1959 Events & Facts
MAJOR EVENTS:
- Fidel Castro’s forces victorious in Cuban revolution
- Alaska and Hawaii become U.S. states
- U.S. and Canada complete St. Lawrence Seaway
- Vice President Richard Nixon engages Soviet leader Khrushchev in an informal "kitchen debate" at a Moscow trade show where U.S. kitchen appliances are on exhibit
BUSINESS & ECONOMY:
- Congress passes legislation cracking down on union racketeering
- President Eisenhower intervenes to halt protracted steel and longshoremen’s strikes
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:
- Soviet space probe Lunik III photographs far side of the moon
SPORTS:
- World Series: Los Angeles over Chicago, 4-2
- Jack Nicklaus wins USGA Amateur golf championship
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:
- Movies: Suulenly Last Summer, Ben Hur, Anatomy of a Murder, Hiroshima Mon Amour
- Songs: Mack the Knife, High Hopes, Personality, Kansas City, Battle of New Orleans
- TV Shows: Maverick, Rawhide, Fibber McGee and Molly, Peter Gunn, Real McCoys, Dennis the Menace
- Books: Goodbye, Columbus, Philip Roth; Goldfinger, Ian Fleming; The Miracle Worker, William Gibson; The Status Seekers, Vance Packard; The Tin Drum, Günter Grass; Advise and Consent, Allen Drury
- Scandal strikes the popular TV quiz show $64,000 Question when a contestant admits his winning performances were rigged
- Musicals Gypsy, The Sound of Music debut
- U.S. Post Office bans D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover from the mails on obscenity grounds
- Film director Cecil B. De Mille dies
EVERYDAY LIFE:
- Studies determine that more Americans have died in auto accidents than in all U.S. wars combined
- Playboy magazine debuts, featuring Marilyn Monroe as its first centerfold
- Toy manufacturer Wham-O introduces the "Frisbee"
FUN FACTS:
- New York City considers lobbying for statehood
