* 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

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

This design was introduced by Japanese manufacturer Olfa Corporation in 1956 as the world's first snap-off blade and was inspired from analyzing the sharp cutting edge produced when glass is broken and how pieces of a chocolate bar break into segments.

The series of speed increases — later in 1955, in 1956, in 1957, in 1958, in 1959 — peaked on 31 December 1964 at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia when he reached ; he remains the world's most prolific breaker of water speed records.

A leading self-made industrialist, he was one of the richest men of his time and was called the world's greatest salesman when he died in 1956.

Clockwise, from left: United Nations soldiers during the Korean War, which was the first UN authorized conflict ; Two atomic explosions from the RDS-37 and Operation Upshot-Knothole | Upshot-Knothole ( Soviet and American, respectively ) nuclear weapons, symbolizing the escalation of Cold War tensions between the two nations in the 1950s ; Israeli troops prepare to fight the Egypt ians during the Suez Crisis of 1956 ; A replica of Sputnik I, the world's first satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957 ; Fidel Castro leads the Cuban Revolution in 1959 ; North Sea flood of 1953

The September 1956 test launch of a Jupiter-C for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency could have been the world's first satellite launch.

* Archbishop John F. Noll ( 1875 – 1956 ), founded Our Sunday Visitor, the world's largest Catholic weekly newspaper.

* Leroy Hood ( one of the world's leading scientists in molecular biotechnology and genomics ), grew up here and graduated from Shelby High School in 1956.

The world's first floating heliport was built in Forest Lake in 1956.

The world's first commercial scale power station, Calder Hall in England opened on October 17, 1956.

The UK's longest-running MSc programme in Physics and Technology of Nuclear Reactors also started at the University of Birmingham in 1956, the same year that the world's first commercial nuclear power station was opened at Calder Hall in Cumbria.

In 1956, Bechtel won the right to build the world's second commercial nuclear power reactor, the Dresden-1 in Illinois.

Since 1956 it has become one of the world's major helicopter manufacturers, producing helicopters under Soviet licences, starting from the SM-1 ( Mil Mi-1 ).

Chuvalo finished his amateur career with a 16-0-0 record, all by KO within four rounds. Nicknamed " Boom Boom ", Chuvalo turned professional in 1956, knocking out four opponents in one night to win a heavyweight tournament held by former world's champion Jack Dempsey at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on April 26, 1956.

* 1956: John von Neumann for his farsighted contribution to the science of meteorology and the national interests in developing the modern, high-speed electronic computer with meteorological application as an ultimate aim, and for his support and encouragement in organizing the world's first research group in numerical weather prediction.

The White Pass and Yukon Route railway acquired the world's first container ship, the Clifford J. Rogers, built in 1955, and introduced containers to its railway in 1956.

This model became the world's first commercially successful videotape recorder in 1956.

One of the world's first Roll-On and Roll-Off ferries, the Searoad of Hyannis began operation in 1956 from Hyannis to Nantucket, with the capability to transport three loaded semi-trailer in any weather.

The world's first stapedectomy is credited to Dr. John J. Shea Jr. who performed it in May 1956 on a 54-year-old housewife who could no longer hear even with a hearing aid.

From 1946 to 1956, he was among the world's top ten players.

The first transmission from Crystal Palace took place on 28 March 1956, when it succeeded the transmitter at Alexandra Palace where the BBC had started the world's first scheduled television service in November 1936.

From 1956 until his formal retirement in 1983 and after, he covered many of the world's biggest news stories.

On November 5, 1956 the Royal Marines ' 45 Commando performed the world's first combat helicopter insertion with air assault during an amphibious landing as part of Operation Musketeer, in Suez, Egypt.

His London Evening Standard column, begun in summer 1956, is now the world's longest running daily chess column, breaking the previous record set by George Koltanowski in the San Francisco Chronicle.