1959
1959 (
MCMLIX) was a
common year starting on Thursday of the
Gregorian calendar. It is also a song by
The Sisters of Mercy on the album
Floodland.
January-February
*
January 1 -
Cultivars of
plants named after this date must be named in a modern language, not in Latin.
*
January 1 -
Cuba:
Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when forces of
Fidel Castro advance.
*
January 2 - cuts four soap operas:
Backstage Wife,
Our Gal Sunday,
Road of Life, and
This is Nora Drake.
*
January 2 - Castro's troops approach
Havana.
*
January 3 - Island of
Addu in the
Maldives declares
independence.
*
January 3 -
Alaska is admitted as the 49th
U.S. state.
*
January 4 - In
Cuba rebel troops lead by
Che Guevara and
Camilo Cienfuegos enter
Havana.
*
January 4 - In
Léopoldville 42 people are killed during clashes between the police and participants of a meeting of the
Abako party.
*
January 6 -
Fidel Castro arrives in Havana.
*
January 7 - The
United States recognizes the new
Cuban government of
Fidel Castro.
*
January 8 -
Charles De Gaulle inaugurated as the first president of French
Fifth Republic.
*
January 13 -
Cuban
communists execute 71 supporters of
Fulgencio Batista.
*
January 22 -
Knox Mine Disaster - water breaches
River Slope mine in
Port Griffith, Pennsylvania - 12 miners dead.
*
February 1 - A
referendum in
Switzerland turns down
female suffrage.
*
February 3 - The chartered plane transporting musicians
Buddy Holly,
Richie Valens, and the
Big Bopper goes down in an Iowa snowstorm, killing all four occupants on board. The tragedy is later termed "
The Day the Music Died," popularized in
Don McLean's song, "
American Pie."
*
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.
*
February 16 -
Blizzard causes a massive power outage in
Newfoundland.
*
February 17 - USA launches
Vanguard II weather satellite.
*
February 18 -
Jesus Sosa Blanco, murderer of 108 people, executed in
Cuba.
*
February 18 - Women in
Nepal vote for the first time.
*
February 19 - The
United Kingdom grants
Cyprus its independence.
*
February 22 -
Lee Petty wins the first
Daytona 500.
*
February 26 - Author
Walter Mene throws acid on
Rubens painting in
Munich.
March-April
*
March 1 -
USS Tuscaloosa,
USS New Orleans,
USS Tennessee and
USS West Virginia struck from the
Naval Vessel Register.
*
March 1 â€"
Archbishop Makarios returns to
Cyprus from exile.
*
March 8 - Last television appearance of
The Marx Brothers, in
The Incredible Jewel Robbery.
*
March 9 - The
Barbie doll debuts.
*
March 12 - Production of the first solid gold "Glaussen
Pennies".
*
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 19 - Two other islands join
Addu in the
United Suvadive Republic (abolished September
1963), in the Maldives Islands.
*
March 31 -
Busch Gardens in
Tampa, Florida is dedicated and opens its gates.
*
March 31 -
Dalai Lama leaves
Tibet.
*
April 9 -
NASA announces its selection of seven military pilots to become the first US astronauts (see
Mercury Seven).
*
April 9 -
Frank Lloyd Wright, arguably the most influential
American architect of the
20th century dies from an abdominal obstruction.
*
April 25 - The
St. Lawrence Seaway linking the North American
Great Lakes and the
Atlantic Ocean officially opens to
shipping.
May-June
* May - First
Ten Tors event held in
Dartmoor.
* late May / early June -
import tariffs lifted in the
United Kingdom.
*
May 24 - British Empire Day becomes
Commonwealth Day.
*
June 3 -
Singapore becomes a self governing crown colony of Britain with
Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister.
*
June 5 - A new government of the
State of Singapore is sworn in by Sir William Goode. Two former Ministers were re-elected to the Legislative Assembly.
*
June 8 - The
USS Barbero and
United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via
Missile Mail.
*
June 9 - The
USS George Washington is launched as the first
submarine to carry
ballistic missiles.
*
June 14 - A three-front revolutionary invasion by air and sea takes place in the
Dominican Republic consisting of exiles aided by
Fidel Castro whose purpose was to overthrow
dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Within a few days all but four are captured and executed. Trujillo is killed less than two years later by men partly inspired by the deaths of the 1959 martyrs.
*
June 23 -
Sean Lemass becomes the third
Taoiseach of
Ireland.
*
June 23 - Convicted
Manhattan Project spy
Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to
Dresden,
East Germany (where he resumed a scientific career).
*
June 26 - Queen
Elizabeth II and US
Dwight Eisenhower open
Saint Lawrence Seaway.
July-August
*
July - The medical research group studying
Minamata disease comes to the conclusion that
mercury is the cause. [
1]
*
July 2 - Royal wedding in
Belgium: Prince Albert marries the Italian princess
Paola Ruffo di Calabria.
*
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 7 - 14:28 UT
Venus occulted the star
Regulus. The rare event which will next occur on
October 1,
2044 was used for determining the diameter of Venus and the structure of Venus' atmosphere.
*
July 15 -
Steel industry
strike in
USA.
*
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 4 -
Martial law declared in
Laos.
*
August 7 -
Explorer program: The
United States launches
Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in
Cape Canaveral,
Florida.
*
August 8 -
Flood in
Taiwan leaves 2,000 dead.
*
August 14 -
Explorer VI sends the first picture of
Earth from space.
*
August 15 -
Cyprus gains
independence.
*
August 21 -
Hawaii is admitted as the 50th
U.S. state.
*
August 24 -
Cyprus joins
United Nations.
September-October
*
September 13 -
Luna 2 crashes onto the
Moon as the first man-made object.
*
September 25 -
Ceylon's prime minister
SWRD Bandaranaike assassinated.
*
October 2 -
Rod Serling's classic anthology series
The Twilight Zone premieres on
CBS.
*
October 7 - Russian probe
Luna 3 sends back first photos of the far side of Earth's Moon.
*
October 12 - At the national congress of
APRA in
Peru a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party. They will later form
APRA Rebelde.
*
October 12 - Large scale diamond robbery in London.
*
October 13 - USA launches
Explorer VII.
*
October 21 -
Mau Mau leader
Dedan Kimathi is arrested in
Nyeri,
Kenya.
*
October 21 - In
New York City, the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public. It was designed by
Frank Lloyd Wright.
*
October 23 -
"Weird Al" Yankovic was born in
Lynwood, CA.
*
October 31 - Riots in the
Belgian Congo.
*
October 31 -
Lee Harvey Oswald announces in
Moscow he won't ever return to
U.S.November-December
*
November 2 - The first section of the
M1 motorway was opened between the present junctions 5 and 18.
*
November 15 - The Clutter family of
Holcomb, Kansas were brutally murdered.
*
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).
*
December 2 -
Malpasset dam in southern
France collapses and water flows over the town of
Frejus - 412 dead.
*
December 14 - Makarios selected first
president of Cyprus.
Unknown date
*The
neutrino is first experimentally detected, by
Cowan and
Reines.
*
TAT-2 cable goes into operation(February 13).
*
Pantyhose is invented.
*
Workers World Party is founded by
Sam Marcy.
*The first skull of
Australopithecus is discovered by
Louis Leakey and his wife
Mary Leakey in the
Olduvai Gorge,
Tanzania.
*
Serengeti becomes a nature preserve.
*The first known human with
HIV dies in
Congo. PMID 9468138
*"
Raisin in the Sun" by
Lorraine Hansberry opens on
Broadway in
New York.
Unknown date
*
Willie Doherty, Irish artist
January-February
*
January 1 -
Azali Assoumani, President of the Comoros
*
January 6 -
Kathy Sledge, American singer
*
January 9 -
Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemalan writer, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize*
January 10 -
Simon Sunatori, Canadian inventor
*
January 16 -
Sade, Nigerian-born singer
*
January 17 -
Susanna Hoffs, American singer (
The Bangles)
*
January 24 -
Nastassja Kinski, German actress
*
January 27 -
Keith Olbermann, American news correspondent and sportscaster
*
January 28 -
Frank Darabont, American filmmaker
*
February 4 -
Lawrence Taylor, American football player
*
February 10 -
Dennis Gentry, American football player
*
February 14 -
Renee Fleming, American soprano
*
February 16 -
John McEnroe, American tennis player
*
February 22 -
Kyle MacLachlan, American actor
*
February 23 -
Richard Dodds, British field hockey player
*
February 26 -
Rolando Blackman, Panamanian basketball player
March
*
March 6 -
Tom Arnold, American actor and comedian
*
March 8 -
Aidan Quinn, American actor
*
March 9 -
Rodney A. Grant, American actor
*
March 10 -
Mike Wallace, American race car driver
*
March 15 -
Harold Baines, baseball player
*
March 16 -
Flavor Flav, American rapper
* March 16 -
Jens Stoltenberg,
Prime Minister of Norway*
March 17 -
Danny Ainge, American basketball player, coach, and baseball player
*
March 18 -
Luc Besson, French film producer, writer, and director
*
March 20 -
Steve Borden, American wrestler
*
March 21 -
Nobuo Uematsu, Japanese composer
*
March 22 -
Matthew Modine, American actor
*
March 27 -
neta moran,
israelien actress
*
March 29 -
Barry Blanchard, Canadian mountaineer
* March 29 -
Perry Farrell, American musician
April
*
April 3 -
David Hyde Pierce, American actor
*
April 10 -
Brian Setzer, American guitarist (
Stray Cats)
*
April 11 -
Ana MarÃa Polo, Cuban-born judge and television personality
*
April 16 -
Alison Ramsay, Scottish field hockey player
*
April 21 -
Robert Smith, British musician (
The Cure)
*
April 22 -
Catherine Mary Stewart, Canadian actress
*
April 22 -
Ryan Stiles, American actor
*
April 27 -
Sheena Easton, Scottish singer
*
April 29 -
Louis Colaianni, Author
*
April 30 -
Stephen Harper, Canadian politician
May-June
*
May 3 -
Uma Bharati, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh
*
May 3 -
Ben Elton, British comedian and writer
*
May 5 -
Steve Stevens, American guitarist
*
May 14 -
Patrick Bruel, French singer
*
May 15 -
Andrew Eldritch, British musician (
The Sisters of Mercy)
*
May 16 -
Rodrigo Salazar, South American
*
May 20 -
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, American singer (d.
1997)
*
May 20 -
Bronson Pinchot, American actor
*
May 22 -
Steven Morrissey, British singer
*
May 24 -
Pelle Lindbergh, Swedish-born NHL goaltender (d.
1985)
*
May 29 -
Adrian Paul, British actor
*
June 11-
Hugh Laurie, British actor and comedian
*
June 12 -
John Linnell, American musician (
They Might Be Giants)
*
June 22 -
Wayne Federman, American comedian, actor, author
*
June 26 -
Mark McKinney, Canadian actor and comedian
*
June 27 -
Clint Boon, British musician (
Inspiral Carpets)
*
June 30 -
Vincent D'Onofrio, American actor
July
*
July 3 -
Julie Burchill, British journalist
*
July 6 -
Richard Dacoury, French basketball player
*
July 7 -
Ben Linder, American engineer (d.
1987)
*
July 9 -
Kevin Nash Former WWE, WCW, and TNA wrestler
*
July 10 -
Janet Julian, American actress
*
July 11 -
Richie Sambora, American musician
*
July 11 -
Suzanne Vega, American singer
*
July 13 -
Richard Leman, British field hockey player
*
July 16 -
Gary Anderson, American football player
*
July 26 -
Rick Bragg, American writer
*
July 26 -
Kevin Spacey, American actor
*
July 27 -
Hugh Green,
American Football linebacker*
July 29 -
Sanjay Dutt, Indian actor
*
July 29 -
Ruud Janssen, Dutch artist
August
*
August 1 -
Joe Elliott, British singer (
Def Leppard)
*
August 2 -
Apollonia Kotero, American actress and singer
*
August 3 -
Koichi Tanaka, Japanese scientist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry*
August 10 -
Rosanna Arquette, American actress
*
August 14 -
Magic Johnson, American basketball player
*
August 21 -
Jim McMahon, American football player
*
August 21 -
Lance Arenson, American horologist
*
August 27 -
Juan Fernando Cobo, Colombian artist
*
August 29 -
Stephen Wolfram, British scientist
*
August 30 -
Mark 'Jacko' Jackson, Australian footballer and actor
September-October
*
September 4 -
Kevin Harrington, Australian actor
*
September 8 -
Daler Nazarov, Tajik composer, singer, and actor
*
September 14 -
Morten Harket, Norwegian singer (
a-ha)
*
September 17 -
Charles Lawson, Northern Irish actor
*
September 18 -
Ian Arkwright, English footballer
*
September 21 -
Dave Coulier, American actor
*
September 29 -
Benjamin Sehene, Rwandan writer
*
October 3 -
Fred Couples, American golfer
*
October 3 -
Greg Proops, American comedian
*
October 3 -
Jack Wagner, American actor
*
October 7 -
Lourdes Flores,
Peruvian politician.
*
October 9 -
Michael Pare, American actor
*
October 10 -
Kirsty MacColl, British singer-songwriter (d.
2000)
*
October 15 -
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York
*
October 15 -
Emeril Lagasse, famous chef and restaurant owner
*
October 17 -
Ron Drummond, American writer, editor, and music historian
*
October 21 -
Ken Watanabe, Japanese actor
*
October 23 -
"Weird Al" Yankovic, American singer and parodist
*
October 25 -
Nancy Cartwright, American voice actress
*
October 26 -
Evo Morales,
President of Bolivia* October 26 -
Brian Bovell, British actor
*
October 27 -
Rick Carlisle, American basketball coach
November-December
*
November 10 -
Linda Cohn, American sports reporter
*
November 14 -
Paul McGann, British actor
*
November 18 -
Jimmy Quinn, Northern Irish footballer and football manager
*
November 23 -
Dominique Dunne, American actress (d.
1982)
*
November 25 -
Charles Kennedy, Scottish politician
*
November 28 -
Judd Nelson, American actor
*
November 30 -
Lorraine Kelly, British presenter and journalist
*
December 13 -
Nadia Russ, Ukrainian-born artist
*
December 14 -
Dana Childs, American radio personality and basketball coach
*
December 21 -
Florence Griffith Joyner, American athelete (d.
1998)
*
December 27 -
Gerina Dunwich, American author
*
December 31 -
Val Kilmer, American actor
January-April
*
January 21 -
Cecil B. DeMille, American film director (b.
1881)
*
January 22 -
Mike Hawthorn, English race car driver (b.
1929)
*
February 3 - Killed in a private plane crash:
**
The Big Bopper, American singer (b.
1930)
**
Buddy Holly, American singer (b.
1936)
**
Richie Valens, American singer (b.
1941)
*
February 3 -
Vincent Astor, American philanthropist (b.
1891)
*
February 4 -
Una O'Connor, Irish actress (b.
1880)
*
February 11 -
Marshall Teague, American race car driver (b.
1922)
*
February 14 -
Baby Dodds, American jazz musician (b.
1898)
*
February 15 -
Owen Willans Richardson, British physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1879)
*
February 28 -
Maxwell Anderson, American screenwriter (b.
1888)
*
March 3 -
Lou Costello, American actor and comedian (b.
1906)
*
March 4 -
Maxey Long, American athlete (b.
1878)
*
March 16 -
John B. Salling, disputed last-surviving
American Civil War veteran (b.
1846?)
*
March 26 -
Raymond Chandler, American-born novelist (b.
1888)
*
March 29 -
Barthélemy Boganda, first
President of the Central African Republic (b.
1910)
*
April 9 -
Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect (b.
1867)
May-October
*
May 5 -
Carlos Saavedra Lamas, Argentine politician, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (b.
1878)
*
May 14 -
Sidney Bechet, American musician (b.
1897)
*
May 16 -
Elisha Scott, footballer (b.
1894)
*
May 24 -
John Foster Dulles,
United States Secretary of State (b.
1888)
*
June 9 -
Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, German chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1876)
*
June 16 -
George Reeves, actor famous for T.V role of
Superman (b.
1914)
*
June 23 -
Boris Vian, French writer, poet, singer, and musician (b.
1920)
*
July 11 -
Charlie Parker, English cricketer (b.
1882)
*
July 15 -
Ernest Bloch, Swiss composer (b.
1880)
*
July 17 -
Billie Holiday, American singer (b.
1915)
*
August 5 -
Edgar Guest, English poet (b.
1881)
*
August 6 -
Preston Sturges, American film director and writer (b.
1898)
*
August 15 -
Blind Willie McTell, American singer (b.
1901)
*
August 16 -
Wanda Landowska, Polish harpsichordist (b.
1879)
*
August 19 -
Jacob Epstein, American-born sculptor (b.
1880)
*
August 28 -
Bohuslav Martinů, Czech composer (b.
1890)
*
October 6 -
Bernard Berenson, American art historian (b.
1865)
*
October 7 -
Mario Lanza, American tenor (b.
1921)
*
October 14 -
Errol Flynn, Australian actor (b.
1909)
*
October 16 -
George C. Marshall,
United States Secretary of State, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (b.
1880)
*
October 18 -
Boughera El Ouafi, Algerian athlete (b.
1898)
November-December
*
November 15 -
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1869)
*
November 17 -
Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer (b.
1887)
*
November 21 -
Max Baer, Heavyweight Boxing Champion/Actor (b.
1909)
*
December 22 -
Gilda Gray, Polish-born dancer and actress (b.
1901)
*
Physics -
Emilio Gino Segrè,
Owen Chamberlain*
Chemistry -
Jaroslav Heyrovský*
Physiology or Medicine -
Severo Ochoa,
Arthur Kornberg*
Literature -
Salvatore Quasimodo*
Peace -
Philip John Noel-Baker*
1959 Coin Pictures
