On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Budget Dir Beame recommends $15-million cut in allocation for Title I projects; repts cut possible because city can now issue notes to meet losses under program
4 helicopters used in precedent-setting 'heli-hop' to bring Vice Pres Nixon and 13 Cabinet members and Pres aides to meeting with Pres Eisenhower, Camp David, Md
Baghdad Pact inaugural council meeting opens; alliance formally named Baghdad Pact; mil com of high officers of 5 nations set up to draft proposals for permanent mil structure; Nuri pledge that Iraq will aid any Arab states threatened by Israel in accordance with its obligations to Arab League states seen move to soften Egyptian opposition to pact; Macmillan urges conf to subordinate pol differences to make area safe from aggression; welcomes US support; Gallman end Cassady attend; Syria sends min to rept on conf; move linked to projected Syrian-Iraqi defense pact; Jordan reptdly will avoid ties with Baghdad Pact, Egyptian-Saudi Arabian or Egyptian-Syrian defense pacts
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Bulganin says bloc will end Warsaw pact if Eur security system is created and NATO abolished, s to Indian Parliament
1955George Alagiah, British journalist (died 2023)[†]
George Maxwell Alagiah was a British newsreader, journalist and television presenter for the BBC. From 2007 until 2022, he was the presenter of the BBC News at Six and the main presenter of GMT on BBC World News from its launch in 2010 until 2014. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.
1955James Edwards, American basketball player[†]
James Franklin Edwards is an American former professional basketball player who was a center in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Los Angeles Lakers, Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Phoenix Suns, Detroit Pistons, Los Angeles Clippers, Portland Trail Blazers, and Chicago Bulls during a career that spanned 19 seasons. Though he never appeared in an All-Star Game, he was a reliable low-post scorer, averaging 12.7 points per game over his career. He played college basketball for the Washington Huskies.
1955Shemp Howard, American actor and comedian (born 1895)[†]
Shemp Howard was an American comedian and actor. He is best known as the third Stooge in The Three Stooges, a role he played when the act began in the early 1920s (1923–1932), while it was still associated with Ted Healy and known as "Ted Healy and his Stooges"; and again from 1946 until his death in 1955. During the fourteen years between his times with the Stooges, he had a successful solo career as a film comedian, including a series of shorts by himself and with partners. He reluctantly returned to the Stooges as a favor to his brother Moe and friend Larry Fine to replace his brother Curly as the third Stooge after Curly's illness.
1955The Soviet Union launches RDS-37, a 1.6 megaton two stage hydrogen bomb designed by Andrei Sakharov. The bomb was dropped over Semipalatinsk.[†]
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by area, extending across eleven time zones and sharing borders with twelve countries, and the third-most populous country. An overall successor to the Russian Empire, it was nominally organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), it was a flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.
In 1955, the world population was approximately 2,740,213,792 people[†]