# What happened in 1957, month by month, from Elvis to Sputnik - URL: https://www.agentskillpacks.com/guides/what-happened-in-1957-month-by-month - Updated: 2026-10-21 - Book: The Year You Arrived: 1957 by Nancy Whitaker (https://www.agentskillpacks.com/books/the-year-you-arrived-1957) ## Short answer 1957 opened with Elvis Presley filmed from the waist up on The Ed Sullivan Show on January 6 and closed with the American Vanguard rocket exploding on its launch pad on December 6. In between, The Cat in the Hat came out in March, a new flu reached America in June, Althea Gibson won Wimbledon in July and a recession began in August. In September the Little Rock Nine entered Central High under federal escort. On October 4 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. ## Searching for one year and finding ten wrong answers You type "what happened in 1957" into a search box. You want to write a toast, or fill a card, or just know. The first list says the 1957 Oscars went to _Around the World in 80 Days_. The second list puts a famous boxing rematch in the wrong year. The third has no dates at all. You start to wonder which parts are true. You close the tab. ## Why most 1957 lists get it wrong Dates and prices from the 1950s get copied from site to site until nobody knows where they came from. A small slip on one site turns into a fact on fifty. Award years are the classic trap. The Oscars held in March 1957 were for films from 1956. The films of 1957 were honored in March 1958, when _The Bridge on the River Kwai_ won seven awards. Both statements are true, and they are about different things. Sports has the same trap. Carmen Basilio took the middleweight title from Sugar Ray Robinson on September 23, 1957. Robinson won it back the next March. The two fights are often filed under one year. ## Read 1957 one month at a time The real shift is to stop thinking of 1957 as one year. It was twelve months, and they did not feel alike. Here is one event from each. - **January.** On the 6th, CBS filmed Elvis from the waist up on _The Ed Sullivan Show_. - **February.** A mine blast on the 4th and a nursing home fire on the 17th killed 109 people between them. - **March.** _The Cat in the Hat_ came out on the 12th. Elvis bought Graceland for $102,500. - **April.** Ford put the Skyliner on sale, with a steel roof that folded into the trunk. - **May.** Baseball owners voted to let the Dodgers and Giants move to California. - **June.** The new flu's first American outbreak began on a navy ship in Rhode Island. - **July.** Althea Gibson won Wimbledon on the 6th. - **August.** _American Bandstand_ went national. The economy quietly turned into a recession. - **September.** The Little Rock Nine walked into Central High on the 25th, escorted by soldiers. - **October.** Sputnik went up on the 4th. The Braves won the World Series. - **November.** The Mackinac Bridge opened. A dog named Laika went into orbit. - **December.** The Vanguard rocket exploded on its pad on the 6th, on live TV. Put the months side by side and the year starts to talk. In July the country cheered Althea Gibson. Eleven weeks later it took a division of the Army to get nine Black teenagers through a school door in Arkansas. The [National Park Service timeline](https://www.nps.gov/chsc/learn/historyculture/timeline.htm) has every date of the crisis. Or take the sky. The country spent October hearing a Soviet ball beep overhead. Then, in December, it watched its own rocket fall over. [NASA's history office](https://www.nasa.gov/history/60-years-ago-vanguard-fails-to-reach-orbit/) tells that morning in full. ## A second event for each month One line a month is a start. Here is one more from each month, all from the book's almanac. - **January.** On the 20th and 21st, Eisenhower was sworn in for his second term, twice: privately on the Sunday, publicly on the Monday. - **February.** On the 26th, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas signed four segregation bills into law. - **March.** On the 6th, Ghana became independent from Britain, the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa to do so. - **April.** On the 17th, a New York Times report on a flu outbreak in Hong Kong led a scientist named Maurice Hilleman to warn of a pandemic. - **May.** On the 2nd, Senator Joseph McCarthy died at forty-eight. - **June.** On the 27th, Hurricane Audrey came ashore near the Texas and Louisiana border. At least 416 people died. - **July.** On the 16th, Marine major John Glenn flew from California to New York in three hours and twenty-three minutes, a speed record. - **August.** On the 28th, Senator Strom Thurmond began a filibuster against the civil rights bill that ran 24 hours and 18 minutes. - **September.** On the 5th, Jack Kerouac's _On the Road_ came out. On the 9th, Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. - **October.** On the 8th, the Dodgers said they were leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles. - **November.** On the 24th, _How the Grinch Stole Christmas!_ came out. On the 25th, Eisenhower had a mild stroke. - **December.** On the 2nd, the Shippingport plant near Pittsburgh became the first full-scale US nuclear plant built only to make power for homes and businesses. ## 1957 outside America Some lists lead with world news. The book is about American life, but its almanac does note the big world events. - **March 6.** Ghana became independent. - **March 25.** Six European countries signed the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community. - **July 1.** The International Geophysical Year began, an 18-month science effort. Both the Soviet and American satellite programs ran under it. - **August 31.** The Federation of Malaya became independent from Britain. - **October 4 and November 3.** Sputnik 1, then Sputnik 2 with the dog Laika on board. ## How the jobs picture changed during the year 1957 began as a good year for work and ended in a slump. The book follows the jobless rate from the [Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE). | Month | Jobless rate | | -------------------- | ------------ | | March 1957 | 3.7 percent | | September 1957 | 4.4 percent | | December 1957 | 5.2 percent | | July 1958 (the peak) | 7.5 percent | Nobody announced a recession in August. As the book puts it, nobody rings a bell. If you are doing this for someone born in 1957, start with their birth month. That is the month their parents were living through, with a new baby in the house. ## The almanac behind this page This is the problem [The Year You Arrived: 1957](/books/the-year-you-arrived-1957) was written for. We built the list above from its pages, and the book goes much further. **The Year, Month by Month** gives every month its own page. Each one has the news, the top record in the shops, the jobless rate and the prices recorded that month. In October, eggs reached 69.5 cents a dozen, the most all year. **The News They Read** tells the big stories in full: Eisenhower's second term, Little Rock, Sputnik, the Vanguard rocket and the flu. It also explains why life expectancy for a 1957 baby dipped to 69.5 years, the low point of that run. **The Sporting Year** covers the year New York lost two baseball teams, the double-overtime NBA final and a jockey who stood up too soon at the Kentucky Derby. For the prices on their own, see our page on [what things cost in 1957](/guides/what-things-cost-in-1957). ## Where this is in the book - The News They Read - The Year, Month by Month - The Sporting Year Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKKKKP1R Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKLLXLF1 Links go to Amazon. ToolGenX publishes this book under a pen name and earns from every sale. ## Is the book for you? - Yes, if You want the year 1957 laid out in order, with real dates - Yes, if Someone you love was born in 1957 and you want to know what their birth month was like - Yes, if You are tired of lists that mix up the years - Skip it if You want world history in depth, since the book is about American life - Skip it if You need the years 1958 to 1961, which the book covers only in passing ## FAQ ### What was the biggest event of 1957? Sputnik is the usual answer. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union put a 184-pound metal ball in orbit, and it circled the Earth every ninety-six minutes. For many families, Little Rock in September was the story they remembered longest. ### What happened in September 1957? It was the heaviest month of the year. The governor of Arkansas used the National Guard to keep nine Black students out of Central High. Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 on September 9, sent the 101st Airborne, and on September 25 the Little Rock Nine walked in. West Side Story opened on Broadway the next day. ### What happened on December 6, 1957? The Vanguard rocket, carrying America's first satellite, rose about four feet, lost thrust and exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. It was on live television. ### What happened in 1957 in sports? The Milwaukee Braves beat the New York Yankees in the World Series, four games to three. The Dodgers and Giants said they were leaving New York for California. Althea Gibson won Wimbledon on July 6, the first Black player of any nationality to win a Grand Slam title. ### Was there a pandemic in 1957? Yes. A new flu strain reached America in June 1957 and its largest wave came in November. By March 1958 the CDC estimated that about 69,800 Americans had died.