Modern Era · Europe · Politics

1956

Hungarian Uprising

October 23, 1956

Budapest students toppled a giant statue of Stalin and dragged it through the streets. Within days a reformist government had declared neutrality and begun to leave the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets sent tanks. For a week the Hungarians fought them with Molotov cocktails. Twenty-five hundred died; two hundred thousand fled west. Imre Nagy was hanged.

More from 1956 Modern Era

In context

Also in 1956 (5 other events on record)

Khrushchev's secret speech denounces Stalin · Europe · Politics
Suez Crisis · Middle East · War
Elvis meets Sullivan · North America · Culture
First transatlantic phone cable · Europe · Technology
Jackson Pollock dies drunk · North America · Culture

Before and after in Europe

Before: May 14, 1955: Warsaw Pact founded
After: March 25, 1957: Treaty of Rome creates Common Market

Before and after in Politics

Before: December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks refuses to move
After: March 6, 1957: Ghana gains independence

Era

Modern Era (1901–2000), one of 590 events from that era on Saeculum.