1955 - Energy

Energy

The first U.S. solar-heated, radiation-cooled house starts its system January 15. Built at Tucson, Ariz., by Raymond W. Bliss, the system employs a large, slanting slab of steel and glass that converts sunlight into heat, it has cost nearly $4,000 for labor and materials and the ducts that carry the heat into the house carry cool air in summer, using fans and controls.

Texas petroleum driller Patillo Higgins of Spindletop fame dies at San Antonio June 5 at age 92; oil financier-art collector Calouste Gulbenkian at Lisbon July 20 at age 86; oil-cracking process developer Edgar M. Clark at Phoenix, Ariz., July 31 at age 85; multimillionaire Great Lakes Carbon cofounder George Skakel outside Union City, Okla., October 4 at age 63 along with his wife and crew in the fiery crash of his refurbished Boeing B-29 (his Chicago-born daughter Ethel, now 27, is married to Robert F. Kennedy).