January: Heartbreak Hotel is released as a single. It will Elvis Presley's first chart topper & the best-selling single of 1956.

February: Nikita Khrushchev attacks the veneration of Joseph Stalin as a 'cult of personality' at the 20th Soviet Party Conference.

March: My Fair Lady, starring Rex Harrison & Julie Andrews, begins a record breaking run on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theatre.

April: Lionel 'Buster' Crabb, a British frogman & MI6 diver, vanishes on a reconnaissance mission to a Soviet Union cruiser.

May: The first Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast from Lugano, Switzerland. The winning song is 'Refrain' sung by Lys Assia.

June: The Flag of the United States Army is officially adopted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, with Executive Order 10670.

July: After exactly 10 years together, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis perform their last show at New York City's Copacabana Club.

August: The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) is declared illegal. Despite surveillance, many of its members go underground.

September: Bell X-2, nicknamed 'Starbuster', becomes the first manned aircraft to reach Mach 3. Tragically the pilot 'Mel' Apt is killed.

October: The Ten Commandments, produced & directed by Cecil B. DeMille, one of the most financially successful films ever is released.

November: Aged 21, Floyd Patterson becomes the youngest ever undisputed World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, a record that still stands.

December: 82 fighters of the Cuban Revolution land in Cuba in the boat 'Granma'. They include Fidel Castro, Raul Castro & Che Guevara.