 22 September - Frederick Soddy, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1877)
* 16 December - Nina Hamnett, artist (born 1890)

References

ee also