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1957
• On 9 January in Britain, the prime minister Anthony Eden resigns because of ill health. Harold Macmillan succeeds him. • On 6 March, the Gold Coast – renamed Ghana – is the first of Britain's African colonies to become independent, with Kwame Nkrumah as prime minister. • On 25 March, the Treaty of Rome leads to the formation of the European Economic Community (later the European Union), which officially begins on 1 January 1958. • On 31 August, Malaya becomes independent of Britain. • The Soviet Union tests its first intercontinental ballistic missile, followed by two Sputnik satellites on 4 October and 3 November respectively. The space race begins. • In Britain on 4 September, the Wolfenden Report recommends the decriminalisation of homosexuality. • In the United States, writer Jack Kerouac publishes On the Road, which becomes the cult novel of the Beats. • The American musical West Side Story, composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, which sets the story of Romeo and Juliet among street gangs, is first performed in New York. • Swedish film-maker Ingmar Bergman makes The Seventh Seal, a typically bleak fable of medieval life, which exemplifies his pessimism. |
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