What happened in 1959

World2

• Mar 3Lunar probe Pioneer 4 becomes the first American object to escape dominance by Earth's gravity.
• Oct 7The Soviet probe Luna 3 sends back the first ever images of the far side of the Moon.

Japan1

• Sep 26Typhoon Vera hits central Honshū, Japan, as a 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.

North America19

• Jan 25American Airlines begins the first U.S. domestic jet service with a Boeing 707 airliner flight between New York and Los Angeles.
• Feb 3A chartered plane transporting musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper with pilot Roger Peterson goes down in foggy conditions near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all four on board. The tragedy is later termed "The Day the Music Died", popularized in Don McLean's 1971 song "American Pie".
• Feb 3American 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.
• Feb 6At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
• Feb 17Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launched to measure cloud cover for the United States Navy.
• Feb 20The Canadian Government cancels the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow interceptor aircraft project.
• Mar 9Mattel's Barbie doll debuts in the United States.
• Apr 6The 31st Academy Awards ceremony is held in Hollywood. Musical film Gigi receives a record 9 Oscars.
• Apr 9NASA announces its selection of seven military pilots to become the first U.S. astronauts, later known as the 'Mercury Seven'.
• Apr 25The Saint Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opens to shipping.
• Jul 24At 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".
• Aug 7Explorer program: The United States launches Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• Sep 17The hypersonic North American X-15 research aircraft, piloted by Scott Crossfield, makes its first powered flight at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
• Nov 18Religious 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 11 Academy Awards, premieres at New York City's Loews Theater in Ultra Panavision 70.
• Nov 20The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.

4 more in the app

Europe12

• Jan 8Charles de Gaulle is inaugurated as the first president of the French Fifth Republic.
• Jan 9The Vega de Tera disaster in Spain, a flood caused by a dam collapse, nearly destroys the town of Ribadelago and kills 144 residents.
• Jan 11The Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques is founded in Monaco.
• Jan 21The European Court of Human Rights is established.
• Feb 19First of the London and Zürich Agreements under which the United Kingdom agrees to grant independence to Cyprus.
• Mar 1Archbishop Makarios returns to Cyprus from exile.
• Mar 11The 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).
• Jun 26Elizabeth II (as monarch of Canada) and United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower open the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
• Aug 26The original Mini car, designed by Sir Alec Issigonis, is launched in England.
• Oct 29First appearance of Astérix the Gaul, in a French comic magazine.
• Nov 2At 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.
• Dec 14Makarios III is selected as the first president of Cyprus.

USSR / Russia5

• Jan 2Soviet 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.
• Jan 15The Soviet Union conducts its first census after World War II.
• Feb 2Nine ski hikers mysteriously perish in the northern Ural Mountains in the Dyatlov Pass incident and are all found dead a few weeks later.
• Sep 14Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 becomes the first human-made object to crash on the Moon.
• Dec 1Cold 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).

Asia4

• Jan 3The southernmost island of the Maldives archipelago, Addu Atoll, declares its independence from the Kingdom of the Maldives, initiating the United Suvadive Republic.
• Mar 10The Tibetan uprising erupts in Lhasa when Chinese officials attempt to arrest the Dalai Lama.
• Mar 19The other two southern islands of the Maldives, Huvadhu Atoll and Fuvahmulah, join Addu Atoll in forming the United Suvadive Republic (abolished September 1963).
• May 23In Laos the Laotian Civil War begins between the Kingdom of Laos and communist rebels, the Pathet Lao.

Latin America1

• Jan 4In Cuba, rebel troops led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city of Havana.

Africa2

• Jan 4Léopoldville 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.
• Nov 1In Rwanda, Hutu politician Dominique Mbonyumutwa is beaten up by Tutsi forces, leading to a period of violence known as the wind of destruction.