Directory

1959 CE

The Cuban Revolution brings Fidel Castro to power after toppling Fulgencio Batista; construction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail begins, later crucial in the Vietnam War; The Day the Music Died plane crash kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson; Miss Baker becomes one of the first animals to survive spaceflight; the Kitchen Debate reflect Cold War tensions between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev; the 1959 Tibetan uprising forces the 14th Dalai Lama into exile; the Léopoldville riots ignite unrest in the Congo; the Malpasset Dam collapse kills hundreds in France; and Typhoon Vera devastates Japan.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 3 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.source
  • January 3 – The southernmost island of the Maldives archipelago, Addu Atoll, declares its independence from the Kingdom of the Maldives, initiating the United Suvadive Republic.source
  • January 6 – The International Maritime Organization is inaugurated.source
  • January 7 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.source
  • January 8 – Charles de Gaulle is inaugurated as the first president of the French Fifth Republic.source
  • January 10 – The Soviet government recognizes the new Castro government of Cuba.source
  • January 21 – The European Court of Human Rights is established.source
  • February 9 – Yugoslavia and Spain set trade relations (not diplomatic ones).source
  • February 16 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba.source
  • February 18 – Women in Nepal vote for the first time.source
  • February 19 – First of the London and Zürich Agreements under which the United Kingdom agrees to grant independence to Cyprus.source
  • March 18 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Hawaii Admission Act, granting statehood to Hawaii.source
  • March 19 – The other two southern islands of the Maldives, Huvadhu Atoll and Fuvahmulah, join Addu Atoll in forming the United Suvadive Republic (abolished September 1963).source
  • April 27 – National People's Congress elects Liu Shaoqi as Chairman of the People's Republic of China, as a successor of Mao Zedong.source
  • May 24 – British Empire Day is renamed Commonwealth Day.source
  • June 3 – Singapore becomes a self-governing crown colony of Britain with Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister.source
  • June 23 – Seán Lemass becomes the third Taoiseach of Ireland.source
  • August 19 – The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) is established.source
  • August 30 – 1959 South Vietnamese legislative election: South Vietnamese opposition figure Phan Quang Dan is elected to the National Assembly despite soldiers being bussed in to vote for President Ngo Dinh Diem's candidate.source
  • September 15–28 – USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev and his wife tour the United States, at the invitation of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.source
  • September 30 – Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev meets Mao Zedong in Beijing.source
  • November 20 – The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.source
  • December 1 – Cold War: Antarctic Treaty – 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty that sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent (the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War).source
  • December 14 – Makarios III is selected as the first president of Cyprus.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.source
  • January 4 – In Cuba, rebel troops led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city of Havana.source
  • January 4 – Léopoldville riots: At least 49 people are killed during clashes between the police and participants of a meeting of the ABAKO Party in Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo.source
  • March 10 – The Tibetan uprising erupts in Lhasa when Chinese officials attempt to arrest the Dalai Lama.source
  • May 2 – 1959 FA Cup Final: Nottingham Forest defeat Luton Town 2–1 at Wembley Stadium.source
  • May 18 – The National Liberation Committee of Côte d'Ivoire is launched in Conakry, Guinea.source
  • May 23 – In Laos the Laotian Civil War begins between the Kingdom of Laos and communist rebels, the Pathet Lao.source
  • June 14 – A 3-front invasion of the Dominican Republic by exile forces backed by Fidel Castro and Venezuela attempts to overthrow Rafael Trujillo.source
  • July 14 – Groups of Kurdish and communist militias rebel in Kirkuk, Iraq against the central government.source
  • August 4 – Martial law is declared in Laos.source
  • August 17 – In the United States:source
  • September 26 – First large unit action of the Vietnam War takes place, when two companies of the ARVN's 23rd Division are ambushed by a well-organized Viet Cong force of several hundred, identified as the "2nd Liberation Battalion".source
  • October 12 – At the national Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana Congress in Peru, a group of leftist radicals is expelled from the party; they later form APRA Rebelde.source
  • October 31 – Riots break out in the Belgian Congo.source
  • November 1 – In Rwanda, Hutu politician Dominique Mbonyumutwa is beaten up by Tutsi forces, leading to a period of violence known as the wind of destruction.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • March 17 – Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama escapes Tibet and arrives in India.source
  • March 31 – The Dalai Lama is granted asylum in India.source
  • April 25 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opens to shipping.source
  • August 7 – Explorer program: The United States launches Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.source
  • Nylon pantyhose, or sheer tights, are first sold on the open market as 'Panti-Legs' by Glen Raven Knitting Mills in the United States.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 25 – Pope John XXIII announces that the Second Vatican Council will be convened in Rome.source
  • March 1 – Archbishop Makarios returns to Cyprus from exile.source
  • March 28 – The Kashag, the government of Tibet, is abolished by an order signed by Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. The Dalai Lama is replaced in China by the Panchen Lama.source

Economy & Finance

  • July 24 – At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, United States Vice President Richard Nixon and USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev engage in the "Kitchen Debate".source
  • The Supremes girl group is founded as The Primettes in Detroit.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 15 – The Soviet Union conducts its first census after World War II.source
  • January 25 – American Airlines begins the first U.S. domestic jet service with a Boeing 707 airliner flight between New York and Los Angeles.source
  • February 13 – TAT-2, AT&T's second transatlantic telephone cable goes into operation between Newfoundland and France.source
  • June 8 – The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.source
  • June 26 – Elizabeth II (as monarch of Canada) and United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower open the Saint Lawrence Seaway.source
  • July 9 – Wing Commander Michael Beetham flying a British Royal Air Force Vickers Valiant sets a record of 11 hours 27 minutes for a non-stop London-Cape Town flight.source
  • August 26 – The original Mini car, designed by Sir Alec Issigonis, is launched in England.source
  • September 16 – The Xerox 914, the first plain paper copier, is introduced to the public.source
  • September 17 – The hypersonic North American X-15 research aircraft, piloted by Scott Crossfield, makes its first powered flight at Edwards Air Force Base, California.source
  • November 2 – At a ceremony near Toddington, British Minister of Transport Ernest Marples opens the first section of the M1 Motorway, between Watford and Crick, along with two spur motorways, the M45 and M10. Three decades of large scale motorway construction follow, leading to the rapid expansion of the UK motorway network.source
  • November – The MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), also known as the MOS transistor, is invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in the United States. It revolutionizes the electronics industry, becomes the fundamental building block of the Information Age and goes on to become the most widely manufactured device in history.source
  • December 2 – Malpasset Dam in southern France collapses and water flows over the town of Fréjus, killing 412.source
  • The Henney Kilowatt goes on sale in the United States, becoming the first production electric car in almost three decades, but only 47 models will be sold in its 2-year production run.source
  • Sprite was created in West Germany by The Coca-Cola Company .source

Science & Discovery

  • January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the vicinity of Earth's Moon, where it was intended to crash-land, but instead becomes the first spacecraft to go into heliocentric orbit.source
  • February 6 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.source
  • February 17 – Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launched to measure cloud cover for the United States Navy.source
  • March 3 – Lunar probe Pioneer 4 becomes the first American object to escape dominance by Earth's gravity.source
  • April 9 – NASA announces its selection of seven military pilots to become the first U.S. astronauts, later known as the 'Mercury Seven'.source
  • May 28 – Jupiter AM-18 rocket launches two primates, Miss Baker and Miss Able, into space from Cape Canaveral in the United States along with living microorganisms and plant seeds. Successful recovery makes them the first living beings to return safely to Earth after space flight.source
  • June 9 – The USS George Washington is launched as the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles.source
  • July 7 – At 14:28 UT Venus occults the star Regulus. The rare event (which will next occur on October 1, 2044) is used to determine the diameter of Venus and the structure of Venus' atmosphere.source
  • July 17 – The first skull of Australopithecus is discovered by Louis Leakey and his wife Mary in the Olduvai Gorge of Tanzania.source
  • July 25 – The British SR.N1 hovercraft crosses the English Channel from Calais to Dover in just over 2 hours, on the 50th anniversary of Louis Blériot's first crossing by heavier-than-air craft.source
  • August 14 – Explorer 6 sends the first picture of Earth from orbit.source
  • September 14 – Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 becomes the first human-made object to crash on the Moon.source
  • October 7 – The Soviet probe Luna 3 sends back the first ever images of the far side of the Moon.source
  • October 13 – The United States launches research satellite Explorer 7.source
  • The current (as of 2024) design of the Japanese 10 yen coin is put into circulation.source

Health & Medicine

  • July 22 – A Kumamoto University medical research group studying Minamata disease concludes that it is caused by mercury.source

Crime & Justice

  • February 18 – Jesús Sosa Blanco, a colonel in the Cuban army of Fulgencio Batista, is executed in Cuba after being convicted of committing 108 murders for Batista.source
  • June 23 – Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after nine years in a British prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career.source
  • October 29 – First appearance of Astérix the Gaul, in a French comic magazine.source
  • November 15 – The brutal Clutter family murders are committed in Holcomb, Kansas, inspiring Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1966).source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 9 – The Vega de Tera disaster in Spain, a flood caused by a dam collapse, nearly destroys the town of Ribadelago and kills 144 residents.source
  • January 22 – Knox Mine disaster: Water breaches the River Slope Mine in Port Griffith, near Pittston, Pennsylvania, United States; 12 miners are killed.source
  • January 30 – Danish passenger/cargo ship , returning to Copenhagen after its maiden voyage to Greenland, strikes an iceberg and sinks off the Greenland coast with the loss of all 95 on board.source
  • February 2 – Nine ski hikers mysteriously perish in the northern Ural Mountains in the Dyatlov Pass incident and are all found dead a few weeks later.source
  • February 3 – American Airlines Flight 320, a Lockheed L-188 Electra from Chicago crashes into the East River on approach to New York City's LaGuardia Airport, killing 65 of the 73 people on board.source
  • February 20 – The Canadian Government cancels the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow interceptor aircraft project.source
  • June 30 – 1959 Okinawa F-100 crash: Twenty-one students are killed and more than a hundred injured when a U.S. Air Force North American F-100 Super Sabre jet crashes into Miamori Elementary School on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The pilot ejected before the plane struck the school.source
  • August 7 – The Roseburg Blast in Oregon, caused when a truck carrying explosives catches fire, kills 14 and causes $12 million worth of damage.source
  • December 8 – The life-boat Mona, based at Broughty Ferry in Scotland, capsizes during a rescue attempt with the loss of 8 lives.source

Climate & Environment

  • March 1 – The , , and are stricken from the United States Naval Vessel Register.source
  • August 8 – A flood in Taiwan kills 2,000.source
  • The 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake in southwest Montana kills 28.source
  • September 26 – Typhoon Vera hits central Honshū, Japan, as a 160 mph kph Category 5 storm, killing an estimated 5,098, injuring another 38,921, and leaving 1,533,000 homeless. Most of the victims and damage are centered in the Nagoya area.source
  • December 11 – Charles Robberts Swart is appointed the 11th Governor-General of the Union of South Africa.source
  • The Caspian tiger becomes extinct in Iran.source

Culture & Society

  • January 11 – The Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques is founded in Monaco.source
  • January 12 – The Motown record label is founded as Tamla by Berry Gordy in Detroit.source
  • March 9 – Mattel's Barbie doll debuts in the United States.source
  • March 11 – The Eurovision Song Contest 1959, staged in Cannes, is won for the Netherlands by "'n Beetje" sung by Teddy Scholten (music by Dick Schallies, lyrics by Willy van Hemert).source
  • April 6 – The 31st Academy Awards ceremony is held in Hollywood. Musical film Gigi receives a record 9 Oscars.source
  • April 8 – The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) is established.source
  • April 10 – Crown Prince Akihito of Japan marries Shōda Michiko, the first commoner to marry into the Imperial House of Japan.source
  • May 21 – Gypsy: A Musical Fable, starring Ethel Merman in her last new musical, opens on Broadway and runs for 702 performances.source
  • The first Ten Tors event is held on Dartmoor.source
  • June 3 – Real Madrid beat Stade Reims 2–0 at Neckarstadion, Stuttgart and win the 1958–59 European Cup (Association football).source
  • June 18 – The film The Nun's Story, based on the best-selling novel, is released. Audrey Hepburn stars as the title character; she later says that this is her favorite film role. The film is a box-office hit, and is nominated for several Oscars.source
  • July 2 – Prince Albert of Belgium marries Italian Donna Paola Ruffo di Calabria.source
  • 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.source
  • August 31 – The Workers' Stadium sports venue in Beijing (China) is officially opened.source
  • Miles Davis' influential jazz album Kind of Blue is released.source
  • October 1 – The 10th anniversary of the People's Republic of China is celebrated with pomp across the country.source
  • November 18 – Religious epic film Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston, which will be by far the highest-grossing film of the year and will go on to win a record 12 Academy Awards, premieres at New York City's Loews Theater in Ultra Panavision 70.source
  • Car tailfin design reaches its apex in the United States with such as the Cadillac Eldorado, Chevrolet Impala second generation model, Dodge Silver Challenger and Imperial Crown Sedan.source

Births

  • January 9 – Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemalan recipient of the Nobel Peace Prizesource
  • February 5 – Jennifer Granholm, Canadian-American politician, 47th governor of Michigan (2003–2011)source
  • February 8 – Mauricio Macri, President of Argentinasource
  • March 16 – Jens Stoltenberg, 27th Prime Minister of Norwaysource
  • March 30 – Andrew Bailey, executive director banking and chief cashier at the Bank of Englandsource
  • April 27 – Nicholas Kristof, American journalist and political commentatorsource
  • April 30 – Stephen Harper, 22nd Prime Minister of Canadasource
  • June 7 – Mike Pence, American politician and former Vice President of the United Statessource
  • June 13 – Jim Irsay, American businessman and former owner of the Indianapolis Colts (d. 2025)source
  • June 19 – Anne Hidalgo, French politician, Mayor of Paris (2014–present)source
  • July 30 − Abdullah of Pahang, sixteenth Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysiasource
  • August 6 – Rajendra Singh, Indian water conservationist, Magsaysay Award (2001)source
  • September 14 – Mary Crosby, American actress and daughter of Bing Crosbysource
  • October 24 – Michelle Lujan Grisham, American politician, governor and representative from New Mexicosource

Deaths

  • March 7 – Ichirō Hatoyama, Japanese politician, 36th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1883)source
  • March 24 – Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, Sudanese political figure and religious leader, Imam of the Ansar and 1st Prime Minister of Sudan (b. 1885)source
  • May 24 – John Foster Dulles, 52nd United States Secretary of State (b. 1888)source
  • August 8 – Luigi Sturzo, Italian Roman Catholic priest and politician (b. 1871)source
  • August 16 – William Halsey Jr., American US Navy Fleet admiral (b. 1882)source
  • August 21 – Sir Jacob Epstein, American-born British sculptor (b. 1880)source
  • September 7 – Maurice Duplessis, Premier of Quebec (b. 1890)source
  • October 9 – Shirō Ishii, Japanese microbiologist and lieutenant general of Unit 731 (b. 1892)source
  • October 16 – George C. Marshall, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1880)source
  • October 21 – The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of modern art (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, who died on April 9) opens to the public in New York City.source
  • November 6 – José P. Laurel, Filipino politician and judge, 3rd President of the Philippines (b. 1891)source
  • November 15 – Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1869)source
  • December 23 – Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, British politician (b. 1881)source
  • December 28 – Ante Pavelic, Croatian fascist leader and WWII war criminal (b. 1889)source