1959 in the United States
Events from the year 1959 in the United States. With the admittance of Alaska and Hawaii, this is the last year in which states are added to the union.
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Dwight Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev and their wives at a state dinner, 1959.
Incumbents
Federal Government
- President: Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-Pennsylvania)
- Vice President: Richard Nixon (R-California)
- Chief Justice: Earl Warren (California)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-Texas)
- Senate Majority Leader: Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas)
- Congress: 85th (until January 3), 86th (starting January 3)
| Governors and Lieutenant Governors |
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Governors
Lieutenant Governors
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Events
January–March
January 3: Alaska admitted as 49th state
- January 2 – CBS Radio cuts four soap operas: Backstage Wife, Our Gal Sunday, The Road of Life and This is Nora Drake.
- January 3 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state (see History of Alaska).
- January 7 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
- January 22 – Knox Mine Disaster: Water breaches the River Slope Mine near Pittston City, Pennsylvania in Port Griffith; 12 miners are killed.
- January 29 – Walt Disney releases his 16th animated film, Sleeping Beauty in Beverly Hills.
- February 3 – A chartered plane transporting musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper crashes in foggy conditions near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all four occupants on board, including pilot Roger Peterson. The tragedy is later termed "The Day the Music Died", popularized in Don McLean's 1972 song "American Pie".
- February 6 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
- February 17 – The United States launches the Vanguard II weather satellite.
- February 22 – Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.
- March 1 – USS Tuscaloosa, USS New Orleans, USS Tennessee and USS West Virginia are struck from the Naval Vessel Register.
- March 3 – Lunar probe Pioneer 4 becomes the first American object to escape dominance by Earth's gravity.
- March 11 – A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry opens on Broadway in New York City.
- March 18 – American President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill allowing for Hawaiian statehood.
- March 31 – The first Busch Gardens amusement park, in Tampa, Florida, is dedicated and opens its gates.
April–June
April 9: NASA announces the "Mercury Seven"
- April 6 – The 31st Academy Awards ceremony is held; Gigi wins Best Picture.
- April 9 – NASA announces its selection of the "Mercury Seven", seven military pilots to become the first U.S. astronauts.
- April 25 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opens to shipping.
- May 8 – The first Little Caesars pizza restaurant is opened by Mike Ilitch and his wife Marian in Garden City, Michigan.
- May 21 – Gypsy: A Musical Fable, starring Ethel Merman in her last new musical, opens on Broadway and runs for 702 performances.
- May 28 – Jupiter AM-18 rocket launches two primates, Miss Baker and Miss Able, into space from Cape Canaveral along with living microorganisms and plant seeds. Successful recovery makes them the first living beings to return safely to Earth after space flight.
- June 8 – USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.
- June 9 – USS George Washington is launched as the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles.
- June 23 – Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in a British prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany (where he resumes a scientific career).
- June 26
- Queen Elizabeth II and U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower open the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
- Darby O'Gill and the Little People, a film based on H. T. Kavanagh's short stories, is released in the U.S. by Walt Disney, two days after its world premiere in Ireland.
July–September
August 21: Hawaii admitted as 50th state
- July 8 – Charles Ovnand and Dale R. Buis become the first Americans killed in action in Vietnam.
- July 15 – Steel strike of 1959: Labor union strike in the U.S. steel industry.
- July 24
- At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev have a "kitchen debate."
- 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, Pennsylvania.
- August 7
- Explorers program: Launch of Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
- The Roseburg Oregon Blast kills 14 and causes $12 million worth of damage.
- August 17
- The 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake in southwest Montana kills 28.
- Miles Davis' influential jazz album Kind of Blue is released.
- August 21 – Hawaii is admitted as the 50th and last U.S. state (see History of Hawaii).
October–December
October 21: The Guggenheim opens
- October 2 – Rod Serling's classic anthology series The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS.
- October 8 - The Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Chicago White Sox, 4 games to 2, to win their 2nd World Series Title.
- October 13 – Launch of Explorer 7.
- October 21 – In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) opens to the public.
- November 15 – The Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas is brutally murdered.
- November 18 – MGM's widescreen, multimillion-dollar, Technicolor version of Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston, is released and becomes the studio's greatest hit up to that time. It is critically acclaimed and eventually wins 11 Academy Awards – a record held until 1998, when 1997's Titanic becomes the first film to equal the record.
- December 1 – Cold War – Antarctic Treaty: 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent (the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War).
- December 13 – Three years after its first telecast, MGM's The Wizard of Oz is shown on television for only the second time, but it gains an even larger viewing audience than its first television outing, spurring CBS to make it an annual tradition.
1959: Potamkin Chevrolet, Philadelphia
Undated
- The Henney Kilowatt goes on sale in the United States, becoming the first mass-produced electric car in almost three decades.
Ongoing
- Cold War (1947–1991)
- Space Race (1957–1975)
Births
- January 1 – Andy Andrews, American tennis player
- January 2 – Joe Bevilacqua, radio producer and dramatist
- January 5 – Clancy Brown, actor and voice actor
- January 8 – Keith Rodden, NASCAR crew chief
- January 10 – Larry McReynolds, auto racing commentator
- January 27 – Keith Olbermann, television sports and political commentator
- January 28 – Megan McDonald, children's author
- January 29 – Michael Sloane, actor, director and screenwriter
- February 4 – Pamelyn Ferdin, actress and activist
- February 14 – Renée Fleming, soprano
- February 22 – Kyle MacLachlan, actor
- March 17 – Christian Clemenson, actor
- March 22 – Matthew Modine, actor
- April 3 – David Hyde Pierce, actor
- April 15 – Thomas F. Wilson, actor, writer, musician, painter, voice-over artist, stand-up comedian and podcaster
- May 5 – Brian Williams, television journalist
- May 8 – Ronnie Lott, American football player and sportscaster
- May 17 – Jim Nantz, sportscaster
- May 19 – Nicole Brown Simpson, second wife of American football player and actor O. J. Simpson and murder victim (k. 1994)
- May 21 – Loretta Lynch, 83rd U.S. Attorney General from 2015 to 2017.
- June 3
- John Carlson, radio host
- Sam Mills, American football player
- June 6 – Paul Germain, television screenwriter and producer
- June 7 – Mike Pence, 50th Governor of Indiana 2013–2017, 48th Vice President of the United States from 2017
- June 10 – Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York from 2007 to 2008
- June 11 – Magnum T.A. (Terry Allen), wrestler
- June 14 – Marcus Miller, African American jazz musician
- July 5, Jack Alvis, Legend, Golf expert, and Automobile Doctor
- July 6 – Glenn Kessler, journalist
- July 7 – Ben Linder, engineer (d. 1987)
July 9 - Renee M. Schwartz, A Force to be reckoned with.
- July 14 – Susana Martinez, Governor of New Mexico from 2011 to 2019
- July 23 – Carl Phillips, poet
- July 26 – Kevin Spacey, actor and director
- August 10 – Rosanna Arquette, actress
- August 13 – Danny Bonaduce, actor
- August 14
- Marcia Gay Harden, actress
- Magic Johnson, African American basketball player
- August 15 – Scott Altman, astronaut
- August 17
- Jonathan Franzen, novelist
- David Koresh, spiritual leader of the Branch Davidian religious cult (d. 1993)
- Brad Wellman, baseball player
- August 19 – Anthony Sowell, serial killer
- August 21 – Jim McMahon, American football player
- August 26 – Stan Van Gundy, basketball coach
- September 12 – Scott Brown, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts from 2010 to 2013
- September 15 – Mark Kirk, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 2010 to 2017
- September 22 – Saul Perlmutter, astrophysicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011
- September 23 – Jason Alexander, actor
- October 1 – Brian P. Cleary, humorist, author and poet
- October 3
- Fred Couples, golfer
- Greg Proops, comedian
- Jack Wagner, actor
- October 5 – David Shannon, writer and illustrator
- October 10 – Maya Lin, designer and artist
- October 13 – Marie Osmond, country pop singer
- October 23
- Nancy Grace, television host
- Sam Raimi, film producer, writer and director
- "Weird Al" Yankovic, singer, accordionist and parodist
- October 29 – Jesse Barfield, baseball player and sportscaster
- November 19 – Allison Janney, actress
- November 20 – Sean Young, actress
- December 2 – David Alward, 32nd Premier of New Brunswick 2010-2014
- December 10 – Mariann Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington
- December 21 – Florence Griffith Joyner, African American athlete (d. 1998)
- December 24 – Lee Daniels, African American film director
- December 25 – Michael P. Anderson, astronaut (d. 2003)
Deaths
- January 20 – Carl Switzer, actor, shot to death (born 1927)
- January 21 – Cecil B. DeMille, film director (born 1881)
- February 3 – "The Day the Music Died" plane crash
- Big Bopper, disc jockey, singer and songwriter (born 1930)
- Buddy Holly, singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll (born 1936)
- Ritchie Valens, Mexican-American singer, songwriter and guitarist (born 1941)
- February 20 – Ray McDonald, dancer, barbiturate overdose (born 1920)
- February 22 – Helen Parrish, film actress, cancer (born 1924)
- March 3 – Lou Costello, actor and comedian, part of Abbott & Costello team (born 1906)
- March 4 – Maxie Long, track athlete (born 1878)
- March 16 – John Sailing, last documented Civil War veteran (age 111)
- April 9 – Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, interior designer, writer and educator (born 1867)
- April 27 – Gordon Armstrong, inventor of the baby incubator
- May 26 – Joe Kelly, TV host (Quiz Kids) (born 1902)
- June 2 – Orelia Key Bell, poet (born 1864)
- June 16 – George Reeves, actor, shot to death (born 1914)
- June 18 – Ethel Barrymore, actress (born 1879)
- June 25 – Charles Starkweather, spree killer, judicially executed by electrocution (born 1938)
- July 8 – 1st Americans killed in Vietnam War
- Dale R. Buis, military advisor (born 1921)
- Chester M. Ovnand, military advisor (born 1914)
- July 17 – Billie Holiday, jazz singer (born 1915)
- August 16 – William Halsey Jr., U.S. vice-admiral (Pacific War) (born 1882)
- October 7 – Mario Lanza, opera singer, heart attack (born 1921)
- October 14 – Errol Flynn, film actor, heart attack (born 1909 in Australia)
- October 16 – George Marshall, U.S. army general (born 1880)
- November 21 – Max Baer, heavyweight boxing champion (born 1909)
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