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February 1959

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February 17, 1959: The first weather satellite, Vanguard 2, is launched by the U.S.
February 12, 1959: New penny released on Lincoln's 150th birthday

The following events occurred in February 1959:

February 1, 1959 (Sunday)

  • Male voters in Switzerland voted overwhelmingly against allowing women the right to vote, by a margin of 654,924 to 323,306. It was not until 1971 that Swiss women were granted full suffrage. On the same day, however, Vaud became the first of the cantons of Switzerland to allow voting in provincial elections. The Canton of Neuchâtel followed on September 27.
  • Between February 1 and 14, some 508 records were reviewed for prospective Project Mercury pilot candidates of which about 110 appeared to qualify. The special committee on Life Sciences decided to divide these into two groups and 69 prospective pilot candidates were briefed and interviewed in Washington, D.C. Out of this number, 53 volunteered for the Mercury program, and 32 of the 53 were selected for further testing. The committee agreed there was no further need to brief other individuals, because of the high qualities exhibited in the existing pool of candidates. These 32 were scheduled for physical examination at the Lovelace Clinic, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
  • Died: Frank Shannon, 84, American actor who played (Dr. Zarkov) in the Flash Gordon serials

February 2, 1959 (Monday)

February 3, 1959 (Tuesday)

Buddy HollyThe Big BopperRitchie ValensFebruary 3, 1959, "The Day the Music Died": Buddy Holly (left), J.P. Richardson (middle), and Ritchie Valens (right) killed in plane crash (below)

February 4, 1959 (Wednesday)

February 5, 1959 (Thursday)

  • The U.S. State Department released tapes that showed that Soviet jets had shot down an unarmed American C-130 transport plane on September 2, 1958. Transmissions between the two fighter planes, identified as "201" and "218", had been intercepted in Turkey. The Soviets denounced the tapes as a "clumsy fake". On the same day, Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev invited U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to visit Moscow, adding that he could bring anyone, and go anywhere, he chose. In his speech, Khrushchev referred to the Secretary of State and said, "Mr. Dulles, if you so desire, then for the sake of ending the Cold War, we are even prepared to admit your victory in this war that is unwanted by the peoples. Regard yourselves, gentlemen, as victors in this war, but end it quickly."
  • The title E-1 for U.S. Air Force personnel was revised from Basic Airman to Airman Basic.

February 6, 1959 (Friday)

  • Jack Kilby, working for Texas Instruments, filed for a patent for the first integrated circuit, which was granted as U.S. Patent 3,138,743 on June 23, 1964. Kilby had recorded his inspiration on July 24, 1958, writing "The following circuit elements could be made on single slice: resistors, capacitor, distributed capacitor, transistor" and put these on a silicon wafer.
  • Following industry-wide competition, a formal contract for research and development of the Mercury spacecraft was negotiated with the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. The contract called for design and construction of 12 Mercury spacecraft. Later, orders were placed with the company for eight additional spacecraft, two procedural trainers, an environmental trainer, and seven checkout trainers. McDonnell had been engaged in studying the development of a crewed spacecraft since the NACA presentation in mid-March 1958.
  • Born: Ken Nelson, English record producer; in Liverpool

February 7, 1959 (Saturday)

  • Former SS Colonel Sepp Dietrich was released from prison in Munich after serving half of a sentence for assisting in the execution of high-ranking German officers in 1934.
Malan
  • After spending a record 64 days, 22 hours and 21 minutes aloft, two fliers landed their Cessna 172 in Las Vegas. Pilot John Cook and businessman Bob Timm had taken off on December 4, 1958, and on January 23, had broken the previous record of 50 days. They refueled twice each day at Blythe, California, from a truck that would drive 90 miles per hour (140 km/h) beneath the plane.
  • At the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the medical tests for the Mercury astronaut selection began.
  • Died: Daniel F. Malan, 84, Prime Minister of South Africa to 1948 to 1954 and architect of apartheid

February 8, 1959 (Sunday)

Donovan

February 9, 1959 (Monday)

  • The first ICBM, the R-7 Semyorka missile, became operational at Plesetsk in the Soviet Union. The missile, capable of hitting targets at a range of 12,000 kilometres (7,500 mi) was first tested on December 15, 1959.

February 10, 1959 (Tuesday)

February 11, 1959 (Wednesday)

  • Meeting in Switzerland at Zürich, Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis of Greece and Prime Minister Adnan Menderes of Turkey signed the first of two agreements concerning the upcoming independence from the United Kingdom of the island of Cyprus, which had large populations of Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The two nations, after consulting with the leaders of their respective ethnic communities on Cyprus, agreed to a constitution that would provide for both groups to be represented in the Cypriot government, and temporarily abandoned their conflicting demands. Greece refrained from pursuing enosis, the incorporation of the entire island as Grecian territory, and Turkey refrained from pursuing a partition of the island between the Turks in the north and the Greeks in the south. The two sides would sign a second agreement, the Treaty of Guarantee, with the United Kingdom in London on February 19.
  • The Royal Air Force made its first public launch of one of its 60 Thor missiles, at a press conference at RAF Feltwell base. The intermediate range missiles had a range of 1,600 miles (2,600 km).
  • Space Task Group and Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) personnel met at Huntsville, Alabama, to discuss Redstone and Jupiter flight phases of Project Mercury. During the course of the meeting the following points became firm: (1) Space Task Group was the overall manager and technical director of this phase of the program, (2) ABMA was responsible for the launch vehicle until spacecraft separation, (3) ABMA was responsible for the Redstone launch vehicle recovery (this phase of the program was later eliminated since benefits from recovering the launch vehicle would have been insignificant), (4) Space Task Group was responsible for the spacecraft flight after separation, (5) McDonnell was responsible for the adapters for the Mercury-Redstone configuration, and (6) ABMA would build adapters for the Mercury-Jupiter configuration.
  • After five seasons of being officially known as the Cincinnati Redlegs, baseball's Cincinnati Reds reverted to their former name as evidenced by the release of their 1959 spring training media guide to the nation's sportswriters. The club's general manager, Gabe Paul, who said in 1953 that he had made the change to "Redlegs" because "we wanted to be certain we wouldn't be confused with the Russian Reds" insisted to reporters that "We haven't changed a thing. Reds... Redlegs... Red Stockings... they're all part of our name. We just decided to use Reds a little more." The UPI pointed out that "virtually every piece of publicity from the club spoke of the team as the 'Redlegs' since 1953."
  • Died: Marshall Teague, 36, American race car driver, was killed in an accident at the Daytona Speedway, 11 days before the start of the first Daytona 500.

February 12, 1959 (Thursday)

Reverse side of the phased-out "wheat" penny
  • The new version of the Lincoln cent was introduced on Abraham Lincoln's 150th birthday. While the portrait of Lincoln was unchanged, the tails side had the Lincoln Memorial replacing the "wheat penny".
  • The last B-36 bomber was decommissioned.

February 13, 1959 (Friday)

February 14, 1959 (Saturday)

February 15, 1959 (Sunday)

  • In Guatemala, President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes acted to put down an Indian uprising that had been organized by his opponent Raul Estuardo Lorenzana. Ydigoras would later write in his 1963 autobiography My War with Communism that the rebellion was the first of several Communist Cuban plots against his government.
  • Police in New York City concluded what was, at the time, the second-largest drug bust in American history, arresting 27 people between 8:30 Saturday night and 5:00 Sunday morning, and seizing 32 pounds (15 kg) of heroin with a "street value of $3,660,800". A January 1958 roundup in Elmont, New York, had netted 35 pounds (16 kg) and 17 arrests.
  • The medical examinations at the Wright Air Development Center for the final selection of the Mercury astronauts began.
  • Nine people in a single car were killed when their vehicle was hit head-on by another vehicle on United States Highway 281 south of Alamo, Texas. The driver of the other vehicle, whose speedometer was frozen at 80 miles per hour (130 km/h) after the collision, also died.
  • Died: Owen Willans Richardson, 79, British physicist who received the 1928 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discoveries in thermionic emission and for his development of Richardson's law.


February 16, 1959 (Monday)

  • The French ocean liner SS Île de France was retired, sailing from Le Havre to Japan for use as scrap metal.
  • Born: John McEnroe, American tennis player who won the U.S. Open championship four times (1979, 1980, 1981, 1984) and the Wimbledon championships three times (1981, 1983, 1984); at the U.S. Air Force base in Wiesbaden, West Germany

February 17, 1959 (Tuesday)

  • Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, was launched at 10:55 a.m. from Cape Canaveral to measure cloud cover for the United States Navy.
  • The first formal meeting of the Navy-NASA Committee on Project Mercury search and recovery operations was held. They decided that joint recovery exercises would be initiated as soon as possible. The committee members determined that the Navy, particularly the Atlantic Fleet, could support operations from Wallops Island; could perform search and recovery operations along the Atlantic Missile Range, using the selected Project Mercury vehicles; and that naval units could support operations in the escape area between Cape Canaveral and Bermuda.
  • Adnan Menderes, the Prime Minister of Turkey, was among 20 people on board an airplane en route from Rome to London that crashed on its approach to Gatwick Airport. Menderes was scheduled to meet with Prime Ministers Macmillan of Britain and Karamanlis of Greece for an agreement concerning the island of Cyprus. Menderes survived the crash but was deposed the following year and executed on September 17, 1961.

February 18, 1959 (Wednesday)

  • Elections were held in Nepal for the first time in its history, as voters chose candidates for 18 of the 109 lower house seats, with the remainder to be chosen on eight other days.

February 19, 1959 (Thursday)

  • The National Assembly Building of Slovenia, designed by Vinko Glanz, was opened in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, nearly five years after construction had started in 1954. A session of the Slovenian People's Assembly followed the ceremonies.
  • In London, representatives of Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Guarantee, the second of two agreements regarding Cyprus, with all three nations being granted the right to intervene militarily, if necessary, to protect members of one ethnic community from the other, or to uphold the jointly-accepted constitution.
  • In a speech, Dr. T. Keith Glennan estimated that Project Mercury would cost over $200 million. Glennan said the cost was high because a new area of technology was being explored with no precedents or experience from which to draw, and because the world-wide tracking network construction was a tremendous undertaking.
  • Debbie Reynolds was granted a divorce from Eddie Fisher. "My husband became interested in another woman", she testified in a Los Angeles hearing. Reports added that she did so "never mentioning the name of Elizabeth Taylor".
  • Died: Daniel A. Reed, 83, U.S. Congressman for New York since 1919, and former football coach at the University of Cincinnati (1899–1911)

February 20, 1959 (Friday)

February 21, 1959 (Saturday)

  • The Douglas DC-8 30 Series, a longer-range version of the DC-8 passenger jet, made its first flight.
  • The New Yorker published "On the Sidewalk", John Updike's parody of On the Road.
  • The Ben Hecht Show, a live television program on New York's WABC-TV, was cancelled permanently after Hecht's guest, surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, used the word "orgasm" in an interview. Ben Hecht, a screenwriter whom Mike Wallace described as "a trifle profane" on the air, had already been in trouble with the station. Wallace would later describe the episode as "the 'Orgasm and Out!' show".

February 22, 1959 (Sunday)

  • The very first Daytona 500, now NASCAR's preeminent stock car racing event, was held at Daytona Beach, Florida, with Johnny Beauchamp and Lee Petty crossing the finish line within fractions of a second of each other, and both faster than the existing NASCAR speed record. "NASCAR officials stationed at the finish line first gave Beauchamp the nod by 12 inches," one sportswriter would write the next day, but added "Petty insisted he had Beauchamp by two feet." Although the race took 3 hours and 41 minutes to complete, it would take three days for the race to be won, and only after NASCAR officials reviewed photographic evidence.
Crossfield
The X-15
  • It was reported that the United States might put a man into space as early as February 26, 1959, with Scott Crossfield, a test pilot for North American Aviation, flying the X-15 to a point 200 miles (320 km) above the Earth, well above the 100 kilometres (62 mi) altitude that defines the beginning of "outer space". Under the plan, the X-15 was to be carried to 40,000 feet (12,000 m) above Utah's Wendover Air Force Base by a B-52 jet, then separate and ignite rocket fuel to climb into space. Crossfield was one of seven X-15 astronauts, as was Neil A. Armstrong. The X-15 would be tested by Crossfield in March, but would not be launched into space.
  • Born: Kyle MacLachlan, American actor known for the TV show Twin Peaks; in Yakima, Washington

February 23, 1959 (Monday)

February 24, 1959 (Tuesday)

  • In San Luis, Mexico, seven children were killed, and 23 people injured, when a packed grandstand collapsed during a school festival.

February 25, 1959 (Wednesday)

  • Three days after the race had been held, Lee Petty was declared the official winner of the first Daytona 500 and the man initially ruled to have crossed the finish line first, Johnny Beauchamp, a close second. Bill France, the president of NASCAR, announced the decision at a press conference in Daytona Beach, Florida, and said that films and photos taken at the finish line had shown that Petty crossed the line ahead of Beauchamp.
  • Norway and Israel signed an agreement in Oslo, providing Israel for the first time with deuterium oxide, also known as "heavy water", a key step in Israel's atomic program.

February 26, 1959 (Thursday)

February 27, 1959 (Friday)

  • The wreckage of the American B-24 bomber Lady Be Good was found nearly 16 years after the plane had crashed in the Libyan desert. The Lady Be Good and its crew of nine had become lost on April 4, 1943, while returning from a bombing raid during World War II, and then had to ditch in the desert sands. The men had died of thirst and exposure within a few days, and the bodies would be located a year later, on February 11, 1960. The discovery of the Lady Be Good would inspire Rod Serling to write "King Nine Will Not Return", the first episode of the second season of The Twilight Zone.
  • In Boston, the Celtics beat the Lakers (at that time a Minneapolis team) 173 to 139 for the highest score by a team in a regulation NBA game; and, at the time, the highest ever for a losing team. NBA President Maurice Podoloff said that he would ask officials of both teams whether the players were faithfully defending, or just "goofing off". The record was tied on November 10, 1990, by Phoenix Suns (173–145 vs. Denver) for highest number of points in a regulation game. The record, set in overtime on December 13, 1983, is Detroit 186, Denver 184.

February 28, 1959 (Saturday)

References

  1. "Last Male Haven". Winnipeg Free Press. February 2, 1959. p. 1.
  2. Jackman, Robert W.; Miller, Ross A. (2004). Before Norms: Institutions and Civic Culture. University of Michigan Press. p. 153.
  3. ^ Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Grimwood, James M. "PART II (A) Research and Development Phase of Project Mercury October 3, 1958 through December 1959". Project Mercury - A Chronology. NASA Special Publication-4001. NASA. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  4. Smith, S.A. (2015). "Redemptive Religious Societies and the Communist State, 1949 to the 1980s". In Brown, Jeremy; Johnson, Matthew D. (eds.). Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China's Era of High Socialism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 346. ISBN 978-0674287204 – via Google Books.
  5. Osadchuk, Svetlana (February 19, 2008). "Mysterious Deaths of 9 Skiers Still Unresolved". The St. Petersburg Times. Archived from the original on 2008-02-26.
  6. Wolfe, Tom (2008) . The Right Stuff. New York, N. Y.: Picador. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-312-42756-6.
  7. Burgess, Colin (2011). Selecting the Mercury Seven: The Search for America's First Astronauts. Springer-Praxis books in space exploration. New York; London: Springer. pp. 44–46. ISBN 978-1-4419-8405-0. OCLC 747105631.
  8. "Schools Integrate Calmly in Virginia". Chicago Daily Tribune. February 2, 1959. p. 1.
  9. "At Surf". Globe-Gazette. Mason City, Iowa. January 31, 1959. p. 14. A photograph of Holly included the caption, "Buddy Holly, twice a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show, will be appearing with his group at the Surf Ballroom Monday evening. Holly's vocal recordings of 'Peggy Sue', 'Early in the Morning', 'Heartbeat' and others have made him a popular in-person attraction."
  10. "Surf Ballroom History". Surf Ballroom. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
  11. Lehmer, Larry. The Day the Music Died. pp. 96–103.
  12. "Four Killed in Clear Lake Plane Crash— Nationally-Known Rock 'n' Rollers, Lake Man Victims". Globe-Gazette. Mason City, Iowa. February 3, 1959. p. 1.
  13. "Rock 'n' Roll Idols Die in Air Crash". Chicago Daily Tribune. February 4, 1959. p. 12.
  14. "CHICAGO-N.Y. AIR CRASH— Fear 58 of 73 Aboard Die; Find 10 Survivors". Chicago Daily Tribune. February 4, 1959. p. 1.
  15. Vol V King Papers Project stanford.edu, pl
  16. Taylor, Lawrence; Serby, Steve (2004). LT over the edge : tackling quarterbacks, drugs, and a world beyond football. New York: HarperTorch. p. 5. ISBN 0-06-103149-6. OCLC 56520144.
  17. "Talking Tapes Show Russ Downed U.S. Plane; Nikita Seeks Ike Visit". Oakland Tribune. February 5, 1959. p. 1.
  18. TSgt Spink, Barry L. (1992-02-19). "A Chronology of the Enlisted Rank Chevron of the United States Air Force"
  19. In the Matter of Certain Portable Calculators, 337-TA-198 (USITC Publication 1732, July 1985), pp167–168
  20. Gorman, Michael E. (1998). Transforming Nature: Ethics, Invention and Discovery. Springer. pp. 117–18.
  21. "Ex-Nazi Officer Freed From Prison". Oakland Tribune. February 6, 1959. p. 3.
  22. "Endurance Fliers Land; Up 65 Days". Oakland Tribune. February 8, 1959. p. 1.
  23. Reinbard Scbulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World (I.B.Tauris, 2002) p158
  24. Simon Marinker, Assassination, Preparations and Consequences: Preparations & Consequences (Trafford Publishing, 2002), pp104-105
  25. Ron Owens, Medal of Honor: Historical Facts & Figures (Turner Publishing Company, 2004), p96
  26. "19 Dead, 265 Hurt in St. Louis Tornado". Oakland Tribune. February 10, 1959. p. 1.
  27. ^ Michael, Eleftherios A. (2015). Peacemaking Strategies in Cyprus: In Search of Lasting Peace. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 217.
  28. Brugioni, Dino A. (2010). Eyes in the Sky: Eisenhower, the CIA, and Cold War Aerial Espionage. Naval Institute Press. p. 251.
  29. "Redlegs Become Reds Again in Cincinnati". Salt Lake Tribune. February 12, 1959. p. 11.
  30. "Teague dies in Daytona wreck". Spartanburg (SC) Herald-Journal. Associated Press. February 12, 1959.
  31. Hinton, Ed (2002). Daytona: From the Birth of Speed to the Death of the Man in Black. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-0-446-61178-7.
  32. "Fidel Castro In Power as Cuba Premier", Oakland Tribune, February 14, 1959, p1
  33. "World in Midst of Warming Trend". Oakland Tribune. February 15, 1959. p. 1.
  34. Scheina, Robert L. (2003). Latin America's Wars: The Age of the Professional Soldier, 1900–2001. Brassey's. p. 461.
  35. "27 Big Fry Arrested in Dope Raids". Syracuse Herald-Journal. February 16, 1959. p. 28.
  36. "10 Killed in 2-Car Crash On Rain-Slick Vallev Road". San Antonio Express. February 16, 1959. p. 1.
  37. "Owen Willans Richardson: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1928". Nobel Lectures, Physics 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam. Nobel Foundation. 1965. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
  38. McEnroe, John; Kaplan, James (2002). You Cannot Be Serious. London: Time Warner Paperbacks. pp. 17–18. ISBN 0-7515-3454-4.
  39. "'Weather' Vanguard Satellite Put in Orbit". Oakland Tribune. February 17, 1959. p. 1.
  40. "12 Die, Turk Chief Safe in Plane Crash". Oakland Tribune. February 17, 1959. p. 1.
  41. "Nepal Casts Vote For First Time", Oakland Tribune, February 18, 1959, p2
  42. "About the building". Portal DZ.
  43. "Debbie Divorced; 'Triangle' Blamed". Oakland Tribune. February 19, 1959. p. 1.
  44. "REED, Daniel Alden 1875 – 1959". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  45. "Platform Falls Down Shaft; 17 Die". Oakland Tribune. February 21, 1959. p. 1.
  46. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Brooks, Courtney G.; Ertel, Ivan D.; Newkirk, Roland W. "PART I: Early Space Station Activities -1923 to December 1962.". SKYLAB: A CHRONOLOGY. NASA Special Publication-4011. NASA. p. 8. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  47. Endres, Gunter (2001). The Illustrated Directory of Modern Commercial Aircraft. Zenith Imprint. p. 392.
  48. Campbell, James (2001). This Is the Beat Generation: New York-San Francisco-Paris. University of California Press. p. 272.
  49. Toth, Emily (2000). Inside Peyton Place. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 215–16.
  50. Thomy, Al (February 23, 1959). "Beauchamp Winner —Or Was It Petty?". Atlanta Constitution. p. 7.
  51. "U.S. Ready To Fire Man Into Space". Oakland Tribune. February 22, 1959. p. 1.
  52. Gerland Home, Black and Red: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944–1963 (SUNY Press, 1986), pp324–25
  53. "7 Pupils Die as Grandstand Falls". Oakland Tribune. February 25, 1959. p. 3.
  54. "Petty Declared Daytona Victor— Ruling Reverses Beauchamp Win". Pittsburgh Press. February 26, 1959. p. 41.
  55. Cohen, Avner (1999). Israel and the Bomb. Columbia University Press. pp. 62–63.
  56. "British Jail Hundreds in Rhodesia". Oakland Tribune. February 26, 1959. p. 2.
  57. "No U.S. Apology For Ship Boarding". Oakland Tribune. February 27, 1959. p. 1.
  58. Weinstock, Matt (March 3, 2009). "Matt Weinstock – March 3, 1959". Los Angeles Times.
  59. Martinez, Mario (1999). Lady's Men: The Story of World War Ii's Mystery Bomber and Her Crew. Naval Institute Press. p. 85.
  60. Farmer, James H. (1984). Broken Wings: Hollywood's Air Crashes. Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Pub. Co. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-933126-46-6.
  61. "NBA President Will Probe Celtics' 173 to 139 Triumph". Oakland Tribune. February 28, 1959. p. 13.
  62. Clayton K. S. Chun, Thunder Over the Horizon: From V-2 Rockets to Ballistic Missiles (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006), pp74–75
  63. David L. Hancock, Corona: America's First Satellite Program, By CIA Cold War Records, (Morgan James Publishing, LLC, 2005), p16
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