Highlights of 1958

 

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MAJOR EVENTS:
  • Efforts at school desegregation in the southern U.S. are met with impassioned resistance
  • U.S. launches its first satellite, Explorer I; NASA established
  • Vice President Richard Nixon's goodwill tour of South America sparks open protests and rioting
  • Egypt and Sudan form the United Arab Republic
  • U.S. Marines intervene in Lebanon to bolster government

BUSINESS & ECONOMY:
  • Economic slowdown in U.S. causes sharp rise in unemployment

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:
  • Nuclear submarine U.S.S. Nautilus makes the first underwater crossing of the North Pole
  • U.S. launches satellites that detect the Van Allen radiation belts around the earth, and determine that the earth is not perfectly round
  • Experimental nuclear power plant goes into operation

SPORTS:
  • World Series: New York Yankees over Milwaukee, 4-3
  • Arnold Palmer wins his first Masters golf tournament

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:
  • Movies: Gigi, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Me and the Colonel
  • Songs: Catch a Falling Star, Chipmunk Song, Volare, The Purple People Eater, At the Hop
  • TV Shows: You Asked for It, Wagon Train, To Tell the Truth, The Rifleman, Donna Reed Show, Have Gun Will Travel
  • Books: A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry; Exodus, Leon Uris; Dr. Zhivago, Boris Pasternak; Masters of Deceit, J. Edgar Hoover; Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote; The Affluent Society, John K. Gailbraith
  • The "Cha Cha" becomes a dance craze
  • New York's Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens

EVERYDAY LIFE:
  • Stereo recordings become available
  • "Barbie" doll introduced, becoming an instant success

FUN FACTS:
  • "Hula Hoops" become a national craze

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