1959

Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Years: 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 - 1959 - 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964

Events

• January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista overthrown by Fidel Castro.
• January 2 - CBS Radio cuts four soap operas: Backstage Wife Our Gal Sunday, Road of Life, and This is Nora Drake.
• January 3 - Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
• January 7 - The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro
• February 6 - At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
• February 16 - Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after President Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.
• February 19 - The United Kingdom grants Cyprus its independence.
• February 22 - Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.
• March 9 - The Barbie doll debuts
• March 17 - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet and travels to India.
• March 18 - American President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs bill allowing for Hawaiian statehood.
• March - People's Republic of China invades Tibet.
• April 25 - The St. Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opens to shipping.
• June 8 - the first (and only) delivery of Missile Mail
• June 23 - Sean Lemass becomes Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland.
• July 4 - With the admission of Alaska as the 49th U.S. state earlier in the year, the 49-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• July 24 - At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, US vice-president Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev have a "kitchen debate."
• August 7 - Explorer program: The United States launches Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• August 21 - Hawaii is admitted as the 50th U.S. state.
• September 15 - Russian probe Luna 2 sends back first photos of the far side of Earth's Moon.
• October 21 - In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
• November 1 - Ice Hockey: After being struck in the face with a hockey puck, Montreal Canadiens goalie offered to return to play on the condition that he can wear his protective face mask. It was the first time such equipment was used in a regular NHL game.
• November 2 - Quiz show scandals: "Twenty-One" game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.
• November 19 - Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.
• December 1 - Cold War: Antarctic Treaty signed - 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent (this was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War).
• The neutrino is first experimentally detected, by Cowan and Reines.
• TAT-2 cable goes into operation.
• Workers World Party is founded by Sam Marcy.

Year in topic

• 1959 in film
  • Ben-Hur
  • The Diary of Anne Frank
  • Anatomy of a Murder
  • Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint
• 1959 in literature
  • Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein:
  • The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass:
• 1959 in music
  • February 3 - News of the early-morning plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper becomes widely known. This date becomes known as "The Day The Music Died".
  • An expressway is built through the Bronx in New York City; this causes the mass exodus of middle-class residents, making the Bronx into a progressively poorer ghetto over the years and is often cited as a major cause of the rise of hip hop in the 1970s
• 1959 in science
• 1959 in sports
• 1959 in television
  • Fall – Scandals involving rigged network quiz shows create havoc within the television industry.
  • Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone debuts
  • Bonanza debuts, starring Lorne Greene.

Births

• January 6 - Kathy Sledge, singer
• January 16 - Sade, singer
• January 22 - Linda Blair, actress
• February 4 - Lawrence Taylor, American football star
• February 11 - Corinne Shigemoto, US judo coach
• February 16 - John McEnroe, tennis player
• February 22 - Kyle MacLachlan, actor
• March 6 - Tom Arnold, actor, comedian
• March 8 - Aidan Quinn, actor
• March 15 - Harold Baines, former Major League Baseball player
• March 16 - Flavor Flav, rap musician
• March 16 - Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Mininster of Norway
• March 17 - Danny Ainge, basketball player, coach, baseball player
• March 18 - Luc Besson, producer, writer, director
• March 22 - Matthew Modine, actor
• March 29 - Perry Farrell, musician ("Jane's Addiction", "Porno for Pyros")
• April 3 - David Hyde Pierce, actor
• May 3 - Ben Elton, British comedian and author
• May 3 - Uma Bharati, first woman chief minister of Madhya Pradesh
• May 20 - Bronson Pinchot, actor
• May 20 - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, hawaiian singer
• May 22 - Steven Morrissey, singer
• July 7 - Ben Linder, American engineer murdered in Nicaragua (d. 1987)
• July 11 - Suzanne Vega, US singer
• July 26 - Kevin Spacey, film actor
• July 29 - Ruud Janssen, artist
• October 15 - Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York
• October 23 - Weird Al Yankovic, rock music parodist
• November 14 - Paul McGann, British actor
• November 25 - Charles Kennedy, British politician

Deaths

• January 21 - Cecil B. DeMille, director
• January 22 - Mike Hawthorn, racing champion
• February 3 - rock and roll performers Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper, in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. The news isn't widely known until daybreak.
• February 28 - Maxwell Anderson, playwright, film writer
• March 3 - Lou Costello, actor, comedian
• March 26 - Raymond Chandler, American novelist.
• March 29 - Barthelemy Boganda, first President of the Central African Republic
• July 15 - Billie Holiday, jazz and blues singer
• August 6 - Preston Sturges, director and writer
• August 15 - Blind Willie McTell, blues singer
• August 28 - Bohuslav Martinu, composer
• September 13 - Gilbert Adrian, Hollywood fashion designer
• October 14 - Errol Flynn, American actor.
• November 17 - Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer.

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Emilio Gino Segrè, - Owen Chamberlain
• Chemistry - Jaroslav Heyrovsky
• Medicine - Severo Ochoa, Arthur Kornberg
• Literature - Salvatore Quasimodo
• Peace - Philip J. Noel-Baker

Referenced By