On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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named C/S of new UN police force to supervise Middle East cease-fire
A E Stevenson cites Poland as possible satellite to which to send UN Peace Observation Comm observers
State Dept repts intestinal sec removed was cancerous; says malignancy had not spread; Eisenhower visits Dulles; issues statement hailing him; tells Heaton to 'take good care of the boy'; Mrs Dulles, Dir Dulles, Maj J Eisenhower also visit
Pres visits Dulles in hosp; statement hails him
from debate on US resolution for UN to send observers to Hungary
1956Rob Fisher, English keyboard player and songwriter (died 1999)[†]
Rob Fisher was an English keyboardist and songwriter from Cheltenham, England, who achieved chart success as a member of the new wave band Naked Eyes and, later, Climie Fisher. He attended Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire, where he was a member of a band called Cirrus with Nick Ryall and Ray Coop (bass).
1956John Harwood, American journalist[†]
John Harwood is an American journalist. He was the White House Correspondent for CNN from February 2021 until September 2022, after working as an editor-at-large for CNBC. He was the chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC and a contributor for The New York Times. He wrote a weekly column entitled "The Caucus" that appeared on Monday about Washington politics and policy. Before joining the Times, he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.
1956Lavrentis Machairitsas, Greek singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2019)[†]
Lavrentis Machairitsas was a Greek rock musician from Volos, Thessaly, Greece.
1956Michael Sorridimi, Australian rugby league player[†]
Michel Sorridimi is an Australian former rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s and 1980s.
1956Jeff Watson, American guitarist and songwriter[†]
Jeffrey Victor Watson is an American guitarist originally known as one of the founding members and lead guitarist of the hard rock band Night Ranger, in which he has played as co-guitarist with guitarist Brad Gillis. Watson developed his signature eight-fingered tapping technique during his time in the band.
1956Art Tatum, American pianist and composer (born 1909)[†]
Arthur Tatum Jr. was an American jazz pianist who is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever. From early in his career, fellow musicians acclaimed Tatum's technical ability as extraordinary. Tatum also extended jazz piano's vocabulary and boundaries far beyond his initial stride influences, and established new ground through innovative use of reharmonization, voicing, and bitonality.
1956Suez Crisis: British and French paratroopers land in Egypt after a week-long bombing campaign.[†]
The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade further prevented Israeli passage. After issuing a joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 5 November, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal, which Nasser had earlier nationalised by transferring administrative control from the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company to Egypt's new government-owned Suez Canal Authority. Shortly after the invasion began, the three countries came under heavy political pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as from the United Nations, eventually prompting their withdrawal from Egypt. The Crisis demonstrated that the United Kingdom and France could no longer pursue their independent foreign policy without consent from the United States. Israel's four-month-long occupation of the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula enabled it to attain freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, but the Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 to March 1957.
In 1956, the world population was approximately 2,795,409,994 people[†]