List of Famous people who died in 1956

Jules-Géraud Saliège was a French Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Toulouse from 1928 until his death, and was a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism in France. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII. For his efforts to protect Jews during the Nazi Holocaust he was recognised as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Johann Karl August Radon was an Austrian mathematician. His doctoral dissertation was on the calculus of variations.

Emil Georg Bührle was an arms manufacturer, art collector and patron. His art collection is now housed in the Foundation E.G. Bührle.

Paul Michael Kelly was an American stage, film, and television actor. His career survived a manslaughter conviction, tied to an affair, that caused him to spend time in prison in the late 1920s.

George Washington Pierce was an American physicist. He was a professor of physics at Harvard University and inventor in the development of electronic telecommunications.

Daniel Swarovski was a Czech-born Austrian glass cutter, jeweler, and founder of the Swarovski crystal dynasty.

Lars Eliel Sonck was a Finnish architect. He graduated from Helsinki Polytechnic Institute in 1894 and immediately won a major design competition for a church in Turku, St Michael's Church, ahead of many established architects. The church was designed in the prevailing neo-Gothic style. However, Sonck's style would soon go through a dramatic change, in the direction of Art Nouveau and National Romanticism that was moving through Europe at the end of the 19th century. During the 1920s, Sonck would also design a number of buildings in the emerging Nordic Classicism style.