1957

1845–1958	Germany [earth sciences]	German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion.
1950–1959	USA [everyday life]	The number of people in the USA who live in the suburbs increases by 44% in the 1950s.
1950–1980	UK [television]	Watch With Mother, a series for young children featuring favourite characters such as Andy Pandy, the Flowerpot Men, Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, and the Woodentops, is shown on British television.
15 October 1951 - 24 June 1957	USA [television]	I Love Lucy, US television's first smash hit situation comedy, is shown, starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley.
1956–1961	UK [television]	In addition to its successful run on radio, Hancock's Half-Hour, starring the comedian Tony Hancock, supported by Sid James, is shown on British television. It is scripted by Alan Simpson and Ray Galton.
1957	UK [technology]	The Jodrell Bank observatory, located in Cheshire, England, and designed by English astronomer Bernard Lovell, begins operating. The first large radio telescope, it has a 76-m/250-ft diameter reflector, which can be rotated horizontally at 20° per minute and vertically at 24° per minute. Lovell uses it to track the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1, launched 4 October.
1957	Italy [opera]	The opera Les Dialogues des Carmélites/The Carmelites' Dialogue, by the French composer Francis Poulenc, is first performed, in Milan, Italy. It is based on a play by the French writer Georges Bernanos.
1957	Russia [orchestral music]	The Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich completes his Symphony No. 11 (the 1905) and his Piano Concerto No. 2.
1957	England [plays]	The play The Entertainer, by the English dramatist John Osborne, is first performed.
1957	Ireland [plays]	The play The Hostage, by the Irish writer Brendan Behan, is first performed, in Dublin, Ireland.
1957	England [poetry]	The English poet Ted Hughes publishes his poetry collection The Hawk in the Rain.
1957	USA, UK [popular music]	The US rock singer Elvis Presley releases the singles ‘All Shook Up’ – his first number one in Britain – and ‘Jailhouse Rock’.
1957	USA [sculpture]	The US artist Alexander Calder sculpts Mobile for the Idlewild (now JFK) Airport in New York City.
1957	France [sculpture]	The English artist Henry Moore sculpts Reclining Figure for the UNESCO building in Paris, France.
1957	Scotland, Switzerland [medicine]	Interferon, a natural protein that fights viruses, is discovered by Scottish virologist Alick Isaacs and Swiss virologist Jean Lindemann.
1957	Australia [fiction]	The Australian writer Patrick White publishes his novel Voss.
1957	USA [fiction]	The US writer Jack Kerouac publishes his novel On the Road, one of the major works of the ‘Beat’ movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
1957	England [fiction]	The English writer John Braine publishes his novel Room at the Top.
1957	England [fiction]	The English writer Lawrence Durrell publishes his novel Justine, the first volume of The Alexandria Quartet.
1957	Russia, USSR [fiction]	The Russian writer Boris Pasternak publishes his novel Doktor Zhivago/Dr Zhivago in Italy, permission having been refused in the USSR. An English translation appears in 1958. Its worldwide success causes Pasternak to be severely criticized in the USSR, and he declines the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 fearing that if he leaves the USSR he will not be allowed to return.
1957	USA [fiction]	The illustrated children's books How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat are published by the US author and illustrator Dr Seuss.
1957	England [Buddhism]	The English theologian Alan Watts publishes The Way of Zen.
1957	UK [cinema and film]	The film The Bridge on the River Kwai, directed by David Lean, is released in Britain, starring Alec Guinness, William Holden, and Jack Hawkins.
1957	USA [civil rights]	The civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr, helps establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization devoted to ending discrimination nonviolently.
1957	USA [thought and scholarship]	The US linguist Noam Chomsky publishes Syntactic Structures, which establishes transformational-generative grammar as a linguistic theory.
9 January 1957	UK [television]	Detector vans are introduced in Britain by the General Post Office to identify television licence fee dodgers.
10 January 1957	UK [administration]	The Conservative Harold Macmillan becomes British prime minister after the resignation of Anthony Eden 9 January, and, on 13 January, he forms a ministry with R A Butler as home secretary, Selwyn Lloyd as foreign secretary, and Peter Thorneycroft as chancellor of the Exchequer.
6 February 1957	Israel, Egypt [wars]	Israeli troops hand over the ‘Gaza Strip’, Egyptian territory to the southwest of Israel seized in 1956, to a United Nations (UN) force.
March 1957	Japan [technology]	The electronics company Sony markets the first pocket-sized transistor radio, in Japan.
3 March 1957	Europe, UK [television]	The Eurovision Song Contest, which started in 1956, is shown for the first time on British television.
6 March 1957	Ghana [decolonization]	The Gold Coast (comprising the former colonies of the Gold Coast, Ashanti, the Northern Territories, and British Togoland) becomes an independent state within the British Commonwealth and is renamed Ghana, with Kwame Nkrumah as prime minister. On 8 March Ghana is admitted to the United Nations (UN).
25 March 1957	Europe [diplomacy]	Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands (the ‘Six’) sign the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) or ‘Common Market’, and a second Rome Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Authority or ‘Euratom’ (to take effect from 1 January 1958).
6 July 1957	USA, UK [tennis]	Althea Gibson of the USA becomes the first black player to win a singles title at the Wimbledon lawn tennis championships in London, England.
12 August 1957	British Guiana [elections]	Following Britain's decision to restore self-government in British Guiana (now Guyana), an election is held for 14 seats on a new legislative council. Cheddi Jagan's People's Progressive Party wins 9 seats and, on 15 August, Jagan forms a government.
31 August 1957	Malaya [decolonization]	The British protectorate over Malaya ends and the independent Malayan Federation comes into being.
September 1957	USA [work and unemployment]	The US Labor Department announces that the average factory worker earns $2.08 per hour or $82.99 per week.
13 September 1957	UK [theatres]	The Mousetrap, by Agatha Christie, becomes Britain's longest-running play, with its 1,998th performance, in London, England.
21 September 1957	Norway [administration]	King Haakon VII of Norway dies and is succeeded by his son, Olaf V.
26 September 1957	USA [musicals]	The musical West Side Story, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and music by Leonard Bernstein, is first performed, at the Winter Garden Theater, New York City. It features the songs ‘Tonight’ and ‘Maria’.
4 October 1957	USSR [space exploration]	The USSR launches the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, to study the cosmosphere. It weighs 84 kg/184 lb and circles the Earth in 95 minutes, inaugurating the space age.
10 October 1957	England [energy]	A fire in a military reactor producing plutonium at the English nuclear facility Windscale (now Sellafield) releases large amounts of radioactivity into the surrounding area, news of which is suppressed by the UK government.
29 October 1957	USA [births and deaths]	Louis B Mayer, US film executive, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) 1924–48, dies in Los Angeles, California (72).
18 December 1957	USA [energy]	The first full-scale commercial nuclear power station in the USA opens at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. It produces 60,000 kilowatts of electricity.
25 December 1957	UK [television]	Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and Northern Ireland gives her first Christmas talk to the Commonwealth on television.