History of Watchmaking

The Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster (Pennsylvania) presented a new generation of electric watches.

World history

Signature of the Treaty of Rome (Common Market).
Launch of the first Sputnik.

Art and Culture

The French writer Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The Hundred Flowers Movement coincided with a brief interlude of artistic freedom in China.
The American novelist Jack Kerouac published On the Road.
First performance of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.