85th United States Congress
1957–1959 U.S. Congress
The 85th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from January 3, 1957, to January 3, 1959, during the fifth and sixth years of Dwight Eisenhower's presidency. The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the 1950 United States census.
Both chambers had a Democratic majority.
Major events
January 5, 1957: President Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower Doctrine in a special message to Congress
January 20, 1957: Inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower for a second term
August 21, 1957: President Eisenhower announced a 2-year suspension of nuclear testing
August 28, 1957: Senator Strom Thurmond set a record for the longest filibuster with his 24-hour, 18-minute speech against the Civil Rights Act of 1957
September 24, 1957: Little Rock Crisis: President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Arkansas to provide safe passage into Central High School for the Little Rock Nine.
October 4, 1957: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth
October 21, 1957: The U.S. military sustained its first combat fatality in Vietnam
November 7, 1957: Gaither Report called for more American missiles and fallout shelters
November 25, 1957: President Eisenhower suffers from a stroke
January 31, 1958: U.S. launched its first satellite, Explorer 1
July 15, 1958: U.S intervenes in the Lebanon Crisis, the first major application of the Eisenhower Doctrine.
October 1, 1958: NASA started operations
Major legislation
August 14, 1957: Airways Modernization Act, Pub. L. 85–133, 71 Stat. 349
September 2, 1957: Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, Pub. L. 85–256, 71 Stat.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “85th United States Congress” as 1957–1959 U.S. Congress. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 1957–1959 U.S. Congress. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4644880. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1959, 1950 and 1958.
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This entry incorporates text from “85th United States Congress” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.