Important Historical Events of the year 1959, Year 1959 in History

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List of 1959 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 1959

What happened in the year 1959?

Date	Event
January 1, 1959	Cuban Revolution: Fulgencio Batista, dictator of Cuba, is overthrown by Fidel Castro's forces.
January 2, 1959	Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the Soviet Union.
January 3, 1959	Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
January 4, 1959	Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.
January 7, 1959	The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
January 8, 1959	Charles de Gaulle is proclaimed as the first President of the French Fifth Republic.
January 9, 1959	The Vega de Tera dam fails, triggering a disastrous flood that nearly destroys the town of Ribadelago and kills 144 residents.
January 16, 1959	Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean near Astor Piazzolla International Airport in Mar del Plata, Argentina, killing 51.
January 29, 1959	The first Melodifestivalen is held in Cirkus, Stockholm, Sweden.
January 30, 1959	The forces of the Sultanate of Muscat occupy the last strongholds of the Imamate of Oman, Saiq and Shuraijah, marking the end of Jebel Akhdar War in Oman.
January 30, 1959	MS Hans Hedtoft, specifically designed to operate in icebound seas, strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sinks, killing all 95 aboard.
February 2, 1959	Nine experienced ski hikers in the northern Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union die under mysterious circumstances.
February 3, 1959	Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed in a plane crash along with the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later known as The Day the Music Died.
February 6, 1959	Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.
February 6, 1959	At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
February 9, 1959	The R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, becomes operational at Plesetsk, USSR.
February 11, 1959	The Federation of Arab Emirates of the South is created as a protectorate of the United Kingdom.
February 16, 1959	Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.
February 17, 1959	Project Vanguard: Vanguard 2: The first weather satellite is launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.
February 17, 1959	A Turkish Airlines Vickers Viscount crashes near Gatwick Airport, killing 14; Turkish prime minister Adnan Menderes survives the crash.
February 19, 1959	The United Kingdom grants Cyprus independence, which is formally proclaimed on August 16, 1960.
February 20, 1959	The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.
February 22, 1959	Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.
February 28, 1959	Discoverer 1, an American spy satellite that is the first object intended to achieve a polar orbit, is launched but fails to achieve orbit.
March 9, 1959	The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
March 10, 1959	Tibetan uprising: Fearing an abduction attempt by China, thousands of Tibetans surround the Dalai Lama's palace to prevent his removal.
March 18, 1959	The Hawaii Admission Act is signed into law.
March 25, 1959	Chain Island is sold by the State of California to Russell Gallaway III, a Sacramento businessman who plans to use it as a "hunting and fishing retreat", for $5,258.20 ($48,877 in 2021).
March 28, 1959	The State Council of the People's Republic of China dissolves the government of Tibet.
March 30, 1959	Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet for India.
March 31, 1959	The 14th Dalai Lama, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.
April 8, 1959	A team of computer manufacturers, users, and university people led by Grace Hopper meets to discuss the creation of a new programming language that would be called COBOL.
April 8, 1959	The Organization of American States drafts an agreement to create the Inter-American Development Bank.
April 9, 1959	Project Mercury: NASA announces the selection of the United States' first seven astronauts, whom the news media quickly dub the "Mercury Seven".
April 25, 1959	The Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping.
May 4, 1959	The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.
May 16, 1959	The Triton Fountain in Valletta, Malta is turned on for the first time.
May 19, 1959	The North Vietnamese Army establishes Group 559, whose responsibility is to determine how to maintain supply lines to South Vietnam; the resulting route is the Ho Chi Minh trail.
May 30, 1959	The Auckland Harbour Bridge, crossing the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand, is officially opened by Governor-General Charles Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham.
June 5, 1959	The first government of Singapore is sworn in.
June 8, 1959	USS Barbero and the United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.
June 9, 1959	The USS George Washington is launched. It is the first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.
June 14, 1959	Disneyland Monorail System, the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
June 14, 1959	Dominican exiles depart from Cuba and land in the Dominican Republic to overthrow the totalitarian government of Rafael Trujillo. All but four are killed or executed.
June 20, 1959	A rare June hurricane strikes Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence killing 35.
June 23, 1959	Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career.
June 26, 1959	Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson becomes world champion of heavy weight boxing, by defeating American Floyd Patterson on technical knockout after two minutes and three seconds in the third round at Yankee Stadium.
June 30, 1959	A United States Air Force F-100 Super Sabre from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, crashes into a nearby elementary school, killing 11 students plus six residents from the local neighborhood.
July 1, 1959	Specific values for the international yard, avoirdupois pound and derived units (e.g. inch, mile and ounce) are adopted after agreement between the US, the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries.
July 7, 1959	Venus occults the star Regulus. This rare event is used to determine the diameter of Venus and the structure of the Venusian atmosphere.
July 15, 1959	The steel strike of 1959 begins, leading to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history.
July 21, 1959	NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative.
July 21, 1959	Elijah Jerry "Pumpsie" Green becomes the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last team to integrate. He came in as a pinch runner for Vic Wertz and stayed in as shortstop in a 2–1 loss to the Chicago White Sox.
July 24, 1959	At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev have a "Kitchen Debate".
July 27, 1959	The Continental League is announced as baseball's "third major league" in the United States.
July 29, 1959	First United States Congress elections in Hawaii as a state of the Union.
August 3, 1959	Portugal's state police force PIDE fires upon striking workers in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea, killing over 50 people.
August 7, 1959	Explorer program: Explorer 6 launches from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
August 11, 1959	Sheremetyevo International Airport, the second-largest airport in Russia, opens.
August 14, 1959	Founding and first official meeting of the American Football League.
August 15, 1959	American Airlines Flight 514, a Boeing 707, crashes near the Calverton Executive Airpark in Calverton, New York, killing all five people on board.
August 17, 1959	Quake Lake is formed by the magnitude 7.2 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake near Hebgen Lake in Montana.
August 21, 1959	United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. Hawaii's admission is currently commemorated by Hawaii Admission Day.
August 30, 1959	South Vietnamese opposition figure Phan Quang Dan was elected to the National Assembly despite soldiers being bussed in to vote for President Ngo Dinh Diem's candidate.
August 31, 1959	A parcel bomb sent by Ngô Đình Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm, fails to kill King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
September 12, 1959	The Soviet Union launches a large rocket, Lunik II, at the Moon.
September 12, 1959	Bonanza premieres, the first regularly scheduled TV program presented in color.
September 15, 1959	Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.
September 16, 1959	The first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, is introduced in a demonstration on live television from New York City.
September 24, 1959	TAI Flight 307 crashes during takeoff from Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport in Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France, killing 55 people.
September 25, 1959	Solomon Bandaranaike, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, is mortally wounded by a Buddhist monk, Talduwe Somarama, and dies the next day.
September 26, 1959	Typhoon Vera, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history, makes landfall, killing 4,580 people and leaving nearly 1.6 million others homeless.
September 27, 1959	Typhoon Vera kills nearly 5,000 people in Japan.
September 29, 1959	A Lockheed L-188 Electra crashes in Buffalo, Texas, killing 34 people.
October 7, 1959	The Soviet probe Luna 3 transmits the first-ever photographs of the far side of the Moon.
October 12, 1959	At the national congress of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance in Peru, a group of leftist radicals are expelled from the party who later form APRA Rebelde.
October 21, 1959	In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public.
October 21, 1959	President Dwight D. Eisenhower approves the transfer of all US Army space-related activities to NASA, including most of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency.
October 30, 1959	Piedmont Airlines Flight 349 crashes on approach to Charlottesville–Albemarle Airport in Albemarle County, Virginia, killing 26 of the 27 on board.
November 2, 1959	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 2, 1959	The first section of the M1 motorway, the first inter-urban motorway in the United Kingdom, is opened between the present junctions 5 and 18, along with the M10 motorway and M45 motorway.
November 20, 1959	The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.
November 21, 1959	American disc jockey Alan Freed, who had popularized the term "rock and roll" and music of that style, is fired from WABC radio over allegations he had participated in the payola scandal.
November 23, 1959	French President Charles de Gaulle declares in a speech in Strasbourg his vision for "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals".
December 1, 1959	Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.
December 3, 1959	The current flag of Singapore is adopted, six months after Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire.
December 13, 1959	Archbishop Makarios III becomes the first President of Cyprus.