* Austin Osman Spare ( 1886 – 1956 ), English artist and magician

* 1956 – Sebastian Spreng, Argentinean artist and journalist

* 1956 – Dilip Vengsarkar, Indian cricketer and administrator

* 1956 – Andy García, Cuban actor

* 1956 – Herbert Grönemeyer, German singer

* 1956 – Former Vice President and Senator Alben Barkley dies during a speech in Virginia.

* 1956 – Lars von Trier, Danish director

* 1956 – After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network makes its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena in New York in the Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena series.

* 1956 – Stepfanie Kramer, American actress

* 1878 – Aino Kallas, Finnish-Estonian author ( d. 1956 )

* 1956 – Fulvio Melia, Italian-American physicist, astrophysicist, and author

* 1956 – Jim Neidhart, American wrestler

* 1956 – Isabel Pantoja, Spanish singer

* 2003 – Leslie Cheung, Hong Kong actor and singer ( b. 1956 )

* 1956 – Tom Leykis, American radio host

* 1956 – Kirk Brandon, English singer-songwriter and guitarist ( Theatre of Hate, Spear of Destiny and Dead Men Walking )

* 1956 – Balwinder Sandhu, Indian cricketer

* 1956 –, the world's first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.

Prominent leaders include co-founders Lucien Febvre ( 1878 – 1956 ) and Marc Bloch ( 1886 – 1944 ).

* 1867 – Emil Nolde, German painter ( d. 1956 )

* 1956 – Chris Foreman, English guitarist and songwriter ( Madness )

* 1956 – David Grant, English singer ( Linx )

* 1956 – Branscombe Richmond, American actor

* 1956 – Cecilia Roth, Argentine actress

* 1956 – Christopher Darden, American lawyer, writer, and lecturer, prosecutor in O. J. Simpson murder case

* William J. Brennan, 1956

In 1956, after the 1954 closing of the U. S. immigration station, the then Mayor of Jersey City, Bernard J. Berry, commandeered a U. S. Coast Guard cutter and led a contingent of New Jersey officials on an expedition to claim the island.

* J. Werner, Beiträge zur Archäologie des Attila-Reiches ( 1956 ).

* N. J. Miners, ‘ The Nigerian Army 1956 – 66 ,’ Methuen and Co. Ltd, London, 1971

The most important event for the dissemination of Whorf's ideas to a larger public was the publication in 1956 of his major writings on the topic of linguistic relativity in a single volume titled " Language, Thought and Reality " edited by J.

* Atkinson, R J C, Stonehenge ( Penguin Books, 1956 )

Her wartime activities in German Occupied France were dramatised in the film Carve Her Name with Pride, starring Virginia McKenna and based on the 1956 book of the same name by R. J. Minney.

* February 17 – Thomas J. Watson, American computer pioneer ( d. 1956 )

* Whitelock, Dorothy, Review of The Witenagemot in the Reign of Edward the Confessor by Tryggvi J. Oleson, The English Historical Review 71 ( 1956 ): 640-42.

In 1956, J. Robert Van Pelt became the new president of the university.

Other important early publications include: Edward H. Chamberlin's ( 1950 ) The Theory of Monopolistic Competition ; François Perroux's ( 1950 ) Economic Spaces: Theory and Application ; Torsten Hägerstrand's ( 1953 ) Innovationsförloppet ur Korologisk Synpunkt ; Edgar S. Dunn's ( 1954 ) The Location of Agricultural Production ; Martin J. Beckmann, C. B McGuire, and Clifford B. Winston's ( 1956 ) Studies in the Economics of Transportation ; Melvin L. Greenhut's ( 1956 ) Plant Location in Theory and Practice ; Gunnar Myrdal's ( 1957 ) Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions ; Albert O. Hirschman's ( 1958 ) The Strategy of Economic Development ; and Claude Ponsard's ( 1958 ) Histoire des Théorie Économique Spatiales.

He later collaborated with Carl J. Friedrich to develop the concept of totalitarianism as a way to more accurately and powerfully characterize and criticize the Soviets in 1956.

* with Carl J. Friedrich, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press ( 1956 )

* Thomas J. Watson ( 1874 – 1956 ), transformed a small manufacturer of adding machines into IBM

Other film versions ( which are loose adaptations as opposed to straight translations from stage to screen ) include: the 1929 The Framing of the Shrew, directed by Arvid E. Gillstrom, and starring Edward Thompson and Evelyn Preer ; the 1933 You Made Me Love You, directed by Monty Banks, and starring Stanley Lupino and Thelma Todd ; the 1938 Second Best Bed, directed by Tom Walls, and starring Jane Baxter and Walls himself ; the 1942 Italian adaptation La bisbetica domata, directed by Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, and starring Amedeo Nazzari and Lilia Silvi ; the 1943 Hungarian adaptation Makacs Kata ( Stubborn Kate ) directed by Emil Martonffy, and starring Katalin Karády and Pál Jávor ; another 1943 Hungarian adaptation, Makrancos hölgy ( Unruly Lady ), directed by Viktor Bánky, and starring Emmi Buttykay and Miklós Hajmássy ; the 1948 Mexican adaptation Cartas marcadas, directed by René Cardona, and starring Marga López and Pedro Infante ; the 1956 Spanish adaptation La fierecilla domada, directed by Antonio Román, and starring Carmen Sevilla and Alberto Closas ; the 1962 Egyptian adaptation Ah min hawaa, directed by Fatin Abdel Wahab, and starring Lobna Abdel Aziz and Rushdy Abaza ; the 1963 western McLintock !, directed by Andrew McLaglen, and starring John Wayne and Maureen O ' Hara ; the 1999 teen film 10 Things I Hate About You, directed by Gil Junger, and starring Julia Stiles as Kat Stratford ( Katherina ) and Heath Ledger as Patrick Verona ( Petruchio ); the 2003 comedy Deliver Us from Eva, directed by Gary Hardwick, and starring Gabrielle Union and LL Cool J ; and the 2010 Bollywood film Isi Life Mein, directed by Vidhi Kasliwal, and starring Akshay Oberoi and Sandeepa Dhar.

In 1956, John J. Graham created an abstraction of an eleven-feathered peacock logo for American broadcaster NBC.

* J. Michael Fay ( born 1956 ), conservationist.

William J. Brennan, Jr., a liberal Democrat appointed by Eisenhower in 1956, was the intellectual leader of the activist faction that included Black and Douglas.

* J. J. Richards ( 1878 – 1956 ) " The Long Beach March King "

* John J. Anderson ( 1956 – 1989 ), writer and editor covering computers and technology

The historian J. Evetts Haley ran for governor in 1956 with a threat that if elected he would " lock up " Parr.