November 1957

The following events occurred in November 1957:

November 1, 1957 (Friday)

• The Public Health Service in Washington, D.C., announced that manufacturers would soon be producing a more powerful vaccine for the so-called "Asian influenza" and said that many people who had already been vaccinated should receive a second shot.

• The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at this time, opened in the United States, to connect Michigan's two peninsulas.
• Yale University commemorated the 100th anniversary year of the birth of former U.S. President William Howard Taft, a Yale alumnus, born on September 15, 1857.
• Died: Charlie Caldwell, American football, basketball and baseball player and coach, cancer (b. 1901)

November 2, 1957 (Saturday)

• Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who had been relieved of his position as Soviet Minister of Defence on October 26, was removed from all of his high-level positions in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• A seven-story apartment building in El Manial, Cairo, collapsed, killing 25 people.
• The New Statesman published "Britain and the Nuclear Bombs", an article by J. B. Priestley. Popular response to the article would lead to the foundation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
• On the night of November 2–3, a UFO sighting by multiple people occurred west of Levelland, Texas.
• Died:
  • William Coffin Coleman, American businessman and politician, founder of Coleman, acute myocardial infarction (b. 1870)
  • William Haywood, British architect, cerebral haemorrhage (b. 1876)
  • Ted Meredith, American Olympic champion athlete, after surgery (b. 1891)
  • Tokutomi Sohō (born Tokutomi Iichirō), Japanese journalist and historian (b. 1863)
  • Mahonri Young, American sculptor and artist, grandson of Brigham Young, bleeding ulcers complicated by pneumonia (b. 1877)

November 3, 1957 (Sunday)

• The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, the second spacecraft in the Sputnik program, with the first animal to orbit the Earth (a dog named Laika) on board. There was no technology available to return her to Earth. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other animal rights groups worldwide protested the launching of Laika into space.
• In the 1957 Portuguese legislative election, the ruling National Union won all 120 seats.
• The Roman Catholic Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains in Cincinnati, Ohio, was rededicated after a $5 million rebuilding project.
• Born: Dolph Lundgren, Swedish actor and martial artist; in Stockholm, Sweden
• Died:
  • Charles Brabin, American director and screenwriter (b. 1883)
  • Dick Buek, American Olympic alpine ski racer and stunt pilot, air crash (b. 1929)
  • Linn Enslow, American sanitary engineer and chemist, heart attack (b. 1891)
  • Laika, Soviet space dog (b. c. 1954)
  • Wilhelm Reich, Austrian psychoanalyst (b. 1897)
  • Giuseppe Di Vittorio, Italian trade union leader and Communist politician, heart attack (b. 1892)

November 4, 1957 (Monday)

• A plane carrying officials of the Romanian Communist Party crashed at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, killing Grigore Preoteasa and three crewmembers. Prime Minister Chivu Stoica, Nicolae Ceaușescu and Leonte Răutu, also aboard the plane, all survived.
• Born:
  • Tony Abbott, 28th Prime Minister of Australia; in Lambeth, London, England
  • Aleksandr Tkachyov, Soviet Olympic champion gymnast; in Semiluki, Voronezh Oblast, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union
• Died:
  • Joseph Canteloube, French composer and singer (b. 1879)
  • Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith (b. 1897)
  • Grigore Preoteasa, Romanian activist, air crash (b. 1915)
  • Thomas Robins, American inventor and manufacturer (b. 1868)

November 5, 1957 (Tuesday)

• Two U.S. states, New Jersey and Virginia, voted to elect governors. In the 1957 New Jersey gubernatorial election, incumbent Democrat Robert B. Meyner defeated Republican Malcolm Forbes for the position of Governor of New Jersey. In the 1957 Virginia gubernatorial election, Democrat J. Lindsay Almond, the former Attorney General of Virginia, defeated Republican Virginia State Senator Theodore Roosevelt Dalton for the position of Governor of Virginia.
• Born: Jon-Erik Hexum, American actor; in Englewood, New Jersey (d. 1984, accidental shooting)

November 6, 1957 (Wednesday)

• The Downend air crash in Downend, South Gloucestershire, killed all 15 crewmembers and technicians aboard a prototype Bristol Britannia aircraft and caused injuries to two people on the ground.

• The Fairey Rotodyne compound gyroplane made its first flight, piloted by Squadron Leader W. Ron Gellatly and Lieutenant Commander John G.P. Morton.
• Born:
  • Cam Clarke, American voice actor and singer; in Burbank, California
  • Ciro Gomes, Brazilian lawyer and politician; in Pindamonhangaba, São Paulo, Brazil
  • Klaus Kleinfeld, German business executive; in Bremen, West Germany
  • Lori Singer, American actress and musician; in Corpus Christi, Texas

November 7, 1957 (Thursday)

• The Security Resources Panel of the Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM) Science Advisory Committee submitted the Gaither Report to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
• A total lunar eclipse took place.
• Born: Christopher Knight, American actor; in New York City
• Died:
  • Hasui Kawase, Japanese painter and printmaker, cancer (b. 1883)
  • Roy Worters, Canadian National Hockey League goaltender, throat cancer (b. 1900)

November 8, 1957 (Friday)

• Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, told the House of Commons that the release of radioactive material due to the Windscale fire on October 10 had caused no significant harm to human or animal life or property.
• United States Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy directed the U.S. Army to proceed with the launching of the Explorer earth satellites. This order, in effect, resumed the Orbiter project that had been eliminated from the International Geophysical Year (IGY) satellite planning program on September 9, 1955.
• Warner Bros. released The Story of Mankind, a film adaptation of Hendrik Willem van Loon's book of the same name, directed by Irwin Allen. The New York Times called the film "a protracted and tedious lesson in history that is lacking in punch, sophistication and a consistent point of view."
• Pan Am Flight 7 crashed in the Pacific Ocean en route from San Francisco to Honolulu, killing all 44 people aboard.
• Died: Fred Anderson, American Major League Baseball pitcher, suicide (b. 1885)

November 9, 1957 (Saturday)

• Died:
  • John Bartlet Brebner, Canadian-born American historian (b. 1895)
  • Ulric Ellerhusen, German-American sculptor (b. 1879)
  • George W. Merck, American chemist and businessman, cerebral hemorrhage (b. 1894)
  • Peter O'Connor, English-born Irish Olympic champion athlete and solicitor (b. 1872)
  • Alan Wace, English archaeologist, heart ailment (b. 1879)

November 10, 1957 (Sunday)

• A bus accident killed 27 people in Saint-Paul, Réunion.
• Born: George Lowe, American voice actor and comedian; in Dunedin, Florida
• Died:
  • Louise Carter, American actress (b. 1875)
  • Henderson Lovelace Lanham, member of the United States House of Representatives from Georgia, traffic collision (b. 1888)
  • Frank Weil, American lawyer (b. 1894)

November 11, 1957 (Monday)

• West Berlin awarded the Freiheitsglocke (Freedom Bell), its highest cultural honor, to singer and actress Lotte Lenya.
• Border campaign (Irish Republican Army): In County Louth, Ireland, four members of the Irish Republican Army and a civilian were killed in a premature land mine explosion.
• Born: Ana Pastor, Spanish politician; in Cubillos, Province of Zamora, Spain
• Died:
  • Masao Maruyama, Japanese general (b. 1889)
  • Howard R. Reiter, American football player, coach and athletic director (b. 1871)
  • Gerald Burton Winrod, American antisemitic evangelist, author and activist, pneumonia (b. 1900)

November 12, 1957 (Tuesday)

• At a meeting of the NACA Subcommittee on Fluid Mechanics on November 12 and 13, it was stated that many aspects of space flight and astronautics would depend heavily on research advances in the field that had been broadly termed fluid mechanics. Research in this area involved internal and external gas flows associated with high-speed flights within the atmosphere and reentry into the atmosphere of spacecraft vehicles. The subcommittee recommended to the NACA that research in these matters be intensified.
• Born: Cécilia Attias (born Cécilia María Sara Isabel Ciganer-Albéniz), wife of French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy; in Boulogne-Billancourt, France
• Died:
  • Ella Bradna, Bohemian-born equestrian circus performer (b. 1879)
  • Maxwell M. Hamilton, American diplomat, United States Ambassador to Finland (b. 1896)
  • Arthur Asahel Shurcliff, American landscape architect (b. 1870)

November 13, 1957 (Wednesday)

• Flooding in the Po Valley of Italy led to flooding in Venice as well.
• American physicist Gordon Gould, then a graduate student at Columbia University, had a page of his notebook notarized at a candy store. The page contained notes headed, "Some rough calculations on the feasibility of a LASER: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation".
• Paramount Pictures released the aviation drama film Zero Hour!, directed by Hall Bartlett. According to New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther, "This isn't the sort of picture you'd want to see before embarking on a flight, but it is an exciting contemplation of a frightening adventure in the skies." It would be remade in 1980 as the parody film Airplane!
• Born:
  • Greg Abbott, American attorney and politician, 48th Governor of Texas; in Wichita Falls, Texas
  • Stephen Baxter, English science fiction author; in Liverpool, England
  • Roger Ingram, American jazz musician, author, educator and trumpet designer; in Pasadena, California
• Died:
  • Rosamond Marshall, American novelist (b. 1902)
  • E. Alexander Powell, American war correspondent, author and explorer, coronary thrombosis (b. 1879)
  • Claude U. Stone, American newspaper editor and politician, member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois (b. 1879)
  • Antonín Zápotocký, 6th President and 15th Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, heart attack (b. 1884)

November 14, 1957 (Thursday)

• State and federal police raided the Apalachin meeting, a summit conference of the American Mafia in Apalachin, New York, arresting 58 organized crime figures.
• Born: Gregg Burge, American tap dancer and choreographer; in Merrick, New York (d. 1998, brain tumor)
• Died:
  • Hettie Gray Baker, American film editor (b. 1881)
  • Willie Parau Browne, Cook Islands businessman and politician (b. 1884)
  • William Grant Edens, American banker and road advocate (b. 1863)
  • Jay McLean, American surgeon, discoverer of heparin (b. 1890)

November 15, 1957 (Friday)

• Yugoslavia announced the end of an economic boycott of Francoist Spain (although it did not reinstitute diplomatic relations).
• At the age of 21, Yves Saint Laurent was officially designated to succeed Christian Dior, who had died on October 24, as the head designer of Dior.
• 1957 Aquila Airways Solent crash: A flying boat crash on the Isle of Wight left 45 people dead.
• James Rhyne Killian, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was sworn in as chairman of the President's Science Advisory Committee.
• A U.S. Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortress crashed into a mountain about 70 miles (110 km) northeast of Anchorage, Alaska, killing six of the ten people aboard.
• Born:
  • Kevin Eubanks, American jazz guitarist; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Jon Grunde Vegard, Norwegian Olympic diver; in Tønsberg, Norway
• Died:
  • John Burnham, designer of USS Nautilus (SSN-571) (b. 1917)
  • Andrzej Bursa, Polish poet, congenital heart disease (b. 1932)

November 16, 1957 (Saturday)

• Adnan Menderes of the Democrat Party formed the new government of Turkey (23rd government, last government formed by DP and Menderes).
• A tenement fire in Niagara Falls, New York, killed 14 children and three adults.
• Born: Jacques Gamblin, French actor; in Granville, Manche, France
• Died: Seán Moylan, Irish Republican Army officer, Fianna Fáil politician and Senator (b. 1889)

November 17, 1957 (Sunday)

• Died:
  • George M. Fay, American lawyer, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, cancer (b. 1909)
  • Wilson P. Foss Jr., American art collector and businessman, cancer (b. c. 1891)
  • Wooden Joe Nicholas, American jazz trumpeter and cornetist (b. 1883)
  • Cora Witherspoon, American actress, heart ailment (b. 1890)

November 18, 1957 (Monday)

• Born: Olivia Heussler, Swiss photojournalist; in Zürich, Switzerland
• Died:
  • Rudolf Diels, German Nazi civil servant and Gestapo chief, hunting accident (b. 1900)
  • Edward Dudley Metcalfe MVO MC, Indian Army officer, equerry of the Duke of Windsor (b. 1887)

November 19, 1957 (Tuesday)

• Preston R. Bassett of the NACA Committee on Aerodynamics presented a resolution urging the NACA to adopt an aggressive program in space research technology.
• Born:
  • Ofra Haza, Israeli singer; in Hatikva Quarter, Tel Aviv, Israel (d. 2000, complications from AIDS)
  • Tom Virtue, American actor; in Sherman, Texas

November 20, 1957 (Wednesday)

• Born:
  • Stefan Bellof, German racing driver; in Giessen, West Germany (d. 1985, race crash)
  • John Eriksen, Danish footballer; in Assens, Denmark (d. 2002, accidental fall)
  • Goodluck Jonathan, 14th President of Nigeria; in Otueke, Ogbia, Eastern Region, British Nigeria
  • Sophie Lorain, Canadian actress, director and producer; in Montreal, Quebec
• Died:
  • Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Russian and Lithuanian artist and scenic designer (b. 1875)
  • Augustine B. Kelley, member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania (b. 1883)
  • Gerard Swope, American electronics businessman, president of General Electric (b. 1872)

November 21, 1957 (Thursday)

• French troops killed 42 Algerian rebels and captured 10. Six French soldiers were killed.
• The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) established a Special Committee on Space Technology to study and delineate problem areas that must be solved to make space flight a practical reality and to consider and recommend means for attacking these problems. Dr. H. Guyford Stever of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was named chairman.
• The Rocket and Satellite Research Panel recommended the creation of a National Space Establishment in the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government. According to the proposal, activities of this agency would be under civilian leadership, and the organization would be charged with formulating and supervising a space research program. An annual budget of $1 billion for a period of 10 years was recommended.
• Over one-half of the NACA Propulsion Conference on November 21 and 22 was devoted to the discussion of possible space propulsion systems. Three particular systems appeared to afford excellent choices for such purposes. These were: the chemical rocket, the nuclear rocket, and the nuclear electric rocket. It was the considered opinion of the conference members that the chemical rocket would be quite adequate for a round trip to the Moon.
• Died:
  • James C. Crumlish, 63, judge of the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas
  • Cary A. Hardee, American educator, lawyer and banker, 23rd Governor of Florida (b. 1876)
  • Francis Burton Harrison, American statesman, member of the United States House of Representatives from New York, Governor-General of the Philippines, heart ailment (b. 1873)
  • Arthur A. Koscinski, Polish-born United States federal judge (b. 1887)

November 22, 1957 (Friday)

• Born:
  • Glen Clark, Canadian politician, 31st Premier of British Columbia; in Nanaimo, British Columbia
  • Franco Lovignana, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aosta; in Aosta, Italy
  • Don Newman, American basketball coach and player; in New Orleans, Louisiana (d. 2018, brain cancer)
  • Alan Stern, American engineer and planetary scientist, principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto; in New Orleans, Louisiana
• Died:
  • Henry Moore, 10th Earl of Drogheda , British Army officer and barrister (b. 1884)
  • Francis Henry Taylor, American museum director and curator, after surgery (b. 1903)

November 23, 1957 (Saturday)

• Born: William Kaelin Jr., American cellular biologist, Nobel Prize laureate; in New York City
• Died:
  • William W. Arnold, American politician and jurist, member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois (b. 1877)
  • Ethel Jackson, American actress (b. c. 1877)
  • Elia Abu Madi, Lebanese-born American poet, coronary thrombosis (b. 1890)

November 24, 1957 (Sunday)

• Speaking in Boston, U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy said that there was no reason a Roman Catholic could not abide by the oath of office of the president of the United States. Kennedy would be elected as the first Catholic U.S. President in November 1960.
• Born: Denise Crosby (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Pet Sematary), American actress; in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
• Died:
  • Sir Godfrey Baring, 1st Baronet KBE, DL, JP, Member of Parliament (b. 1871)
  • George T. Bye (born George Thurman Bindbeutel), American literary agent, cancer (b. 1887)
  • Wilford Conrow, American portraitist (b. 1880)
  • Prince George of Greece and Denmark, high commissioner of the Cretan State (b. 1869)
  • Diego Rivera, Mexican painter, cancer (b. 1886)
  • Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern, English classical scholar and historian, uremia following cerebral thrombosis (b. 1879)

November 25, 1957 (Monday)

• U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a mild stroke during a Cabinet meeting.
• Died:
  • George Davis, American editor and novelist, husband of Lotte Lenya, heart attack (b. 1906)
  • Raymond Griffith, American actor, asphyxia (b. 1895)
  • Peter B. Kyne, American novelist (b. 1880)
  • Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, KStJ, German-born South African mining entrepreneur (b. 1880)
  • William V. Pratt, American admiral (b. 1869)

November 26, 1957 (Tuesday)

• For almost eight hours, U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon participated in White House discussions about issues arising from President Eisenhower's illness. The stock market dropped in the wake of Eisenhower's stroke.
• 2,000 people attended the burial of artist Diego Rivera in the Rotunda of Illustrious Sons at the Panteón de Dolores in Mexico City.
• Members of the United States Congress were present for a failed test of a Jupiter missile at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• Born:
  • Kevin Kamenetz, American politician; in Lochearn, Maryland (d. 2018, cardiac arrest)
  • Matthias Reim, German singer-songwriter; in Korbach, West Germany
• Died:
  • Billy Bevan, Australian actor (b. 1887)
  • Aleksey Remizov, Russian author and calligrapher (b. 1877)
  • Petros Voulgaris, Prime Minister of Greece, heart ailment (b. 1883)

November 27, 1957 (Wednesday)

• Born:
  • Kenny Acheson, Irish race car driver; in Cookstown, Northern Ireland
  • Edda Heiðrún Backman, Icelandic actress, singer, director and artist; in Akranes, Iceland (d. 2016, ALS)
  • Caroline Kennedy, American author, attorney and daughter of 35th President John F. Kennedy; in New York City

November 28, 1957 (Thursday)

• The British Government announced that the naval dockyard in Hong Kong would close by November 30, 1959.
• The second of two Rolls-Royce Thrust Measuring Rigs, pioneering VTOL aircraft, crashed during a tethered test flight in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, killing the pilot, 41-year-old Wing Commander H. G. F. Larsen.
• Died: Pinkhos Churgin, Israeli scholar, president of Bar-Ilan University, stomach ailment (b. 1894)

November 29, 1957 (Friday)

• A fire started by a clothes iron in the tailor's shop of Oakwood Hospital in Maidstone, Kent, England, caused the central tower of the hospital to collapse after the fire was under control, killing three firefighters, a patient, and two hospital staff members. 15 people were injured.
• The U.S. Air Force unveiled the pressure suit to be used for its X-15 flight program.
• Born: Janet Napolitano, American politician, lawyer and university administrator, 21st Governor of Arizona, 3rd United States Secretary of Homeland Security; in New York City
• Died:
  • Willard C. Brinton, American consulting engineer, heart attack (b. 1880)
  • John P. Frey, American labor leader (b. 1871)
  • Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Austrian composer (b. 1897)
  • Adeodato Giovanni Piazza, O.C.D., Italian Roman Catholic friar and cardinal (b. 1884)
  • Michael Dov Weissmandl, Hungarian-born Orthodox rabbi (b. 1903)

November 30, 1957 (Saturday)

• Indonesian president Sukarno survived a grenade attack at the Cikini School in Jakarta, but six children were killed.
• 1957 New Zealand general election: The Labour Party defeated the governing National Party, with Walter Nash succeeding Keith Holyoake as Prime Minister.
• In Norwalk, Connecticut, Governor Abraham Ribicoff dedicated the 1,000-foot (300 m) Yankee Doodle Bridge over the Norwalk River.
• At Varsity Stadium in Toronto, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers by a score of 32–7 to win the 45th Grey Cup. During the game, a Winnipeg fan tripped Hamilton safety Bibbles Bawel while he was returning an interception. Winnipeg received a penalty of half the distance to the goal line.
• Born:
  • Djibril Bassolé, Burkinabé politician and diplomat; in Nouna, French Upper Volta
  • Joël Champetier, French-Canadian science fiction and fantasy author; in La Corne, Quebec (d. 2015, cancer)
  • Colin Mochrie, Scottish-born Canadian comedian; in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland
  • Margaret Spellings (born Margaret M. Dudar), American government and non-profit executive, 8th United States Secretary of Education; in Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Died:
  • Beniamino Gigli, Italian operatic tenor, pneumonia (b. 1890)
  • Simone Silva, Egyptian-born French actress, stroke (b. 1928)
  • Laurence Todd, American journalist, correspondent for TASS (b. 1882)

References