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December 1959

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The following events occurred in December 1959:

December 14, 1959: First manned flight above 100,000 feet
December 4, 1959: U.S. rhesus monkey Sam launched into mesosphere
December 15, 1959: First manned flight of more than 1,500 mph
December 21, 1959: The last royal wedding in Iran takes place

December 1, 1959 (Tuesday)

December 2, 1959 (Wednesday)

  • Kurt Franz, who had been a deputy commander of the Treblinka concentration camp, was arrested in Düsseldorf after 14 years working as a cook. He was released from prison in 1993.
  • The collapse of a dam at Malpasset released the waters of the Reyran River and killed 433 people in the French city of Fréjus. At 9:14 pm, 48 million cubic metres of water were released 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from Fréjus.
  • Behind the Great Wall, presented by Walter Reade, Jr. in "AromaRama", made its debut at the DeMille Theater in New York. The Italian film was edited by Reade to include various scents circulated by the theater air conditioning system. The release preceded, by three weeks, the debut of Scent of Mystery, in Smell-O-Vision.

December 3, 1959 (Thursday)

  • U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower departed the United States for a "mission of peace and goodwill" that would last nearly three weeks, taking him 22,000 miles (35,000 km) and bringing him to eleven nations on three continents. The American president visited Italy, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, India, Greece, Tunisia, France, Spain and Morocco.

December 4, 1959 (Friday)

December 5, 1959 (Saturday)

  • The Syracuse University Orangemen defeated the UCLA Bruins 36–8 to finish as college football's only unbeaten and untied (10–0–0) team. The following Monday, Syracuse became the national champion, finishing No. 1 in both the AP and UPI polls.

December 6, 1959 (Sunday)

December 7, 1959 (Monday)

  • Olongapo, a U.S. Navy base at Subic Bay, was turned over to Philippine control, along with its infrastructure. Its 60,000 Filipino residents became citizens of the Philippines, and the area became the municipality of Olongapo City.
  • Tenney Engineering Corporation was chosen by the Space Task Group to construct the Mercury altitude test chamber in Hanger S at Cape Canaveral. When completed, altitude pressure would simulate 225,000 feet (69,000 m). The chamber, a vertical cylinder with domed ends, was 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter and 14 feet (4.3 m) high. The chamber was designed to allow a partial spacecraft functional check in a near-vacuum environment.

December 8, 1959 (Tuesday)

  • Nikita Khrushchev sent a secret memo to the Soviet Politburo, outlining his proposal for a change in Soviet defense strategy, with an emphasis on building the nation's nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against invasion. The Politburo approved the proposal on December 14, followed by the CPSU Central Committee on December 26, and the announcement was made public on January 14.
  • Louis G. Cowan was fired from his job as President of the CBS Television Network as a result of the quiz show scandals of 1959. Cowan had become president after the success of a show that he had created, The $64,000 Question.
  • A Colombian airliner with 45 people on board disappeared while bringing vacationers home from the San Andrés island resort.

December 9, 1959 (Wednesday)

  • U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower continued his foreign trip, being greeted by more than a million people in New Delhi before meeting the King of Afghanistan in Kabul. No American President visited Afghanistan again until 2006.
  • The Norwegian freighter Oslo Motorship Buffalo was turned over by high winds, on the fifth day of a storm that claimed more than 100 lives across Europe. All 20 persons on board were killed.
  • Born: Mario Cantone, American actor and comedian; in Stoneham, Massachusetts

December 10, 1959 (Thursday)

  • The People's Republic of China began a campaign urging Chinese people worldwide to "come back to the arms of the Motherland", and sent four ships to foreign ports for that purpose. Approximately 100,000 people took advantage of the offer.
  • The United States withdrew its last military personnel from Iceland, where it had 5,200 people at Keflavik.
  • The "Old Location Massacre" took place in Windhoek, the capital of the colony of South West Africa (now Namibia). Police killed eleven black Africans who were protesting their forced relocation to the new "township" of Katutura.
  • In college basketball, Bowling Green State hit only 35.4% of its shots in a 74–68 loss to DePaul. Two days later, Bowling Green lost to Bradley, 99–72. Falcons' player Billy Reed later testified that he and other players had been point shaving after being paid by Jack Molinas.

December 11, 1959 (Friday)

 
Governor Freeman
  • The city of Albert Lea, Minnesota, was placed under martial law by order of Governor Orville Freeman, as 80 National Guardsmen occupied the town to intervene in a strike at the Wilson Packing Company. A federal court ruled twelve days later that Governor Freeman had overstepped his authority, holding that "military rule cannot be imposed upon a community simply because it may seem to be more expedient than to enforce the law by using the National Guard to aid the local civil authorities".
  • U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Allen Dulles received a top secret memo from J.C. King, Director of the agency's Western Hemisphere Division, recommending that "thorough consideration be given the elimination of Fidel Castro". The first of many CIA-sponsored assassination attempts, none of them successful, took place the next July.
  • Born: Lisa Gastineau, American socialite and reality show star, as Lisa D'Amico in Rockland County, New York

December 12, 1959 (Saturday)

  • The first elections in Nigeria took place in advance of the West African nation's independence from Britain. Nigeria became independent on October 1, 1960.
  • ASECNA, which regulates air traffic control in Africa, was created by a treaty signed in Saint-Louis, Senegal. The acronym stands for Agence pour la SECurité de la NAvigation aérienne en Afrique et à Madagascar.
  • UNCOPUOS, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, was established.
  • The test launch of an uncrewed Titan rocket from Cape Canaveral failed four seconds after ignition, with the rocket collapsing on the launch pad and exploding. Nobody was injured, but the film clip of the launch remains a feature in documentaries about the American space program.
  • Paraguayan forces drove off an attempted invasion by rebels, who crossed over from Argentina to attack at Pilar and Encarnacion.

December 13, 1959 (Sunday)

  • An explosion levelled two apartment houses in a suburb of Dortmund, West Germany, at 3:12 a.m. Of 34 people in the Aplerbeck buildings, 26 were killed.
  • The Archbishop Makarios III was elected the first President of Cyprus, with 67 percent of the votes of the Greek Cypriot community.
  • The Wizard of Oz was telecast for the second time on CBS Television. This telecast was such a success that it spurred CBS to make the film an annual television tradition. The film had been shown only once before on TV (November 3, 1956).
  • Born: Johnny Whitaker, American actor known for portraying "Jody" in Family Affair; in Van Nuys, California

December 14, 1959 (Monday)

  • The Heritage Range, southern portion of the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica, was seen for the first time, on a reconnaissance flight originating from Byrd Station.
  • Test pilot Joe Jordan became the first human being to reach an altitude of more than 100,000 feet (30,000 m), flying an F-104 Starfighter to an altitude of 103,395 feet (31,515 m).
     
    General Secretary Hall in 1954 mugshot
  • The Strategic Rocket Forces was created in the Soviet Union as a separate branch of the military, with responsibility over all Soviet ballistic missiles. The SRF is now administered by the Russian Federation.
  • Gus Hall was elected the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States, at the CPUSA's 17th National Convention, held in Harlem. Hall led the CPUSA until his death in 2000.

December 15, 1959 (Tuesday)

  • Major Joseph W. Rogers became the first person to travel faster than 1,500 miles per hour (2,400 km/h), and almost reached 2,500 kilometres per hour (1,600 mph), breaking the world speed record at 1,525.96 mph (2,455.79 km/h), in an F-106 Delta Dart jet fighter.
 
Lewis

December 16, 1959 (Wednesday)

December 17, 1959 (Thursday)

 
Sammartino

December 18, 1959 (Friday)

December 19, 1959 (Saturday)

 
 
USS Scorpion (lost 1968) and USS Scorpion (lost 1944)
  • The nuclear submarine USS Scorpion (SSN-589) was launched from Groton. Elizabeth Morrison, whose father had died in the 1944 loss, with all hands, of the previous submarine USS Scorpion (SS-278), christened the sub. The new USS Scorpion was lost with all hands on May 22, 1968.
  • Walker family murders: In Osprey, Florida, Christine Walker, her husband Cliff, and her two children were murdered. The case has never been solved.
  • Born: Waise Lee, Chinese action film star; in Hong Kong
  • Died: Walter Williams, 105, who claimed to have been the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War, died in Houston, and was eulogized nationwide. However, not everyone believed that Williams was 117 or that he had served in the Confederate army. In September 1960, researcher Lowell K. Bridwell would concluded that there was no evidence to prove Williams's claimed service or his 1842 birthdate. In 1991, researcher William Marvel, writing for the magazine Blue and Gray, would determine from census records that Williams had been born in 1854 and was only ten years old when the war ended.

December 20, 1959 (Sunday)

  • Nine people were killed and 21 injured when a cattle truck struck a Greyhound Scenicruiser bus near Tucson, Arizona. The force of the impact was severe enough that calves were hurled into the bus.

December 21, 1959 (Monday)

December 22, 1959 (Tuesday)

  • Chuck Berry was arrested in St. Louis shortly after midnight, after completing a concert at his Club Bandstand nightclub, and charged with violating the Mann Act. Berry was convicted and served time in jail until 1961.
  • On the last day of his overseas goodwill tour, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in conjunction with King Mohammed V of Morocco, announced that U.S. forces would be issued a statement that all American forces would be withdrawn from the North African nation by the end of 1963. At the time, there were 10,000 American servicemen in Morocco, serving at the Port Lyautey Naval Base, and U.S. Air Force bases at Ben Guerir, Boulhaut, Salé and Sidi Slimane.
  • The Redstone launch vehicle for the Mercury-Redstone 1 mission was installed on the interim test stand at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency for static testing.
  • Born: Bernd Schuster, German footballer with 21 caps for the West German national team; in Augsburg
  • Died: Gilda Gray, 58, actress who popularized the shimmy

December 23, 1959 (Wednesday)

  • At Stanford University, heart surgeon Dr. Richard Lower, with the assistance of Dr. Norman Shumway, performed a successful heart transplant of one dog's heart into the heart of another dog. Previously, the longest that a host animal had survived with a transplanted heart had been 7+1⁄2 hours. The mongrel survived for eight days before being painlessly put to sleep on December 31 because of an infection. One of the breakthroughs made by Dr. Lower was the prevention of venous clots by leaving part of the original heart auricles in the host.
  • Died: Lord Halifax (Edward Wood), 78, Viceroy of India 1926–1929 and British Foreign Secretary 1938–1940

December 24, 1959 (Thursday)

December 25, 1959 (Friday)

December 26, 1959 (Saturday)

  • Twelve days after it was first seen by humans, the Heritage Range in Antarctica was visited for the first time, by a team led by Campbell Craddock, Edward C. Thiel, and Edwin S. Robinson, who landed near Pipe Peak.
  • Nelson Rockefeller announced that he would not seek the Republican Party nomination for 1960.

December 27, 1959 (Sunday)

December 28, 1959 (Monday)

  • In Jersey City, New Jersey, 69-year-old Matthew Jaksch was robbed by two men as he was going to the bank. Taken in the robbery were two relics from the Crucifixion, which had been given to Jaksch's Austrian ancestors by Pope Benedict XIV: a piece of a thorn from the Crown of Thorns ($40,000) and a splinter from the Cross ($30,000).
  • Tom Landry, defensive coach for the Giants, was signed as the new coach of the Dallas Rangers, which were seeking admission as the NFL's 13th team. Landry coached the renamed Dallas Cowboys for 29 seasons.
  • The city of Lawndale, California, was incorporated, following a December 1 referendum where the vote in favor of becoming a city was 1,892 to 572. Chester Brown was sworn in as the first mayor at a ceremony at Will Rogers School.
  • Died:

December 29, 1959 (Tuesday)

 
Professor Feynman

December 30, 1959 (Wednesday)

 
The first nuclear missile sub
 
Senator Humphrey

December 31, 1959 (Thursday)

References

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